In my state, I think you were required to take X years of a foreign language to graduate (I think it was 2 or 3?) with a “Regents” diploma. There were definitely some native Spanish speakers in my Spanish class taking it just to fulfill that requirement.
And in a smallish high school - I got to choose between French and Spanish.
I’m a high school teacher (science) and many of our ESL students whose native language is Spanish will take the Spanish class to fulfill their “foreign language” requirement*. Makes sense–many of them are still in the early and intermediate stages of learning English, so why make them tackle a third language at the same time. Plus, as noted above, many of them can speak Spanish fluently but are not so great at writing it and using it in a more formal context. In addition, being in a class where both English and Spanish are spoken can help with their English skills. And having those students in the Spanish class can enrich the class for the other kids. Having peers in the class who speak the language and know about the culture can really make the subject more relevant for everyone.
*Many of them even take the AP Spanish tests.
I’m going with the easy A. In our local high school, the foreign exchange students are all put in the class teaching their native language, where they can roll their eyes at the accent and be amazed at how little the teacher knows about speaking the language. Of course at my local high school none of the foreign language teachers are native speakers of the language they are teaching, so it is like taking a class from Will.
Tenure is big in Illinois. Although there is not the academic freedom part (we teach what we are told), it does give some protection against angry and vengeful parents who want you fired because evolution was mentioned in class, or their child got a C, or their child’s failing grade in class made the child in eligible for cheerleading that week, or the principal’s nephew just graduated and needs a job. (Which does not mean I think there are no abuses with tenure.)
I semi-regularly listen to the podcast Gleeful (latest episodes available only through iTunes, though they are free), in which a 30-something married couple and a gay college student review Glee. While they are generally pretty positive about the show, none of them liked this episode much. Choice quote: “This isn’t the worst episode they’ve ever done, but I’ve never cared less about an episode.”
The Gleeful crew had so little to say about “The Spanish Teacher” that the podcast ran about 15 minutes shorter than usual, and that was even after they spent some time on digressions about Angry Birds and Madonna’s songs being ripped off/Madonna songs that rip off other artists’ songs.