Heritage Language Education Research Articles

我抓在手里捏成棉花糖，什么烦恼不能忘: Learning Mandopop lyrics to promote bilingualism and biliteracy development

ABSTRACT Guided by heritage language and translanguaging theory, this ethnographic case study explores how a young second-generation Chinese American student used Mandopop lyrics to enhance her heritage language learning at home. Over six months, the mother, also the researcher collected 61 audio recordings of the student’s readings and singing of Mandopop, as well as translingual conversations between them. Supplemented with the researcher’s field notes, the analysis revealed significant improvements in the student’s pronunciation, Mandarin word recognition, oral language skills, and vocabulary. These improvements subsequently increased her oral translingual practices. Additionally, discussions about Mandopop lyrics enhanced the student’s higher-level thinking and understanding of her heritage culture. Overall, Mandopop lyrics effectively promote the student’s bilingual and biliteracy development. This study underscores the role of Mandopop lyrics in incorporating deep cultural elements, fostering bilingualism, and enhancing biliteracy. By engaging with Mandopop, the student connects with her heritage culture and improves her linguistic abilities in a meaningful and enjoyable way, highlighting the potential of music as a valuable tool in heritage language education.

Methodological Approaches to Online Serbian Heritage Language Instruction

In this paper, we propose adequate methodological approaches for Serbian as a heritage language based on the critical analysis of the existing Serbian Ministry of Education’s Curriculum for Serbian as a foreign language. This curriculum is recommended for use in Serbian heritage language education; however, it has been shown to be insufficiently effective in the classroom. The methods in question should benefit heritage speakers the most, such as communication-based methods and form-focused instruction, which enhance metalinguistic awareness. Additionally, we suggest an integrative model of teaching as we believe that cross-cultural approaches positively impact both types of students.

‘Creating strong Sámi children’: teachers’ positioning of heritage language students

ABSTRACT This article presents an ethnographic study of Sámi heritage language education in public schools in a city in Norway. The Sámi people, the only recognised Indigenous people in Europe, are reclaiming their language and culture after intense assimilatory efforts by the Norwegian state. Based on ten weeks of fieldwork in Sámi heritage language (HL) education in an urban setting far from the Sámi core areas, the current article investigates how Sámi teachers and students negotiate subject positions in HL education based on Sámi culture, values, and traditional knowledge. The researcher observed lessons, wrote field notes, collected teaching materials, conducted interviews, and made video and audio recordings of classroom interactions. The analysis demonstrates how the teachers purposefully and iteratively attempted to position their students as Sámi and how the students responded to their teachers’ construction of a Sámi subject position. The findings suggest that HL teachers need to recognise and accommodate the complex and diverse connections that HL students have with their culture, language, and community, particularly in contexts of historical colonisation and assimilation. By making multiple subject positions available to students, teachers can contribute to a more inclusive and empowering learning environment that acknowledges the nuances of HL students’ subjectivities.

Complementary schools as ‘breathing spaces’: identity, multilingualism and critical pedagogies in heritage language education

Whilst mainstream schools in England may encourage multilingualism by insisting on the study of foreign languages, multilingual children are not always provided with support for the maintenance of their heritage languages and cultures. In response to this shortcoming, communities organise themselves to support their young members by setting up extra-curricular education institutions or associations, also called complementary schools, which contribute to the cultural and linguistic maintenance of minority communities. Through emblematic extracts from a fourteen-month ethnographic research in an Italian complementary school in London, this article examines how HL learners engage in and reflect on their multilingual practices and how they develop agency in their learning environment. The findings illustrate how critical modes of teaching and learning that make space for multilingualism can provide children with unique opportunities to discover, explore and experiment with their multilingual and multicultural selves, which, in turn, permit them to access linguistic resources and legitimise multilingual learner identities. Expanding on Fishman’s notion of ‘breathing space’, the article suggests that complementary schools represent a space where minority languages but also pedagogical practices can breathe and develop.

What Role Does the Heritage Language Play in Chinese Communities in UK?

This article examines the pivotal role of heritage language on Chinese diaspora communities in the UK, emphasizing its role in cultural transmission and identity formation. It emphasizes how community schools serve as essential platforms for heritage language education, enabling immigrant families to preserve their linguistic and cultural connections. The interplay between language learning and the socio-cultural environment is explored, revealing the challenges faced by learners and the significance of family education in this progress. Mastery of heritage language is shown to foster a sense of belonging and cultural pride, contributing to the construction of identities in a multicultural society. The article further discusses how heritage language education not only imparts linguistic skills but also installs cultural values and beliefs, reinforcing national identity among diaspora members. Ultimately, it underscores the transformative impact of heritage language on individual and collective identities, facilitating a deeper understanding of cultural nuances and promoting intercultural awareness within the diverse landscape of contemporary Britain.

A “positive” turn in heritage language education: Multilingual children's voices on language learner well-being

This paper presents the first empirical attempt to understand language learner well-being in the context of heritage language (HL) learning. Adopting a positive psychology perspective, the research investigates the well-being experiences of Chinese heritage language (CHL) children to explore what flourishing means in HL learning. Data were collected from multimodal focus groups with 40 young CHL learners in the UK, involving a well-being exercise, a drawing activity, and semi-structured discussions. Following an appreciative inquiry approach, the findings indicate that HL learners' well-being revolves around “feeling good,” “doing well,” and “being connected,” including six essential components: positive emotions, affirmative self, perceived competence, active engagement, supportive relations, and diasporic connections. By centring young learners’ perspectives, we propose a multidimensional framework representing different aspects of their flourishing in the journey of HL development, which informs further theorisation of HL learner well-being as multifaceted, interconnected, and contextual. By shifting the emphasis from linguistic achievement to a more holistic approach that prioritises the socio-emotional wellness of HL learners, we also seek to instigate a “positive” turn in HL education which provides an intellectual basis for the design, implementation, and evaluation of future HL interventions with significant policy implications.

Motivation of Lithuanian Saturday school heritage language teachers

Working (or volunteering) in a Lithuanian Saturday (or Sunday) school abroad is difficult. Teachers must balance work, family, and teaching in those schools, give up their free time to prepare for classes, and spend Saturdays working. Some of them need to find not only teaching materials, but also a place for teaching. Moreover, some parents often have very high expectations for the school—they do not speak enough Lithuanian at home, or not even at all, but they expect that the school will teach their child to speak it fluently in a half of a day. In addition, the Lithuanian language is a quite rare, non-international language for teaching and learning of which another motivation needs to be found rather than size, usefulness, and prestige. However, the number of schools abroad not only do not decrease in number, but every year more and more are established, and in more distant countries. The fact that this number of schools is growing tells us that teachers who want to take on the challenge can in fact be found. This article aims to find out why people choose to work or volunteer in these schools, what brings them there, and what keeps them there—what is their motivation. This article is based on the data of a quantitative survey about Lithuanian Saturday school teachers’ attitudes and motivation (2021–2022).

Expressing diminutive meaning in heritage Spanish: linking the heritage experience to diminutive use in everyday speech

IntroductionThis paper studies the pragmatic force that heritage speakers may convey through the use of the diminutive in everyday speech. In particular, I analyze the use of the Spanish diminutive in 49 sociolinguistic interviews from a Spanish–English bilingual community in Southern Arizona, U.S. where Spanish is the heritage language. I compare the use of the diminutive in heritage Spanish to the distribution of the diminutive in the speech of a Spanish monolingual community (18 sociolinguistic interviews) from the same dialectal region. Although Spanish and English employ different morphosyntactic strategies to express diminutive meaning, the analysis reveals that the diminutive morpheme -ito/a is a productive morphological device in the Spanish-discourse of heritage speakers from Southern Arizona (i.e., similar diminutive distributions to their monolingual counterparts). While heritage speakers employed the diminutive -ito/a to express the notion of “smallness” in their Spanish-discourse, the analysis indicates that these language users are more likely to invoke a subjective evaluation through the diminutive -ito/a when talking about their family members and/or childhood experiences. This particular finding suggests that the concept “child” is the semantic/pragmatic driving force of the diminutive in heritage Spanish as a marker of speech by, about, to, or with some relation to children. The analysis further suggests that examining the pragmatic dimensions of the diminutive in everyday speech can provide important insights into how heritage speakers encode and create cultural meaning in their heritage languages.MethodsIn this study, I analyze the use of Spanish diminutives in two U.S.-Mexico border regions. The first data set is representative of a Spanish–English bilingual community in Southern Arizona, U.S., provided in the Corpus del Español en el Sur de Arizona (The CESA Corpus). The CESA Corpus comprises 49 sociolinguistic interviews of ~1 h each for a total of ~305,542 words. The second data set comprises 18 sociolinguistic interviews of predominantly monolingual Spanish speakers from the city of Mexicali, Baja California in Mexico, provided in the Proyecto Para el Estudio Sociolingüístico del Español de España y de América (PRESEEA). The Mexicali data set consists of ~119,162 words.ResultsThe analysis revealed that the Spanish diminutive morpheme -ito/a is a productive morphological device in the Spanish-discourse of heritage speakers from Southern Arizona. In addition to its prototypical meaning (i.e., the notion of “smallness”), the diminutive morpheme -ito/a conveyed an array of pragmatic functions in the everyday speech of Spanish heritage speakers and their monolingual counterparts from the same dialectal region. Importantly, these pragmatic functions are mediated by speakers' subjective perceptions of the entity in question. Unlike their monolingual counterparts, heritage speakers are more likely to invoke a subjective evaluation through the diminutive -ito/a when talking about their family members and/or childhood experiences. Altogether, the study suggests that the concept “child” is the semantic/pragmatic driving force of the diminutive in heritage Spanish as a marker of speech by, about, to, or with some relation to children.DiscussionIn this study, I followed Reynoso's framework to study the pragmatic dimensions of the diminutive in everyday speech, that is, speakers' publicly conveyed meaning. The analysis revealed that heritage speakers applied most of the pragmatic functions and their respective values observed in Reynoso's cross-dialectal study of Spanish diminutives, and hence providing further support for her framework. Similarly, the study provides further evidence to Jurafsky's proposal that morphological diminutives arise from semantic or pragmatic links with children. Finally, the analysis indicated that examining the semantic/pragmatic dimensions of the diminutive in everyday speech can provide important insights into how heritage speakers encode and create cultural meaning in their heritage languages, which can in turn have further ramifications for heritage language learning and teaching.

Challenging deficit ideologies in Spanish heritage language policies and programs

AbstractThis study analyzes the programs and policies for Spanish heritage language (SHL) students in Iowa high schools. Previous research suggests that SHL students do not enjoy equitable educational experiences in Spanish language classrooms, which are often taught by and designed for traditional second language learners. In US states like Iowa, there is no language policy that provides a facilitative structure for Heritage language education, so issues of educational opportunity for SHL students are addressed locally. Teachers are, therefore, particularly influential language policy and education arbiters. In this paper, we analyze (1) how Iowa language policy is interpreted and appropriated by high school Spanish teachers and (2) the perspectives of high school Spanish teachers about Heritage language education. Findings reveal that many teachers reject the monoglossic ideologies popular in Spanish language classrooms and instead celebrate the unique verbal repertoires of their SHL students. Implications for language policy and practice are discussed.

Exploring funds of knowledge at a community-based Chinese heritage language school in a Southwestern U.S. City

ABSTRACT While previous studies have shown that drawing upon funds of knowledge benefits teaching and learning in many educational settings, there is little inquiry into funds of knowledge in Chinese heritage language education. Employing ethnographic methods, I explored the evidence of funds of knowledge in early childhood settings in a community-based Chinese heritage language school. The data sources included weekly observations, video recordings of class conversations, artifacts provided by the participants, and informal conversations. The findings present examples illustrating three kinds of funds of knowledge: families’ daily life experiences, poetry reading practices, and cultural knowledge of folktales. The findings also show that the teachers drew upon the funds of knowledge to engage young heritage learners in joyful pedagogical activities and language learning. The implications include the need to value and use funds of knowledge in Chinese heritage language education and include Chinese language teachers’ experiences and funds of knowledge in teacher preparation programmes.

UKRAINIAN AS A HERITAGE LANGUAGE: HOW TO KEEP LEARNERS MOTIVATED

The process of learning/acquiring Ukrainian as a heritage language is characterized by such factors as motivation, identity, and multilingualism. Motivation as a special concept of heritage language education is of great importance, and the quality and result of learning depends on its interpretation, awareness, and direct implementation in practice. The purpose of the article is to analyze different types of motivation as a fundamental concept that affects the process of teaching/learning/acquiring Ukrainian as a second language in children’s classrooms. Instrumental and integrative types of motivation can overlap or be specifically expressed concerning a new situation of learning a heritage language. It is also often the case that inheritors are motivated to learn an inherited language because of a connection (family, patriotism, and more and more often genetic, etc., the so-called heritage-related orientation). The intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of school-age students is interdependent, and for those who learn a heritage language, the model of distinguishing between language proficiency and the socio-psychological need for cultural identification is effective. Cultural identification is often a more important motivational factor and prevails. Language attitudes and the importance of self-determination within the community determine motivation, in particular for Ukrainian-Russian bilinguals who learn Ukrainian outside of Ukraine. The article offers ways to increase learners’ motivation and specific techniques for doing so (e.g., incorporating a socio-cultural component into classroom instruction; developing students’ intercultural awareness; helping students build on their successes in small steps; increasing students’ interest and engagement in tasks; increasing students’ sense of satisfaction), as well as tips for interpreting and addressing learners’ motivation in crises, including refugee situations. Motivation for learning a heritage language is a special complex concept, the consideration of which (by all involved (parents, students, teachers, community representatives) and the specifics of the situation (e.g., a refugee situation) determines the effectiveness of the learning process or its existence in general. Key words: motivation, Ukrainian as a heritage language, multilingualism, heritage language learner.

Creating more opportunities through multimodal literacy and positioning in online and in-person Chinese heritage language classrooms

The manuscript describes Chinese immigrant children’s literacy and identity in online and in-person Chinese heritage language classrooms. The theoretical perspectives on multimodality and positioning theory are utilized as theoretical perspectives. The data were collected with the same heritage language teacher and the students during the COVID-19 and post-pandemic. Data sources included field notes based on observations, video recordings of class conversations, and interviews with the teacher. The findings present similar and different patterns in relation to multimodal literacy activities in both online and in-person settings. The findings also show that the students’ identities shifted in these settings. Implications include offering more multimodal activities for immigrant children in both settings in the post-pandemic period, providing more digital tools and resources for the children, and calling more attention from funding agencies to support heritage language education.

Spanish heritage language students’ writing perspectives

Although the field of heritage language education has thrived in recent years and has focused primarily on the development of biliteracies in Spanish heritage language (SHL) students (e.g., Belpoliti & Bermejo, 2020; Samaniego & Warner, 2016), there is a scarcity of research on SHL students’ writing practices. Moreover, instructional practices and technological developments have transformed the landscape of SHL writing, underscoring the need to understand SHL students’ practices and perceptions of writing. The present study explores this gap in the literature by reporting on an online survey taken by 96 SHL students in the United States. SHL students reported a desire to improve their writing and regarded linguistic issues (e.g., accuracy, accent marks, and writing conventions) as their primary challenges. They considered technology helpful while writing in Spanish, but their use of social tools was not widespread. Although student responses often aligned with educators’ perspectives from previous research (Padial et al., 2024), students reported using English to plan their writing more frequently than instructors reported teaching the use of English as strategy. Students overestimated the importance that their instructors gave to grammar and orthography/accentuation.

Changing attitudes toward heritage language education: a longitudinal study of marriage-migrant mothers in South Korea

ABSTRACT This study explores Vietnamese marriage-migrant mothers’ changing attitudes toward heritage language (HL) education in South Korea through narratives collected in an interview setting over a period of four years. The findings show that while the mothers placed some value on HL education, they initially prioritized Korean at home because they viewed it as key to their children’s academic success in Korea. However, the mothers’ perceptions of the value of their native language changed over time, influenced by their increasing awareness of the benefits of bilingualism, their imagined bilingual communities, Korea’s increasingly competitive job market, and their children’s social and academic experiences in school. Over time, the mothers came to view their minority language as an asset rather than a deficit and thus chose to invest in developing their children’s HL skills to position them as potentially valuable bilingual workers in both Korean and transnational contexts. The participants’ narratives reflect their view of the minority HL as primarily a socioeconomic resource rather than an identity resource, while the longitudinal study highlights the dynamism and changing nature of language ideologies in relation to HL maintenance.

Translanguaging practices in a community-based Chinese heritage early childhood classroom

Aims and objectives: The purpose of this study is to explore translanguaging in a heritage classroom by asking the following central questions: (1) What translanguaging practices were available in an online community-based Chinese heritage language classroom? (2) How did the Chinese language teacher use these practices? (3) Why did the teacher use translanguaging? (4) How were the young heritage language learners involved in these practices? Methodology: A qualitative case study research design is utilized to explore translanguaging practices in the classroom. Data and analysis: The data sources included fieldnotes during observations, video recordings of class conversations, and artifacts made or provided by the participants. All the data were collected virtually via Zoom. Findings: The findings show that the teacher purposefully engaged the children in understanding vocabulary words through translanguaging and that students participated in class conversations in various ways, including initiating questions and connecting to their personal experiences. The findings also present the teacher’s perspectives on translanguaging practices. Originality: The literature has explored translanguaging practices, but limited research has focused on these practices in community-based Chinese heritage early childhood classrooms. This study describes the specific ways that a teacher created opportunities for bilingual children to engage in translanguaging practices in a Chinese heritage classroom. Implications: While research on translanguaging and children’s heritage language learning in home and school contexts has existed for decades, the findings of this study bring new attention to translanguaging practices in Chinese heritage language classrooms. The study provided an example of a pedagogical model for teachers to reconsider Chinese heritage language education and promote bilingual children’s language learning and identity construction.

過去の記憶と経験から考える継承語教育の在り方 ― 韓日国際結婚家庭の子どものライフストーリーをもとに ―

過去の記憶と経験から考える継承語教育の在り方 ― 韓日国際結婚家庭の子どものライフストーリーをもとに ―

Multilingualism and literacy development in interlingual families

Heritage languages are key to shaping the identity of many individuals who grow up in environments where the dominant societal language is different from their home languages. Yet heritage language learners can be incredibly diverse in terms of cultural and language backgrounds, language proficiency, literacy skills, language socialization experiences and in many other ways. Heritage language education and literacy development, in particular, have been examined in both formal and community-based educational settings. Insights drawn from this growing area of research have informed our understanding of challenges faced by heritage language learners in relation to literacy socialization, such as a lack of educational resources and community support. A subset of this research examines the issues faced by mixed-heritage language families in relation to literacy. This article reports on the qualitative phase of a mixed-method study on the language and literacy socialization experiences of interlingual families in Canada with mothers of Japanese descent. The findings highlight the multiple challenges faced by the participants in relation to the development of Japanese literacy. It draws attention to the complexity of their family lives, and how the promotion of multilingualism in the two official languages of Canada comes at the expense of Japanese literacy skills for their children.

Heritage Language Teaching: Critical Language Awareness Perspectives for Research and Pedagogy, edited by Sergio Loza and Sara M. Beaudrie

Heritage Language Teaching: Critical Language Awareness Perspectives for Research and Pedagogy, edited by Sergio Loza and Sara M. Beaudrie

Understanding heritage language learning of early elementary children from Chinese immigrant backgrounds through children’s drawings

ABSTRACT The study explores how children from Chinese immigrant families create drawings in a community-based Chinese heritage language classroom. The theoretical perspectives on artifactual literacies were utilized to support the inquiry. Primary data sources included the children’s drawings. Video recordings of class conversations served as secondary data sources. Findings show that the children drew upon visual and linguistic modes to design and make their drawings to represent their understanding based on their heritage language learning. Findings also highlight the children’s bilingual identities and present that the children used the heritage language to connect to their everyday life experiences. The findings informed instructional recommendations for Chinese heritage language teachers. Suggestions included incorporating artifactual literacies into class activities for Chinese heritage language learning and calling attention to providing more educational resources and opportunities to support children from immigrant families.

Transculturation in Arabic literacy education within and beyond mainstream education in Norway and Sweden

Transculturation in Arabic literacy education within and beyond mainstream education in Norway and Sweden