Enfoques

Learning Through the Senses: Integrating Embodied Learning, Plain Language and Critical Language Awareness in Heritage Spanish Education

Ana María Ortega-Pérez

University of California, Davis

Angélica González-Bastidas

University of California, Davis

DOI: 10.58748/AMAGLS

Resumen:

Language operates as both a material and ideological medium through which institutional barriers are experienced bodily and emotionally. This study examines the rarely explored integration of Plain Language and embodied learning and multisensory learning in heritage language education. Twelve heritage Spanish learners from a Northern California university participated in a mystery shopper activity, visiting banking institutions as monolingual Spanish speakers to evaluate linguistic accessibility through sight, touch, and affective experience. Students completed SERVQUAL surveys measuring tangibles (material clarity and visual design) and empathy (cultural responsiveness), and contributed reflective writings documenting their sensory and emotional encounters with institutional exclusion. Results revealed substantial gaps between expectations and perceptions—tangibles (gap=2.0) and empathy (gap=2.5)—as students confronted absent Spanish signage, inaccessible documents, and limited bilingual support. However, positive experiences emerged when staff provided patient, culturally responsive support, demonstrating how empathy can partially compensate for material deficiencies. By physically navigating bureaucratic spaces, handling forms, and experiencing both barriers and moments of inclusion, students transformed abstract concepts of linguistic justice into embodied knowledge. This integration demonstrates how the materiality of institutional communication intersects with critical awareness and affective engagement. The interrelation of these three frameworks reveals that cognition, affect, and social consciousness are inseparable: students learned through their bodies and senses, developing empathy and foundational capacities for advocacy.