Moving Heritage Language Learners Forward:
Integrating Culture, Content, and Language to Develop
Presentational and Interpretive Skills
Gabriela Nik. IlievaNew York University
Objectives
By the end of the workshop we will be able to:• Describe the profiles of heritage learners• Identify differences between the heritage
and foreign language learners• Generate ideas how to differentiate• Design an activity specifically tailored for
heritage language learners
Heritage Languages
“a language of personal relevance other than English”
• Group 1: indigenous languages spoken by Native Americans.
• Group 2: colonial languages, such as Spanish, French, and German -- brought along with earlier settlers in North America.
• Group 3: immigrant languages spoken by immigrant groups that came later, such as Hindi, Urdu, Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, and Russian, to name just a few examples.
(Based on Fishman, 1991, 2001)
Who are our Heritage Language Learners (HLLs)?
How would you represent them on an image?
Think of whether or how they are different from our
Foreign Language Learners (FLLs)?
Heritage Language Learners (HLLs)
Individuals who:• are raised in homes where a language other
than English is spoken• speak or merely understand language• are to some degree bilingual in English and
the other language
(Based on Valdes, 1999, 2001)
HLLsIndividuals who:
• grew up speaking a home language other than the dominant language of the country in which they lived (in this case, the United States)
• switched to that dominant language
(Based on Swender, Martin, Rivera-Martinez, & Kagan, 2014)
HLLs in STARTALK • Broad definition: Learners who through
family have emotional attachment to a STARTALK language or to another cognate or culturally related language/dialect.
• Narrow definition: Learners who through family have emotional attachment to a STARTALK language or another cognate language/dialect and actually have some proficiency in it (and/or its culture?).
(Based on Polinsky & Kagan, 2007; Gambhir, 2008; Ilieva, 2008)
Mixed-AbilitiesFactors?
• length and kind of exposure• multiplicity of sources• family type (grandparent presence)• settings (home, heritage/other school, private
lessons, temple, etc.) • community density • linguistic situation • linguistic complexity (including diglossia, multi-isms: languages,
dialects, scripts used among the target country’s communities)
• script complexity• individual abilities
Ancestral Culture/Literacy Associate?
Language Associate
Cognate Non-Cognate
Heritage Language Learners
(Based on Gambhir, 2008; Ilieva, 2008)
Ancestral Culture/Literacy Associate?
LanguageAssociate
HindiUrdu
Cognate Non-Cognate
Heritage Language Learners
Hindi: Gujarati, Rajasthani, Marathi, Punjabi, Konkani, etc.
Urdu: Punjabi, Balochi, Pashto, Sindhi, etc.
Hindi: Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil, etc.
Urdu: Burushaski, Brahui, Balti, etc.
Adopted kids?Diaspora: Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad, Malaysia, South AfricaMauritius, Singapore
(Gambhir, 2008; Ilieva, 2008)
Ancestral Culture/Literacy Associate?
LanguageAssociate
Semitic: Amharic and Tigrinya (in Ethiopia), Hebrew, etc.Turkic: Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmeni, Gagauz, etc. Austronesian: Javanese, Filipino/Tagalog, Indonesian, etc. Niger/Congo: Swahili, Yoruba, Igbo, Fula, Zulu, etc.Indo-Aryan: Urdu, Bengali, Balochi, Sindhi, Pashto, etc.Slavic: Bulgarian, Polish, Czech, Slovenian, etc.
Arabic, Farsi Turkish, Russian
Cognate Non-Cognate
Heritage Language Learners
Mixed Abilities
Challenges?• difficult to assess entry skills (placement,
diagnosis)• difficult to predict progress• difficult to trace learning curve/s (+1?)• curriculum design to allow for flexibility and
task spiraling with complication• classroom group management• identity-related emotional support
Assessment Criteria - SpeakingLet’s assess and rate
Proficiency Level
Superior
Advanced
Intermediate
Novice
Global Tasks and Functions
Discuss topics extensively, supports opinions and hypothesize. Deal with a linguistically unfamiliar situation.
Narrate and describe in major time frames and deal effectively with unanticipated complication.
Create with language, initiate, maintain, and bring to a close simple conversations by asking and responding to simple questions.
Communicate minimally with formulaic and rote utterances, list and phrases.
Context/ Content
Most formal and informal settings/ Wide range of general interest topics and some special fields of interest and expertise
Most informal and some formal settings/ Topics of personal and general interest
Some informal settings and limited number of transactional situations/ Predictable, familiar topics related to daily activities.
Most common informal settings/ Most common aspects of daily life.
Accuracy/ Comprehensibility
No pattern of errors in basic structures. Errors virtually never interfere with communication or distract the native speaker from the message
Understood without difficulty by speakers unaccustomed to dealing with non-native speakers
Understood, with some repetition, by speakers accustomed to dealing with non-native speakers.
May be difficult to understand, even for speaker accustomed to dealing with non-native speakers
Text TypeExtended discourse
Paragraphs
Discrete sentences
Individual words and phrases
(ACTFL Speaking Proficiency Guidelines, 2012)
HLLs vs. FLLs1. Sound Fluent (Richards et al, 1985)
• Relatively high speech rate• Inter-phrasal pauses• Authentic tone, stress,
intonation and gestures2. Comprehend more and use guessing strategies3. Negotiate ambiguity and use avoidance strategies4. Circumvent and simplify
1. Sound disfluent (except dual immersion schools)
• Lower word-per-minute• Intra-phrasal pauses• Inauthentic tone, stress,
rhythm and gestures 2. Need reformulation and reiteration3. Show dissatisfaction with their own performance4. Cause gaps in communication
(Based on Gambhir, 2008; Ilieva, 2012)
HLLs vs. FLLs (contd.)
• Are less focused on linguistic accuracy
• Display fossilized morphological deficiencies
• Code-mix to avoid when lexical gaps (McKay & Hornberger, 1996)
• Overextend personalized contexts (learning habits)
• Have implicit knowledge about language and culture (products and practices)
• Repeat, self-correct and false start
• Consistently try to use correct basic grammar
• Avoid English as if a threat to communication
• Choose academic register/topic (goals and interests)
• Have explicit knowledge about language and culture (perspectives)
(Ilieva, 2012)
HLLs’ Strengths Intermediate Level (Hindi Urdu)(Note: awareness, partial control or control: more research needed)
• cohesion markers and sentence connectors• elliptic constructions• word order and postpositions• expressing definiteness of DO• variety of expressions of possession• ergative construction• several verb categories (tenses, compounds,
conjuncts, modals, causatives, aspects) • relative-correlative clauses• Meaning negotiation and response avoidance
(Ilieva, 2012)
HLLs’ Weaknesses Intermediate Level (Hindi Urdu)
(inconsistency, inaccuracy, absence)• oblique/case forms • gender agreement• plural forms• reflexive pronouns• lexicon • passive voice• register and style variety• honorifics
(Ilieva, 2012)
Curricular Implications:HLLs vs. FLLs
Need More Emphasis on:
• Academic knowledge• Tasks in interpretive and
presentational modes• Research (Valdes & Geoffrion-Vinci, 1998)
• Register appropriate role-assignments
• Literacy
• Popular culture• Tasks in interpersonal
mode (Thompson, 2000).
• Experiential learning• Community immersion
(when possible)• Aurality
(Ilieva, 2012)
Pedagogical Implications:HLLs vs. FLLs
• Macro or top-down teaching by transforming real tasks into pedagogical ones
• Micro or bottom-up teaching by defining discrete language elements
(Kagan & Dillon, 2001, Carreira, 2016)
(Carreira, 2016)
Pedagogical Implications
(Carreira, 2016)
Sample Task SpiralingIntermediate > Advanced
R: tour guides
A: customers
F: poster presentation• region /city • multi-day tour
T: travel
R: NGO workers
A: interns
F: job internship/presentation • issue/agenda• multi-month work
T: internship
S: explain, describe
1. City map
2. Cultural attractions
3. Sight-seeing
4. Activities and food
S: convince, reject, argue
1. Environment protection
2. Local crafts/arts support
3. Heritage preservation
4. Healthy/green-living education
Intermediate > Advanced
Task:structured, real-life-like, open-ended
(incl. a checklist of language structures)
Intermediate > Advanced
• explicative > argumentative• descriptive > convincing• simpler > more complex
• more structured > less structured
Your Turn• With your elbow partner, find an
interpretive task that is particularly easy to adapt for your HLLs and explain why
http://teach.nflc.umd.edu/startalk/classroom-activities/
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Assessments
• Based on instruction• Practiced• Familiar content and
context• Demonstrated
performance within a range
• Independent of instruction• Spontaneous• Broad content and
context• Sustained performance
across tasks and contexts
(Ilieva & Clark, 2016; ACTFL Performance Descriptors)
OIA ModelOrganically Integrated Assessment
1. Centrality of authentic contexts:• project-based • performance-based • student-centered learning • consistently anchored in real-life contexts
(Ilieva & Clark, 2016)
OIA Model
2. Multiplicity of measures: • open-ended essays and situations• reading/listening with prompt-based answers
and/or short essays
(Ilieva & Clark, 2016)
OIA Model
3. Diversity of feedback:a) abundant formative feedback
varied samples of students’ performance on-going guidance
b) multiple sources: teacherself and peersnative speakers
(Ilieva & Clark, 2016)
OIA Model
4. Reliance on research to inform targeted instruction and assessment:
consistent linguistic patternsdescriptive taxonomy
of categorical strengthsand weaknesses
(Ilieva & Clark, 2016)
• Role of the presenter: Who are you as the writer/speaker? A character? An architect? The President? An artist? A journalist?
• Audience (active): For whom are you writing/speaking? A customer? An employer/ee? A funding agency?
• Format: In what format are you writing? A letter? An advertisement? A speech?
• Topic: What are you writing about?• Strong Verb: What is the purpose for writing/speaking?
Describe, Enlighten, Entertain, Inform, Convince, Annoy…
Reverse RAFTS
(Based on Eddy, 2016)
YOUR TURN
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References
Carreira, M. (2016). Supporting Heritage Language Learners with MacrobasedTeaching. In Innovative Approaches to HL Teaching. Georgetown University Press.
Eddy, J. (2017) Unpacking the Standards for Transfer: Intercultural Competence by Design. In Rebecca Fox Ed.) Special Volume on Intercultural Competence for Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (NECTFL).
Fishman, J. A. (1991). Reversing Language Shift: Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Assistance to Threatened Languages. Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters.
Fishman, J. A. (2001). 300 + years of heritage language education in the United States.In J. K. Peyton, D. A. Ranard, and S. McGinnis (Eds.), Heritage languages in America: Preserving a national resource (pp. 81-97). McHenry, IL: Delta Systems
Gambhir, V. (2008). The rich Tapestry of Heritage Learners of Hindi. South Asia Language Pedagogy and Technology, 1, 5-23.
References
Ilieva, G. Nik. (2008). Project-Based Learning of Hindi: Managing the mixed-abilities classrooms. South Asia Language Pedagogy and Technology, 1, 24-33
Ilieva, G. Nik. (2012) Hindi Heritage Language Learners’ Performance during OPIs: Characteristics and Pedagogical Implications. Heritage Language Journal 9(2): 18-36
Ilieva, G. Nik. & Clark-Gareca, B. (2016). Assessment in the Heritage Classroom: Towards Proficiency Standards. In Innovative Approaches to HL Teaching. Fairclough and Beaudrie (Eds.) (214-237) Georgetown University Press
Kagan, Olga and Dillon, Kathleen (2001). A New Perspective on Teaching Russian: Focus on the Heritage Learner, Slavic and East European Journal. 45(3), 507-518
Swender, E., Martin, C. L., Rivera-Martinez, M., & Kagan, O. E. (2014). Exploring oral proficiency profiles of heritage speakers of Russian and Spanish. Foreign Language Annals, 47(3), 423–446.
References
Thompson, I. (2000) “Assessing Foreign Language Skills.” The Learning and Teaching of Slavic Languages and Cultures. Eds. Kagan and Rifkin (pp. 255-84) in Slavica.
Valdes, G. (1999). Heritage language students: Profiles and possibilities. Paper presented at National Conference on Heritage Languages in America. Long Beach, CA, October 14-16, 1999.
Valdes, G. (2001). Heritage language students: Profiles and possibilities. In J. K. Peyton, D. A. Ranard, and S. McGinnis (Eds.), Heritage languages in America: Preserving a national resource (pp. 37-77). McHenry, IL: Delta Systems Co., Inc.
Valdes, G. & Geoffrion-Vinci, M. (1998). Chicano Spanish: The problem of the underdeveloped code in bilingual repertoires. Modern Language Journal, 82(4), 473-501.
Thank You