Heritage Language Programs in the United States |
Heritage Language Programs in the United States: A Brief Survey
COMMUNITY-BASED HERITAGE LANGUAGE SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES
A community-based heritage language school or program teaches the language that the students speak at home or in their community. These schools operate outside the public and private school system (although they may be held in a school) and are often run by members of the community that speaks the language.
A community-based heritage language school or program teaches the language that the students speak at home or in their community. These schools operate outside the public and private school system (although they may be held in a school) and are often run by members of the community that speaks the language.
Dear colleagues,
During the Community-Based Heritage Language Schools Conference at American University in Washington, D.C in 2015., participants agreed that community-based heritage language (HL) schools need to be recognized more widely and represented in official statistics on language teaching in the United States. Statistics about language programs exist by state and on a national basis, but they usually do not include the teaching of heritage languages in schools outside the public/private school system. Where they are available, statistics about heritage language speakers and programs are collected only for certain languages, and even those are often difficult to find and use.
This is the first survey that attempts to reach and document all of the community-based schools teaching heritage languages in the United States. The result of this and subsequent surveys will provide important data about heritage language schools and will benefit the field of heritage language education. In addition, it will give us the opportunity to showcase these schools for mainstream educators and the wider public interested in teaching world languages and cultures. The findings of this survey will complement current educational statistics and enhance our knowledge about heritage language schools. The emerging field of heritage language education will benefit markedly from this first attempt at systematic data collection about these programs.
The survey will take you only a few minutes to complete. We will send survey results to Language Representatives for distribution to their communities, and we will welcome your input regarding the results and our next steps.
Please support this newly formed National Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools, our web site at the National Heritage Language Resource Center (NHLRC) at UCLA, which is well underway (http://heritagelanguageschools.org), and ways that you can get involved with the coalition. If you have any questions, please write to us at the email below.
Please visit our Facebook page for news and updates: https://www.facebook.com/HeritageLanguageSchools
We hold an annual conference specifically for community-based heritage language schools for all languages at the American University in Washington, DC, in early October. We would love for you to come and share your experiences with us. You can learn about our next conference here: Annual Conference (heritagelanguageschools.org).
Thank you very much for participating with us in this effort! We look forward to learning about your schools and collaborating with you in the future.
If you have any questions about the survey or anything else about our work, please write to us in the email below.
Data Collection Team
National Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools
Heritage Language (joy@peytons.us)
Data Collection Team
National Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools
Heritage Language (joy@peytons.us)