Teachers’ Perspectives on the Instruction and Acquisition of Dialectal Second-Person Pronouns and Conjugations in the U.S. L2 Spanish Classroom

Abstract

Despite the fact that more than 65 million Spanish speakers across Latin America use vos as the informal second-person singular pronoun instead of tú, vos remains underrepresented in U.S. Spanish curricula. Meanwhile, vosotrxs, the informal second-person plural pronoun used exclusively in Spain, is regularly included in textbooks. This study qualitatively examines how postsecondary Spanish instructors navigate these pronouns and their conjugations, particularly in relation to their perceptions of students’ learning outcomes and future communication needs. Through a comparative analysis of interview data from 32 participants, we find that instructors are more likely to address vosotrxs than vos. Even those who personally use vos outside the classroom avoid it in their teaching, citing concerns about potential confusion and a perceived lack of relevance for students’ future communication. This study highlights a persistent gap between instructors’ stated commitment to regional linguistic diversity and the reality of Spanish language instruction: while instructors affirm that incorporating dialectal variation would enhance students’ linguistic and cultural competence, minoritized features like vos remain largely absent from the curriculum.

1. Introduction

In the context of language instruction, teaching forms and cues that vary regionally play a critical role in shaping learners’ sociolinguistic competence, which is as important as grammatical competence (Canale, 1983; Bachman, 1990). However, it often proves challenging to accurately reflect the heterogeneity of a language in the classroom due to the standard language ideology that grants more privilege to certain linguistic varieties, characterizing them as the “standard” or “legitimate” (Milroy, 1999). For instance, Weaver (2019) reports that standardized academic English is perpetually reinforced in U.S. college English classrooms because of instructors’ ideology that the standardized form is the only correct, appropriate variety.

As a globally spoken language, Spanish has countless dialectal and social varieties. One such notable variation is the second-person singular subject pronouns (2SGPs) tú and vos. Both of these pronouns existed in medieval Spanish (Fontanella de Weinberg, 1977), but after centuries of linguistic shift, tú came to be more accepted as an informal 2SGP in Spain and Latin American regions that maintained political and cultural ties with Spain (i.e., Mexico and Peru), while vos is predominant in other areas of Central and South America. Another factor that adds more complexity to the 2SGP variation in Spanish is ustedeo, that is, the use of usted and ustedes. Usted (2SGP) is widely used across the Spanish-speaking world in both formal and unfamiliar contexts, particularly in professional settings or when addressing someone older. While vos and tú are generally markers of familiarity, usted retains its formal connotation in most contexts.

The phenomenon of voseo, or the use of vos, is not a monolith. Contemporary voseo exhibits vast linguistic and sociolinguistic diversity, making it a complex subject for inclusion in educational contexts. While instruction often focuses on the voseo used in Rioplatense Spanish, commonly spoken in Argentina and Uruguay, and widely recognized as the most socially prestigious variety, this approach fails to capture the extensive variation found across Latin America. For instance, some regions exhibit voseo pronominal, where vos is used without corresponding verb conjugations, while others display voseo verbal, where the distinctive verb forms appear without the pronoun (Angulo Rincón, 2010). In many areas, these forms overlap or blend, resulting in a spectrum of usage patterns that defy easy categorization. Moreover, there are numerous studies about different affective values attached to voseo in various countries and regions. For example, the bond between voseo and national identity is well documented in countries such as Honduras (Melgares Sabillón, 2017), El Salvador (Rivera-Mills, 2011) and Costa Rica (Quintanilla Aguilar & Rodríguez Prieto, 2014; Schmidt-Rinehart & LeLoup, 2022), where tuteo, or the use of tú, is considered a marker of foreignness. Overall, more than 65 million Spanish speakers in Latin America utilize vos as the 2SGP of familiar address.

Comparatively, the second-person plural pronoun (2PLP) vosotras/vosotros (referred to in the rest of this paper by its gender-neutral variant vosotrxs1), which is another focus of the current study, is used only in Spain, whose population is approximately 47 million. Elsewhere, ustedes (2PLP) is used universally, regardless of the level of formality or familiarity, throughout much of Latin America.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Voseo and Vosotrxs in L2 Spanish Instruction

Prior research has reported that vos is more likely to be excluded from L2 Spanish instruction than any other pronoun variation. LeLoup and Schmidt-Rinehart (2018) used a teacher questionnaire and student survey to determine to what degree vos is taught and learned. Their findings indicated that voseo is not included in the overwhelming majority of Spanish curriculums, even though about an eighth of the instructors responded that voseo should be incorporated. Shenk (2014) pointed out that voseo has been disregarded in language teaching because of a multitude of factors, including the following: the fact that it is not used in all of Hispanosphere; the morphological and sociolinguistic complexity within voseo that is not easily summarized; and stigmatization, especially in an academic context. In addition to these factors, López López et al. (2019) detected instructor anxiety about potentially confusing students as another aspect that is hindering a wider acceptance of vos in Spanish instruction. The negligence of vos in instruction is further reinforced by the fact that it is often disregarded in textbooks. The 13 L2 Spanish textbooks that Wieczorek (1992) inspected excluded vos and its morphology, and similarly, Mason and Nicely (1995) reported that voseo was mentioned in only 16% of the 37 secondary and postsecondary textbooks in the U.S. that they reviewed. Congosto Martín (2004) suggested that vos is largely ignored in U.S. textbooks because of misconceptions that voseo is unrecognized by the standardizing bodies of the Spanish language or that it is a phenomenon exclusively tied to rurality and lower social class. Not unexpectedly, LeLoup and Schmidt-Rinehart (2018) found that 96% of students they surveyed reported that they never use vos and that they often confuse vos with vosotrxs.

Consequently, students are more likely to come in contact with voseo once they step outside of the U.S. Spanish classroom and participate in a study abroad program in a voseante region. Costa Rica and Argentina, both of which are consistently among the most popular destinations for study abroad for U.S. students, are predominantly voseante (Cameron, 2017). Upon examining spoken data produced by 23 L2 Spanish learners who participated in a 5-month study abroad program in Argentina, Pozzi (2021) discovered that the usage of vos increased throughout the semester abroad, especially among learners with higher proficiency and stronger social networks.

Just like vos, vosotrxs receives less attention in language instruction compared to ustedes. Surveyed instructors in Gallego and Conley (2013) rarely provided pragmatic or morphosyntactic features of either vos or vosotrxs, even though some of them briefly discussed these pronouns in class. Even so, there is a significant difference between the instruction of vos and vosotrxs, evidenced by the fact that vosotrxs is regularly included in L2 Spanish textbooks in the U.S. Through examining them, Wieczorek (1992) also discovered that most textbooks included and presented vosotrxs as a standard variety, without the caveat that it is solely used in Spain. This tendency suggests that the authors and editors somehow considered the Castilian form as more important or standard than vos, likely reflecting a more Eurocentric linguistic bias. For instance, Gilmore (2009) notes that while textbooks strive to include linguistic variation, most tend to prioritize the Castilian variety for forms of address, reinforcing the perception of its superiority. This trend mirrors the broader patterns of Eurocentrism in language education, as observed by Sánchez Avendaño (2004), who argues that the inclusion of vosotrxs but the omission of vos reflects the traditional notions of “prestigious” Spanish, linked to Spain’s literary and historical influence. Moreover, López García (2024) critiques the homogenizing effect of such materials, which often align with the linguistic standards set by the Royal Spanish Academy, thus marginalizing the rich linguistic diversity present across the Spanish-speaking world.

2.2. Language Teacher Identities and Imagined Student Identity

Identity, according to post-structuralist theory, is not static. Rather, one’s identity is in constant negotiation and transformation throughout social interactions and based on various contexts (Early & Norton, 2012). Language teacher identities are no exception, as they bring “together experiences in the past and present, as well as those anticipated in the future” (Block, 2016, p. 34) and are performed in class (Barkhuizen, 2016). Because of the socially oriented nature of teaching, identity negotiation between teachers and students plays a crucial role in language learning (Cummins, 1996), as teacher identities have an impact on students’ identities (Clarke, 2009).

Imagination, or “expanding oneself by transcending our time and space and creating new images of the world and ourselves” (Wenger, 1998, p. 176), is key to identity negotiation. Instructors transcend the students’ immediate learning environment (e.g., language instructors and classmates in a classroom) and think about the potential communication opportunities students may have or communities they may belong to (imagined communities; see Anderson, 1991) in the future. As a result, instructors’ imagination is ingrained in their pedagogical practices. For example, Kanno (2003) noted that bilingual practices and policies at schools in Japan depended on how instructors imagined which communities their students might participate in. Additionally, Gao (2012) interviewed Chinese instructors in Hong Kong and discovered that the instructors perceived South Asian L2 learners to be illegitimate speakers of the Chinese language. As a result of this imagination of their students’ community as linguistically deficient, instructors had lower expectations and therefore chose to teach them mostly basic vocabulary and grammar.

To further explore instructors’ conceptualization of their students, Qoyyimah et al. (2020) proposed the concept of teachers’ imagined student identity. By understanding how instructors conceptualize their students’ identities and involvement with communities in the future, it is possible to identify how teachers prioritize “the knowledge or competence they want to transfer to their students” (p. 132). In their particular study, the English instructors in Indonesia that were interviewed aspired for their students to be good Indonesian Muslims. As they related the English language to the material dimension and therefore less significant compared to the spiritual dimension that is tied to the Islamic faith, the instructors held Arabic and the local Javanese language in higher regard and put less priority on developing students’ English and intercultural competence (Qoyyimah et al., 2020). Taking inspiration from this concept, this study aims to examine the impact of teachers’ imagination of student learning on how instructors approach the topic of dialectal variation in pronouns.

Based on these previous studies on dialectal pronoun varieties in L2 Spanish instruction as well as instructors’ understanding of student experiences and identities, we developed the following research questions for the current study:

• Do NS and NNS instructors of Spanish use the voseo and vosotrxs forms in the classroom?
• Do NS and NNS instructors of Spanish from different dialectal backgrounds teach the voseo and vosotrxs forms in the classroom?
• What reasons do NS and NNS instructors give to explain their decision whether or not to use and teach the voseo and vosotrxs forms in the classroom setting specifically based on how they perceive student learning and imagined student identity?

3. Methodology

Our data were collected through 32 semi-structured interviews carried out in 2022. We chose this method because sociolinguistic interviews are the most suitable for the in-depth exploration of experiences and perspectives in ethnographic research in applied linguistics (Talmy, 2010). The interview questions (see Appendix A) were developed as a part of a larger study about postsecondary Spanish instructors’ attitudes towards underrepresented linguistic varieties in Spanish language teaching. Each interview lasted approximately 30 min to an hour and was recorded. Participants code-switched freely between Spanish and English during interviews. The 32 participants were all Spanish instructors in a public university in the midwestern region of the U.S.; 3 were tenured faculty members; 15 were non-tenure line instructors; 12 were graduate instructors; and 2 were instructors who taught through a program in which high school students attend college-level language courses at their own institutions. As for the age groups, 2 of the participants were from the baby boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1964), 9 from generation X (born between 1965 and 1976), 19 from the millennial generation (born between 1977 and 1995), and 2 from generation Z (born between 1996 and 2015).

Of those 32 participants, 12 were native Spanish speakers (NSs), including 2 speakers who grew up bilingually, speaking both Spanish and English from an early age. The rest of the participants (n = 20) were non-native Spanish speakers (NNSs) who spoke U.S. English as their first language and acquired Spanish as their additional language. Each of the participants was categorized into one of three categories: voseante speaker (abbreviated in this article as VO); European (i.e., Castilian; Peninsular) Spanish speaker (EU); and tú and ustedes user (TU). We assigned these categories to the NS participants based on the regions that they originated from as well as the dialectal variation they utilize in their personal lives (i.e., outside of the pedagogical context). NSs in the VO group (n = 5) represented various dialects from regions where the use of vos is dominant, as two of them originated from Central America, another participant spoke Andean Spanish, and two of them were born in the Southern Cone. The NNS participants were categorized based on their metalinguistic comments regarding dialectal variations that had the most impact on their own Spanish learning trajectories, such as in which Spanish-speaking countries or regions they have resided or studied abroad or with which speaker communities they have interacted and identified the most.

Table 1. Participant categorization and distribution.

Group Name	The Second-Person Pronouns Used in the Dialectal Variations That They Have Identified with the Most in the Process of the Acquisition of Spanish	Native Spanish Speakers (NSs)	Non-Native Spanish Speakers (NNSs)
Voseante speakers (VOs)	Singular: vos Plural: ustedes	5	2
Peninsular/European Spanish speakers (EUs)	Singular: tú Plural: vosotrxs	2	6
Tú and ustedes users (TUs)	Singular: tú Plural: ustedes	5	12

shows the distribution of the participants in such groups. The interviews were transcribed, and utilizing NVivo, a qualitative data analysis software, inductive coding was employed to analyze the transcribed data.

4. Results

In this section, we report the data including direct quotations from participants. Each participant was assigned an identifier that consists of their participant categorization (VO, EU, or TU), whether they are an NS or NNS, and a unique number. These identifiers are inserted after their quotations in open brackets. The ellipses in the quotations indicate omitted sections of the interview transcriptions. The gender identity of each participant is omitted in this section as a gender-based comparison is outside the scope of this study.

4.1. The Usage of Vos and Vosotrxs in the Classroom

Table 2. Usage of vos and vosotrxs by instructors in class.

	Vos					Vosotrxs
	NSs		NNSs		Total	NSs		NNSs		Total
	Always	Sometimes	Always	Sometimes		Always	Sometimes	Always	Sometimes
VOs	0	1	0	0	1 (14.3%)	0	0	0	0	0
EUs	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	2	1	5 (62.5%)
TUs	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

shows the number of instructors who indicated that they use either vos or vosotrxs (i.e., not drawing special student attention to the pronouns and conjugations) in class consistently or sometimes. As expected, none of the TU instructors would use these underrepresented pronouns that are not typically part of their dialects. Notably, vos was only used occasionally by one NS instructor in the VO group, while the majority of teachers in the EU group (62.5%), both NS and NNS participants, reported using vosotrxs at least some of the time in class. This indicates that in general, instructors with VO backgrounds avoid vos in written and spoken communication with students more than instructors from EU backgrounds avoid vosotrxs.

4.1.1. VO Instructors

The VO participants actively and consciously avoided using vos—the variety that is most authentic to their linguistic regional identities—and used either tú or usted as the 2SGP in their verbal or written communication the vast majority of the time. Four instructors opted to use tú when talking directly to a student, while another used usted. One NNS instructor adjusted the usage of 2SGPs based on the level of class that they teach, choosing to use tú in beginner and intermediate classes while using usted in advanced classes. The only NS instructor who used vos in class sometimes explained that grammatical moods influenced their speech, stating that they often found themself using vos and its conjugations when they uttered sentences in imperative mood, while they would use tú in indicative or subjunctive moods.

One notable aspect that was observed in interviews with VO instructors was that they were never told by the language program director or course supervisors to not use vos in their class. Rather, they made their own decisions to mostly avoid the use of vos in teaching based on how they perceived and understood student learning. They principally sensed that students would find vos confusing, and it consequently could hinder in-class communication. Regarding their fear of voseo being an obstacle in class, one instructor commented the following: “Quiero que me entiendan tanto que [I want them to understand me so much that] I don’t want to risk it by using the vos. (…) I just don’t want to create any confusion” (VO-NS 3).

Not all VO instructors, however, avoided the use of vos from the beginning of their teaching career. Three of the VO participants shared anecdotes of student confusion about vos that they witnessed first-hand in their classroom.

I started teaching using the Argentine dialect (…) and I found that the students were much more receptive to quote-unquote neutral language, whatever that means. So I reverted back to more quote-unquote neutral (…) language, (…) trying to eliminate some of those regional specifics. So I stopped using the vos form with them (…) pretty quickly, after the first month or so. I think people were pretty lost.

(VO-NNS 6)

Another instructor chuckled upon remembering how students once misinterpreted sos, the present indicative of the verb ser for vos, as S.O.S., an international code signal of distress:

Cuando fui a mi primera clase, (…) yo escribí, ¿Cómo te llamás? ¿De dónde sos? Y mis estudiantes decían, “S.O.S.? Like, what do you mean, S.O.S.?” (…) Y me llevó un minuto a pensar, “ah, de dónde eres”. Entonces, tuve que cambiar ¿De dónde sos? a ¿De dónde eres? Y ellos dijeron, “ah, de dónde eres, muy bien”. [When I went to my first class, (…) I wrote, ¿Cómo te llamás? ¿De dónde sos?2 And my students were saying, “S.O.S.? like, what do you mean, S.O.S.?” (…) And it took me a minute to think, “ah, de dónde eres”.3 So, I had to change ¿De dónde sos? to ¿De dónde eres? And they said, “ah, de dónde eres, okay”.]

(VO-NS 2)

4.1.2. EU Instructors

Compared to the VO participants, a higher ratio of EU participants (n = 5; 62.5%) continued utilizing vosotrxs in their spoken and written communication with students. Both of our two EU-NS instructors always used vosotrxs in class, while NNS participants varied in terms of how they used vosotrxs in their in-class speech or writing and to what extent.

One of the main reasons for which the EU instructors decided to not alter their dialectal 2PLP usage was because they wanted to make sure that their students are exposed to various dialects in their language learning trajectories so that they are more aware of the linguistic diversity in the Hispanophone world.

Me gusta introducir formas muy locales de la región donde yo vivo. (…) Al final, las realidades del lenguaje son infinitas dependiendo de la zona, de la región, de la cultura. Entonces, yo no cambio absolutamente nada de mi forma de hablar, de mi acento y de mi variedad dialectal (…). Al menos exponerlos [a los estudiantes] oralmente a ese tipo de diferencias no solo enriquece sino que estimula bastante a la hora de escuchar variedades e identificar de una forma rápida. [I like to introduce very local forms from the region where I live. (…) In the end, the realities of language are infinite depending on the area, the region, the culture. So, I don’t change anything about my way of speaking, my accent and my dialect variety (…). At least exposing them [students] orally to these types of differences not only enriches but also stimulates a lot when it comes to listening to varieties and identifying quickly.]

(EU-NS 1)

One of the most outstanding differences between EU instructors and VO instructors was the fact that some of the EU participants did not alter their 2PLP even if their students were initially confused about the pronoun usage. In other words, the initial student confusion did not push the EU instructors to start using ustedes instead of vosotrxs. The two instructors who reported such cases of student confusion also emphasized that once students became accustomed to vosotrxs, there were no further issues.

I’ve had a lot of confusion from students when I use [vosotros] at the beginning of a course because they are not used to it. (…) For example, I had a student who was like, “I had no idea what you were saying for the first three weeks”.

(EU-NNS 6)

La confusión [dura] un día. Al final, las diferencias no son tan, tan extremas (…). No creo que la diferencia entre vos o ustedes y vosotros sea un escollo insalvable que haya que estar estudiando meses para entenderlo. (…) Con mis alumnos, yo siempre les he hablado de vosotros y no he tenido ningún problema. [The confusion [lasts] a day. In the end, the differences are not so, so extreme (…). I don’t think that the difference between vos or ustedes and vosotros is an insurmountable obstacle that you have to spend months studying to understand. (…) With my students, I’ve always used vosotros and I haven’t had any problems.]

(EU-NS 1)

Other EU instructors, however, responded to student confusion differently and did change their 2PLP usage from vosotrxs to ustedes after witnessing that their students were not familiar with the variety:

I came back [from Spain] and I was teaching (…) Spanish (…) and I was using vosotros with [students], and they were so confused. And I stopped using it with them and I started using ustedes with them.

(EU-NNS 4)

The one instructor who indicated that they use vosotrxs in class sometimes (EU-NNS 5) also cited student confusion and unfamiliarity with vosotrxs as the justification for their decision. Specifically, they explained that they tended to use the vosotrxs form for indicative and subjunctive moods but use ustedes form for imperative mood because students were more familiar with ustedes and therefore more responsive to instructions. It may be worth noting that several of the NNSs in the EU group maintained other characteristics of Peninsular Spanish in their speech, such as the vocabulary and pronunciation (most notably, the phonemic distinction of /θ/ and /s/) even though they decided against using vosotrxs in the teaching context.

4.2. Explicit Instruction of Vos and Vosotrxs

Our data indicated that the instructors rarely taught grammar of vos or vosotrxs explicitly, which meant that students were usually not expected to learn the conjugation nor were tested on their knowledge of vos or vosotrxs. Even without grammatical instruction, these underrepresented second-person pronouns were brought up to a varying degree. From the data, we identified three distinct ways in which Spanish instructors drew students’ attention to vos and vosotrxs in class. One such occasion in which instructors talked explicitly about vos or vosotrxs was when instructors described dialectal variation in Spanish pronouns independently, without any accompanying contextualized instructional texts. This instructor-initiated explanation of dialectal features was mostly used on the first day of class as a precursor to the disclaimer that students are not expected to acquire the underrepresented varieties of second-person pronouns. Another situation in which vos and vosotrxs were brought into the classroom was when these pronouns and their conjugations were present in authentic instructional texts. With the specific linguistic and cultural context of the teaching materials, instructors would decide to briefly describe the characteristics of vos or vosotrxs. Another instance in which vos and vosotrxs could be brought into the classroom was when students asked questions specifically about them. In the last approach, instructors would usually not bring up the topic of variations in second-person pronouns unless their students noticed and voiced the question.

4.2.1. Vos

Table 3. How instructors explicitly addressed vos in the classroom.

		Instructor-Initiated (Non-Contextualized)			Text-Initiated (Contextualized)			Student-Initiated (No Mention Unless Asked)
		NSs	NNSs	Total	NSs	NNSs	Total	NSs	NNSs	Total
VO (n = 7)		2	0	2 (28.6%)	1	2	3 (42.9%)	2	0	2 (28.6%)
Non-VO (n = 25)		0	0	0	3	9	12 (48%)	4	9	13 (52%)
	EU (n = 8)	0	0	0	0	1	1 (12.5%)	2	5	7 (87.5%)
	TU (n = 17)	0	0	0	3	8	11 (64.7%)	2	4	6 (35.3%)
All (n = 32)		2	0	2 (6.3%)	4	11	15 (46.9%)	6	9	15 (46.9%)

shows the different approaches to addressing vos that all participants took in the classroom.

The majority of the VO instructors (n = 5) briefly mentioned the existence of vos and which regions it is principally used in, while the other two instructors did not bring up the topic of vos unless asked. The timings in which VO instructors introduced vos also varied. Two NS participants who have mainly taught at the novice level described their typical first day of the semester, one aspect of which is informing students about the dialectal variations that exist within the Spanish-speaking world. These two instructors always mentioned vos and that it is the variety that is predominantly used in their home countries, but they always added a disclaimer that they would not use vos at all in class, and the students were not expected to learn it.

Los primeros días de los (…) semestres, (…) les hablo de que existen tú, vos, vosotros y el formal, ustedes. Se los enseño y les digo que solo vamos a ver la forma de tú y formal, entonces, los escribo en la pizarra todos y de ahí los tacho. (…) Solo les digo que existe [el vos] y que no lo vamos a ver. [The first days of the (…) semesters, (…) I talk to them about how tú, vos, vosotros and the formal one, ustedes, exist. I show them those and tell them that we are only going to see the form of tú and formal, so, I write them all on the board and cross them out from there. (…) I just tell them that [vos] exists and that we are not going to see it.]

(VO-NS 1)

Other VO instructors drew attention to vos as a relevant subtopic within the context of a unit or authentic teaching material. One NNS instructor of an advanced linguistics course made sure to incorporate the theme of vos in a lesson about pronouns and morphosyntax, while an NS instructor added a note about voseante dialects when delving into the topic of pronouns in an intermediate course. Another NNS participant would give their students a heads up about vos before showing an Argentinian film in an advanced course or using a listening or reading activity based on authentic materials from a voseante region.

When asked why they chose to include voseo in their instruction so infrequently, VO instructors voiced their belief that deprioritizing vos from instruction would be beneficial for students, especially those early in their language learning, because it simplifies their learning. One instructor stated “[Estudiantes principiantes] están todavía tratando de solidificar las estructuras gramaticales básicas, de entender las conjugaciones de los verbos. Agregar una conjugación más es difícil” [[Beginner students] are still trying to solidify the basic grammatical structures, to understand the conjugations of the verbs. Adding one more conjugation is difficult] (VO-NS 2). This sentiment is also observed in the following comment about reducing anxiety in the classroom:

Pensando en las ansiedades lingüísticas de los estudiantes (…), trato de quitarles esas capas de complejidad y simplificarlo un poco para que las cosas salgan bien. (…) [Me adapto] a los imaginarios, a las expectativas que ellos tengan sobre el nivel de dificultad. [Thinking about the linguistic anxieties of the students (…), I try to peel back those layers of complexity and simplify it a little so that things turn out well. (…) [I adapt] to the imaginaries, to the expectations they have about the level of difficulty.]

(VO-NS 1)

VO instructors also commented that vos is rarely represented in textbooks or other instructional materials, which is in accordance with the observations made by Mason and Nicely (1995) as well as Congosto Martín (2004). VO participants lamented that it receives less attention than any other pronouns and conjugations because they are only mentioned briefly in a cultural note even if it is included. This tendency escalated their perception that vos is superfluous to the basic linguistic repertoire that students are expected to acquire and therefore could be a cause of confusion.

[Vos was] not something that was really included in the curriculum anyway, so I don’t want to confuse them any more. (…) It just felt a little bit excessive (…). It wasn’t something that was in the textbook, so I didn’t want to overwhelm them.

(VO-NNS 6)

Nunca está el vos en el libro. Para mí es terrible que no esté el vos en los libros, porque está el vosotros, ¿verdad? Y vosotros se usa solo en España. El vos siempre es la nota cultural (…). Entonces, nunca está en el libro, no está en los materiales que ellos van a usar en clase, no está en la tarea, no está en los exámenes. [Vos is never in the book. For me, it is terrible that vos is not in the books, because vosotros is there, right? And vosotros, it is only used in Spain. Vos is always the cultural note (…). So, it is never in the book, it is not in the materials that they are going to use in class, it is not in the homework, it is not in the exams.]

(VO-NS 2)

Another layer that affected the VO instructors’ decision to not actively teach vos was their conception that vos is not as useful for students as other varieties. One participant chose to teach and use the more mainstream tú because they imagined that their students, as long as they live in the U.S., are likely to encounter the Mexican variation of Spanish:

Quiero que lo poco que van a aprender en el semestre les sea útil. Entonces [enseño] pensando en el español de México, el español más cercano que tienen, (…) para que tenga una utilidad. Además, (…) el estándar de español es el tú. (…) Entonces (…) [no enseño el vos] para (…) enseñarles solo una versión que sea la versión entrecomillado estándar y no traerles otras versiones. [I want the little they are going to learn in the semester to be useful to them. So [I teach] thinking about Mexican Spanish, the closest Spanish they have, (…) so that it is useful. Besides, (…) the standard of Spanish is tú. (…) So (…), [I don’t teach vos] so as to teach them only one version that is the quote-unquote standard version, and not to bring them other versions.]

(VO-NS 1)

One instructor who opts to use usted when they teach an advanced class explained that they imagined that their students would find themselves in a formal Spanish-speaking setting in the future and that students would benefit from acquiring the formal register to be successful in professional or academic environments. This participant also supposed that students in a fifth (or later)-semester Spanish course are likely to be already comfortable with informal tuteo, so they decided to prioritize the formal register rather than introducing them to vos, another informal variety:

I [ask students in my advanced course] “how many of you can use [ustedeo] right now? Just raise your hand if you’re like, yes, I could have a conversation with somebody using usted and not mess it up”. And no one ever raises their hand. And I’m like, “you know what? (…) The only way you get good at it is via practice. So not only do I use usted with you guys, you use usted with me, you use usted with each other. That’s the only form we’re going to use in class”.

(VO-NNS 5)

Among the non-VO instructors, there was a notable difference between the TU and EU groups in terms of how they explicitly introduced the topic of voseo in class. The TU group showed relatively similar practices to the VO group, with the majority (n = 11; 64.7%) opting for the instructor-initiated or text-initiated mention of vos rather than student-initiated teaching. The passive approach to addressing vos was the clear preference for teachers in the EU group, 87.5% of whom reported that they limit their instruction of vos to instances when students prompted them with questions about it.

Authentic instructional materials from voseante regions served as a starting point for a discussion of voseo for non-VO instructors as well. Some instructors preferred to briefly discuss vos before showing the materials to their students, while others shared the materials first and then tried to draw attention to the forms and let students notice how it differed from the pronouns and conjugations that they are more accustomed to. One example was the following:

We listen to [an Argentinian] song, we analyze the lyrics, and one of the questions that I had in that activity was “it says venís4 and it says vos. What could those mean? And if you don’t know, Google voseo” (…). And then, when we talked about it as a class, I had an image of where they use the voseo throughout Central and South America and I talked a little bit about very basic stuff about it.

(TU-NNS 13)

One of the most frequently mentioned reasons for which non-VO instructors avoided bringing in vos was in line with that of the VO instructors: the potential confusion that vos may cause for learners, especially those in the novice or intermediate courses. For example, a participant commented the following: “In [a third-semester class], they’re so confused by so many rules that bringing in voseo and regional (…) language use is just sometimes too much. (…) There’s almost never a moment when that much information would feel appropriate” (TU-NNS 9).

Overall, a little more than half of all participants (n = 17; 53.1%) briefly discussed voseo with or without the context of authentic instructional materials, while the rest (n = 15; 46.9%) addressed the topic of vos only when a student asked about it. Consequently, all participants believed that some of their beginner- or intermediate-level students may have a vague idea of voseo, including in which regions and contexts it is utilized, but that the majority of them would not be able to recognize, not to mention utilize, voseo, because it is not a variety that students are exposed to very frequently throughout the semester.

4.2.2. Vosotrxs

Table 4. How instructors explicitly addressed vosotrxs in the classroom.

		Instructor-Initiated (Non-Contextualized)			Text-Initiated (Contextualized)			Student-Initiated (No Mention Unless Asked)
		NSs	NNSs	Total	NSs	NNSs	Total	NSs	NNSs	Total
EU (n = 8)		1	1	2 (25%)	0	2	2 (25%)	1	3	4 (50%)
Non-EU (n = 24)		2	0	2 (8.3%)	4	11	15 (62.5%)	4	3	7 (29.2%)
	VO (n = 7)	2	0	2 (28.6%)	0	2	2 (28.6%)	3	0	3 (42.9%)
	TU (n = 17)	0	0	0	4	9	13 (76.5%)	1	3	4 (23.5%)
All (n = 32)		3	1	4 (12.5%)	4	13	17 (53.1%)	5	6	11 (34.4%)

summarizes the ways in which instructors brought in the topic of vosotrxs and in their teaching.

There was not a clear preference for the active or passive mention of vosotrxs in the EU group. One NS, just like some of their counterparts in the VO group, would discuss during the first day of class that vosotrxs is the variety used in their home country and that students are not required to learn it in class, emphasizing that there is no “correct” Spanish:

En [la] primera actividad del semestre, (…) les hablo muy claramente de que no hay un español correcto. (…) Ellas y ellos han tenido diferentes profesoras que les han enseñado diferentes cosas y hablan de maneras diferentes. Entonces, yo les digo claramente que no les voy a imponer que digan una cosa u otra (…). [In [the] first activity of the semester, (…) I speak very clearly to them that there is no correct Spanish. (…) They have had different teachers who have taught them different things and speak in different ways. So, I tell them clearly that I am not going to force them to say one thing or another (…).]

(EU-NS 2)

Two NNSs would explicitly take vosotrxs into teaching only when it is relevant to some of the teaching materials. Four other EU instructors did not specifically draw explicit attention to vosotrxs, but it should be noted that these four participants most frequently taught advanced content courses. This may explain why these instructors supposed that most, if not all, of their students are already conscious of vosotrxs and therefore did not require explicit acknowledgement. There was one outlier of this EU group that taught the conjugation of vosotrxs to their novice students using conjugation tables:

I actually have my students say back to me the conjugations and things (…) especially in classes where I feel like participation is low (…). “I want to hear your voice so yo, tú, ustedes, vosotros”. Yes, I go through all of them. (…) [I don’t test students on conjugation] super directly, (…) but I do just kind of throw it in as an extra, like an additional thing, not as a necessarily required thing. (…) They can recognize [the vosotros usage]. I do teach it to them and I know that by the end of the course, they understand me when I use it.

(EU-NNS 6)

Similarly to the VO group, EU participants who opted for the more mainstream pronoun shared their opinion that the utility should be prioritized. As a result, they chose to use ustedes because they considered ustedes to be the variety that students in the U.S. are more likely to be in contact with, and therefore, its use should be more represented in a language classroom:

My rationale [for choosing to teach ustedes rather than vosotros is], I’m thinking if [students] are going to go use Spanish anywhere around here or anywhere in the Americas, they should have a good idea of ustedes. And it is true that a bunch of them will go study in Spain, but they could just learn that in Spain.

(EU-NNS 3)

In terms of mentioning vosotrxs, the VO group was split into two approaches: proactively addressing it (n = 4; 57.1%) and not mentioning it unless asked (n = 3; 42.9%). On the other hand, the majority of the TU group (n = 13; 76.5%) stated that they would discuss vosotrxs when teaching materials came from Spain. The perspectives of those who discuss vosotrxs in class can be summarized in the following excerpt from one of the participants: “I tell students, ‘I don’t use [vosotros] in the classroom. And none of your testing is going to be on this, in this classroom. But if you’re interested in Spain, if you have this already or you want to develop it, [feel free to use it]’” (TU-NNS 8).

There were still non-EU instructors who decided against addressing vosotrxs without student inquiry, imagining that vosotrxs would not be useful in students’ future communication. They prioritized the acquisition of the ustedes form that is universally used in all of the Hispanosphere and often omitted the vosotrxs form. One instructor believed this exclusion made learning more efficient for students, as “[I]t’s (…) helping them just remember the basic ones that I think are more common” (TU-NNS 17). Another participant similarly stated the following:

Mis alumnos me han preguntado del vosotros. (…) Quizás está mal que les digo, “ah, no es necesario que lo aprendas, porque realmente lo usan en España (…) pero no es la generalidad, e incluso entre los que lo usan, si tú no lo utilizas, te van a entender”. (…) Cuando ellos me preguntan, yo les digo, “nah, no es relevante”, jajaja. [My students have asked me about vosotros. (…) Maybe it’s bad that I tell them, “ah, you don’t need to learn it, because they really use it in Spain (…) but it’s not the general case, and even among those who use it, if you don’t use it, they will understand you”. (…) When they ask me, I tell them, “nah, it’s not relevant”, hahaha.]

(TU-NS 1)

Overall, the ratio of instructors that actively introduce vosotrxs in the classroom (n = 21; 65.6%) was higher than that of instructors who would address vos (n = 17; 53.1%). This contrast was even more stark between the non-EU instructors that actively introduce vosotrxs (70.8%) and non-VO instructors who address vos (48%).

4.3. Instructors’ Opinions Surrounding Student Exposure to Voseo and Vosotrxs

The interview data about the use and explicit mention of these second-person pronouns exemplified that both vos and vosotrxs are often disregarded, even though the Peninsular variety receives more attention comparatively. However, our data also revealed the instructors’ stances on whether they prefer that students be either expected to learn only tú and ustedes or exposed to a wider selection of second-person pronouns and conjugations. The results demonstrate a discrepancy between the reality and the ideals of dialect instruction, as the vast majority of instructors stated that they would advocate for linguistic diversity in the classroom and consider it optimal for a student’s language acquisition journey to be enriched through interaction with instructors who identify with and use a variety of dialects, including different pronoun usages. This stance reflects a desire to not only teach students grammatical competence but also to develop their sociolinguistic awareness, preparing them for real-world interactions where they will encounter and be expected to navigate these variations.

I think that [instructors] should have the opportunity to at least point out those [less commonly taught] forms if the time comes. I don’t know that students should be expected to learn every single possible dialectal variation, but should at least be able to see them and be like, “oh, that’s cool”, you know, they can acknowledge those variations.

(VO-NNS 6)

Es mejor mostrarles [a los estudiantes] todas [variedades] para que sean conscientes. Yo sé que no van a ser expertos en todas porque ni siquiera un hablante nativo lo es. (…) No sé qué oportunidades van a tener los estudiantes después de la clase (…) y por eso prefiero que tengan esa ventana de, “oh, hay otras formas de comunicarse”, porque si se quedan solo con esa visión de tú, yo, usted, nosotros, ellos, (…), van a estar perdidos, como “¿Qué es vos? ¿Qué es vosotros?” No quiero que eso les pase. [It is better to show [students] all [varieties] so that they are aware. I know that they are not going to be experts in all of them because not even a native speaker is. (…) I don’t know what opportunities the students will have after class (…) and that’s why I prefer that they have that window of, “oh, there are other ways to communicate”, because if they are left with only that vision of tú, yo, usted, nosotros, ellos, (…), they’re going to be lost, like “What is vos? What is vosotros?” I don’t want that to happen to them.]

(TU-NS 5)

This point about giving students a “window” into linguistic diversity underscores a central theme in modern language education: the importance of teaching students that languages are not static or uniform. Exposure to vos and vosotrxs would equip students with the skills they need to navigate the complex linguistic environments they will inevitably encounter, whether during study abroad or through the consumption of target-language media.

Another shared sentiment is that teaching these less commonly taught dialectal varieties would not be a hindrance to student learning. Rather than creating confusion, incorporating regional variations can encourage students to embrace the rich diversity of the Spanish language. Many instructors argued that their students are capable of understanding the context-specific usage of dialectal forms, provided they are presented in an accessible way.

The students are smart enough that if the instructor says, “hey, I’m from Spain” or “I’m from Argentina and I use the vos, this is what I use. Even though we’re not going to explicitly be talking about it, this is how I speak”, students are smart enough to be able to figure that out. (…) By acknowledging that it exists, students are going to learn that Spanish isn’t used the same way in every place.

(TU-NNS 10)

Among these generally positive comments towards dialectal pronoun variety in instruction, there were encouraging remarks especially for incorporating voseo more:

Now if a [new instructor who is a voseante] were to ask me [which variation to use for teaching], I’d say, “don’t worry about it. Just talk how you talk”. (…) It’s absolutely fine. It will do these students no harm whatsoever. (…) We throw all sorts of things at them and don’t care about confusing them. But all of a sudden, voseo is a step too far? By that logic, we shouldn’t introduce the subjunctive until they’re like three years in, which is not what we do. (…) But this other thing that’s used by literally (…) tens of millions (…) of people, for some reason, (…) is über-confusing? However, vosotros in Spain, which is one country of 40-some million people, that is not confusing, not at all? All it does is reflect colonial biases.

(VO-NNS 5)

This comment reveals a deeper critique of language instruction, particularly the implicit Eurocentrism that prioritizes certain dialects, like vosotrxs, over others, even when those other forms are more globally prevalent. It raises important questions about whose Spanish is considered legitimate in the classroom and challenges the idea that introducing voseo is inherently more confusing than other grammatical structures, like the subjunctive mood. Another instructor commented that these forms, instead of detracting from the core curriculum, enrich students’ linguistic repertoire, making them more adaptable and proficient speakers who can navigate a wider range of communicative contexts:

I wouldn’t imagine that [using voseo when teaching] would have any sort of detrimental effect on the students. It’s a part of their language learning process. And honestly, those students are just going to know voseo better than the average student, which is going to be good because if those instructors are orally using voseo, that doesn’t mean you’re taking tuteo and ustedeo out of the curriculum. So they’d still be learning everything. They would just get the added bonus of having exposure to voseo and they would be more proficient.

(TU-NNS 11)

These affirming statements by instructors demonstrate that most of them acknowledge, in theory, that incorporating regional variations like voseo would provide students with a more holistic and comprehensive understanding of the Spanish language. However, in reality, our data prove that there is a considerable gap between what is ideal and what is actually practiced.

5. Discussion

How the instructors approached second-person subject pronouns in the L2 Spanish instruction varied based on the dialects they had been exposed to as well as their imagined learning outcomes for their students. One of the characteristics that was observed across all of the participant groups was that they did not expect students to learn the less commonly taught second-person pronouns, i.e., vos and vosotrxs.

Regarding the use of vos and vosotrxs in the classroom (research question 1), there was a notable difference between the VO and EU groups. On one hand, all of the VO instructors almost always avoided employing the 2SGP most commonly used in their speech communities, vos, and instead became accustomed to using tuteo or ustedeo in singular in class. On the other hand, more than half of the EU instructors continued to use vosotrxs even if there was initial confusion at times.

As to the explicit instruction of vos and vosotrxs (research question 2), instructors mainly had three distinct approaches to addressing these varieties: mentioning them as part of a disclaimer about dialectal variations used in class; briefly describing them based on authentic materials from voseante regions or Spain; and elaborating on them only if a student asks in class. For voseo, about half of the participants addressed the variety in class with or without contextualization, while the other half did not touch this subject unless prompted by a student. This means that students would have fewer opportunities to encounter voseo in class compared to vosotrxs, which about 65% of the interviewees stated that they would discuss actively. Each participant group also demonstrated different tendencies. The majority of the TU instructors stated that they would talk about both vos and vosotrxs whenever they are relevant to the teaching materials used in class. More than half of the VO participants discussed vosotrxs, but they tended to talk about vos slightly more. The EU group showed the least interest in bringing up the topic of dialectal variation in second-person pronouns, as the vast majority of them did not mention vos, while half of them explicitly discussed vosotrxs, although this may be due to the fact that this group had the highest ratio of those who taught advanced classes.

In relation to teachers’ imagined student learning, there are two main takeaways as to why instructors decided against the use of the underrepresented dialectal pronouns and conjugations (research question 3). Most notably, they avoided vos and vosotrxs if they considered these varieties to be beyond the learning capabilities of their students. All VO instructors and a few of the EU participants, just like the interviewees in López López et al. (2019), adjusted their dialectal pronoun usage and used the more commonly taught varieties of pronouns based on their imagined fear that their students would see vos or vosotrxs as something overly complicated or superfluous, resulting in them feeling confused, overwhelmed, or anxious. However, it should also be emphasized that the EU instructors who used vosotrxs in class testified that such confusion is often short-lived, and students are well capable of quickly familiarizing themselves with a less commonly taught pronoun. Unfortunately, the scarcity of voseo in textbooks further discouraged VO instructors from integrating it into their teaching.

Another takeaway from this study is that instructors’ decisions depended on what varieties they imagined would be the most useful in the students’ future language use. Instructors made their own judgment that the commonly taught varieties are more immediately useful for the students as they imagined tú and ustedes to be more ubiquitous for students residing in the U.S. because they are considered the standard or most commonly used in Mexico. However, this imagination does not take into account the fact that there was a higher possibility of U.S. students being in contact with vos in recent years due to the rising number of voseante immigrants to the U.S. as well as students studying abroad in Costa Rica, Argentina, and other regions where vos is predominant (Cameron, 2017).

Overall, our interview data confirmed the results of previous studies (Gilmore, 2009; LeLoup & Schmidt-Rinehart, 2018; López García, 2024; López López et al., 2019; Mason & Nicely, 1995; Sánchez Avendaño, 2004; Wieczorek, 1992) that vosotrxs is far more likely to be represented than vos in L2 Spanish classrooms. Despite these findings that denote the trend of diminishing voseo in the classroom, interviewees, especially non-VO instructors, provided positive comments regarding promoting dialectal varieties in the classroom settings. Particularly, EU instructors who continued to use the pronoun vosotrxs in their teaching justified this decision by stating that exposure to the linguistic heterogeneity is beneficial for their students and does not cause long-term confusion. Many other participants shared this attitude, as they did not think vos or vosotrxs should be eliminated from teaching, especially if the instructor comes from a community where one of these pronouns is commonly used. Specifically, they realized that including voseo would not confuse students, but it would rather enrich their learning experience. This discrepancy between the ideal of achieving the equal representation of dialectal varieties and the reality of the depreciation of vos resembles the findings of Gallego and Conley (2013), who pointed out that instructors struggle to sufficiently raise students’ dialectal awareness even though they recognize the importance of dialectal competence.

Morgan (1997) and Norton (2001) claim that the disconnect between the imaginations held by learners themselves and their instructors may hinder the learners’ language acquisition. Through this study, we encourage instructors to reflect on their own linguistic bias in their teaching practices and imagination of student experiences and identities. If they notice that their imagination may be underestimating students’ learning capacities or limiting their development of sociolinguistic awareness, it may be worthwhile to bring conscious changes to both their imagination and teaching practices. Through such reflections and renewed perspectives, instructors may be able to increase the chance of a student developing better critical dialectal awareness and, ultimately, linguistic and cultural competencies as they form a bond with the dialects and cultures of diverse Spanish-speaking regions. After all, “the voseo is no more complex than any other subject/verb paradigm already being taught” (LeLoup & Schmidt-Rinehart, 2017, p. 74), and learning about voseo and its sociolinguistic implications facilitates students to work towards many of the five “C” goal areas (communication, cultures, connections, comparisons, and communities) established by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (Shenk, 2014).

6. Conclusions

Through interviews with postsecondary Spanish instructors in the midwestern U.S., this study revealed that the 2SGP vos, a pronoun prevalent in Central and South American Spanish dialects, is far less represented in classroom instruction compared to the 2PLP vosotrxs, which is exclusive to Spain. The instructors’ imagined student identities significantly shaped their teaching decisions. All VO and some EU instructors assumed that including non-canonical pronouns like vos would confuse students, and some instructors believed that it is more beneficial for students to be exposed to the forms that they considered as standard or unmarked. Even though the majority of the instructors voiced their idealized opinion that introducing dialectal diversity, including vos and vosotrxs, would enhance linguistic and cultural competence, this study exemplifies that these minoritized dialectal pronouns continue to be mostly absent from the curriculum in reality.

The underrepresentation of vos in U.S. classrooms reflects broader institutional and sociopolitical influences. Curricular decisions are shaped by the perceptions of “standard” Spanish, which often prioritize the varieties most associated with Mexico due to its proximity to the U.S. and historical influence on Spanish-language education. Textbooks and teaching materials play a significant role in maintaining these preferences, marginalizing varieties like voseo, even though the increasing number of voseante speakers in the U.S. and study abroad opportunities in voseo-dominant regions challenge the status quo of the curricular norms.

Following scholars such as Cameron (2017), Gallego and Conley (2013), LeLoup and Schmidt-Rinehart (2017), and Shenk (2014), we advocate for incorporating voseo into the curriculum and providing instructors with adequate training to teach this underrepresented form effectively. As Schoonmaker-Gates (2017) emphasizes, the integration of authentic materials that highlight less visible dialectal features, combined with explicit instruction, is critical for fostering a comprehensive and inclusive understanding of the target language. A linguistically diverse approach not only immerses students in the multifaceted nature of Spanish but also prepares students for authentic communication across diverse Spanish-speaking communities.