The SHL students’ ages and social group affiliations were also important factors affecting their status in class. Their various types and levels of language expertise was one factor in how they were perceived, with greater oral expertise at times making their cultural heritage more salient to their teacher and classmates. The study found that the SHL students were positioned in various ways depending on the instructional (whole class or group) setting and the nature of the students’ relationships to those they were working with. The goal of the study was to analyze the nature of the interactions of SHL and SFL students in order to provide insights into how best to accommodate various types of students in one language course. One class was then chosen for in-depth analysis for this thesis. Three classes were observed over a six-month period and interviews were conducted with all participating students and teachers. This ethnographic case study investigated the interactions and positionings of Spanish HL (SHL) students in intermediate high school Spanish FL (SFL) classes. Although this area of research, particularly in relation to the teaching of Spanish in the United States, is growing, few studies have looked at the interactions of HL and FL students in mixed classes at the high school level in Canada or elsewhere. Growing numbers of students are thus choosing to enrol in high school or post-secondary language classes for their HL development, posing challenges for teachers who generally have to teach them alongside other (non-HL) “foreign language” (FL) students. The development of their heritage language (HL) plays a role in the learners’ intellectual development, cultural identification, and family and HL community relations. Many young people today are growing up with two or more languages.

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