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Teaching Heritage Languages Learners

Teaching Heritage Languages Learners. Olga Kagan July 18, 2011 STARTALK/NHLRC Teacher Workshop. WELCOME!. THANK YOU!. Liz Galvin Lew Maria Carreira Kathryn Paul Claire Chik Susie Bauckus Agazit Abate Herman Rosiles Arturo Diaz. And more THANK YOU!. All Presenters All Participants.

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Teaching Heritage Languages Learners

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  1. Teaching Heritage Languages Learners Olga Kagan July 18, 2011 STARTALK/NHLRC Teacher Workshop

  2. WELCOME!

  3. THANK YOU! • Liz Galvin Lew • Maria Carreira • Kathryn Paul • Claire Chik • Susie Bauckus • Agazit Abate • Herman Rosiles • Arturo Diaz

  4. And more THANK YOU! • All Presenters • All Participants

  5. STARTALK • Established in 2006. • STARTALK seeks to expand and improve the teaching and learning of less commonly taught languages. • STARTALK’s mission is to increase the number of Americans learning, speaking, and teaching foreign languages • by offering students (K–16) and teachers of these languages creative and engaging summer experiences.

  6. NHLRC • National Heritage Language Resource Center • Funded by the Title VI U.S. Department of Education (2006-2010; refunded 2010-2014) • One of 15 NLRCs • The only one dedicated to heritage languages

  7. NHLRC Mission • Research into heritage language acquisition • Innovative teaching practices and professional development • Design of HL specific • instructional materials • assessment instruments

  8. The White Paper Prolegomena to Heritage Linguistics E. Benmamoun, S. Montrul, M. Polinsky • http://nhlrc.ucla.edu/pdf/HL-whitepaper.pdf (NHLRC website)

  9. STARTALK/NHLRC

  10. UCLA STARTALK/NHLRC Summer 2011 H.S. HLLs H.S. FL Italian Russian • Amharic • Arabic • Armenian • Chinese • Hindi/Urdu • Persian • Russian

  11. Demographics The American Community Survey 2005-2008: • 20 % of the U.S. population speak a language other than English at home

  12. UCLA STARTALK PROGRAMS, Summer 2011 • 5 weeks • Appr. 10 hours a week • Total: 60 hours (> one quarter) • What can you expect to achieve in a FL class and an HL class in 50 hours?

  13. HLLs and FLLs • NEXT SLIDE U.S. State Department Foreign Service Institute’s expected levels of proficiency VS hours of instruction for various lengths of training

  14. Proficiencies: Speaking A typical FLL graduates at ACTFL I/I+ (ILR 1/1+) after 3-4 years of language study (I. Thompson 2004; B. Rifkin 2009) A typical HLL may be ACTFL N+/I+ (ILR 1-2) (with or without minimal literacy) (Kagan 2005)

  15. Who is a heritage language learner? • Narrow definition: those who have been exposed to a particular language in childhood but did not learn it to full capacity because another language became dominant. FUNCTIONAL PROFICIENCY • Broad definition: those who have been raised with a strong cultural connection to a particular language, usually through family interaction. CULTURAL AFINITY Source: Polinsky and Kagan 2007

  16. The language of my heart… My home language is Chinese. My parents are from China. They praised me, scolded me, all in Chinese. ... My Chinese is really bad. I can’t read and I can only write my name. But when I think of Chinese, I think of my mom, dad, and home. It is the language of my home, and my heart. (Jason, a learner of Chinese as a heritage language) • Agnes He, The Heart of Heritage: Sociocultural Dimensions of Heritage Language Learning.Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (2010), 30, 66–82.

  17. Another way to look at HL • …heritage speakers are early bilinguals …the heritage language becomes, structurally and functionally, the weaker language.(The NHLRC White Paper)

  18. HLL VS FLL • HLL’s knowledge of the language begins in the home (like NS) • FLL’s knowledge typically begins in the classroom Source: UCLA Heritage Language Research Priorities Conference, 2000

  19. Terminology: raise your hand! • First generation immigrant • 1.5 generation • Second generation • A sequential bilingual • A simultaneous bilingual

  20. HL Generations • Second generation – born in U.S. to at least one immigrant parent • 1.5 generation – born abroad but arrived by age 12 and grew up in U.S. P. Kasinitz et al. Inheriting the city: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age, Russel Sage, 2008

  21. Sequential/Simultaneous Sequential bilingual: grew up hearing and speaking HL only until starting school Simultaneous bilingual: grew up with two languages

  22. HLL: A generic profile • Second or 1.5 generation • Sequential bilingual (to age 5) • Continues using HL in limited ways: • oral and aural proficiencies • HL specific motivations and identities Source: Carreira & Kagan 2011

  23. Limitations • Growing up speaking my HL at home has provided me with sufficient vocabulary to carry on conversations with my parents, but I have not learned how to speak formally to those outside the home. (NHLRC Survey 2009)

  24. What are HLL specific motivations?

  25. HL Specific Motivation • To communicate with family in the U.S. • To learn about cultural/linguistic roots • To communicate with family in the HL country • For future career • To satisfy language requirement

  26. Tagalog course helps family relationship • Because of [studying] Tagalog, my dad and I have grown way closer and him and I can joke around in Tagalog. Language is helpful when I'm speaking to my Lola (grandmother); she is getting very old, and chooses who and what to respond to - but she always and quickly responds to me when I speak Tagalog with her. It has been great and my family & relatives in the Philippines are amused by it as well. (NHLRC 2009)

  27. Connecting with family Knowledge of my heritage language has helped me outside of school in that I've been able to communicate and connect with my family and the greater Ethiopian community. Without this language, I would never have had conversations with my grandmother, and would have never learned anything about her... (Dutch) (NHLRC Survey 2009)

  28. Structuring the curriculum • Building on the strengths • Motivation • Oral/aural proficiency • Some knowledge of culture • Addressing deficiencies

  29. “I am like Swiss cheese”

  30. Where are the holes? • Grammar • Vocabulary • Pragmatics • Knowledge of culture • Not necessarily in this order

  31. An Example • http://lingvomania.info/pro/interlingvistika • Interviewer: Why do you carry clothes by this particular designer? What attracts you in his designs? • Store owner:

  32. Grammar in the Curriculum • some areas of grammatical knowledge appear to be more susceptible to incomplete development than others. Montrul et al. (2008) • Do you know what areas of grammar are generally lost in your HL? What assignments may be appropriate?

  33. Vocabulary • BROAD HOME AND HEARTH based • Non-textbook based • Possibly dialectal/informal/idiosyncratic • Code mixing • Lack of academic/abstract vocabulary CF. FL learners How can you develop HL vocabulary?

  34. Pragmatics • Formality and degrees of formality (older people/strangers/peers) • Ability to request, apologize, explain, initiate a conversation, etc. • Dialect/variation VS standard language • What kind of assignments can you use in class?

  35. Teaching Pragmatics • Activity: Start a Conversation Student uses conversational starters. Collect a list of situations to role play using correct conversational starters. i.e. 1. giving a message to a teacher 2.joining students who are organizing a recess game 3.greeting a friend in the morning 4.phoning a friend to invite him to your house 5. you need to ask the teacher a question but she is busy *include: eye contact, appropriate way to get attention, physical distance, using person’s name http://www.hwdsb.on.ca/instructionalservices/support/Hearing/G067-117.pdf (p 95)

  36. Psycholinguistic Factors Relearning even something that seems to have been completely forgotten takes much less time than learning for the first time. If childhood heritage language speakers seem to have forgotten their childhood language … they may still be able to access it once again if they try to relearn the language. T. Au Salvaging Heritage Language in D. Brinton, O. Kagan, S. Bauckus (ed.) Heritage Language Education: A new field emerging. Routledge, 2008

  37. Rethinking the curriculum • Stressing vocabulary development • Targeting certain grammatical areas • Paying attention to pragmatics • Being cognizant of relearning effect • Understanding the differences between - HL baseline language and Full L1 - HL and FL

  38. Real Life Perspective Ashley Carlisle, 9th Grade English Teacher • As a discipline, English Language Arts lends itself readily to lessons that build upon students’ “real life” experiences. • Each day in the bustling hallways of my school, I see my students searching for ways to express their unique identities and perspectives. • Inside the classroom, I encourage them to continue working towards that goal by asking them to think critically about issues that are relevant to their lives – and then to read, write, and speak about those issues.  • http://teachersnetwork.org/NTOL/howto/implement/connect.htm

  39. Terminology: raise your hand! • Community-based • Content-based • Project-based • Task-based

  40. Macro-approach Community-based curriculum: Students learn by participating in community events or conducting research within a local language community.  Content-based instruction:  Students use a different subject, like social studies or biology, as a way to learn language. Project-based instruction: Students pursue an in-depth investigation of a question or problem that’s important to them.  Task-based instruction: Emphasizes the kinds of real world tasks language speakers might be required to do and uses them to structure the curriculum.

  41. Discussion: An HL Specific Macro-Approach • Implementing a macro-approach curriculum in the HL you teach • What projects have you carried out? • What new projects could you suggest?

  42. Community-based curriculum • Using interviews to 1) Connect to family/community 2) Get background knowledge 3) Expand vocabulary 4) Improve grammar 5) Understand differences between formal and informal use of language/dialect VS standard, etc.

  43. The Five “FROM-TO” Principles • aural > to reading • spoken > to written • home-based register > general/academic • everyday activities > in-class activities • motivation & identity > content

  44. From Aural to Reading • Using listening comprehension as a springboard: • audiobooks; • delayed reading; • reading and listening at the same time. • discussion of audio text; • vocabulary based on audio texts; • delaying written work

  45. From Spoken to Written • THE TRANSITION TO BILITERACY: FROM SPOKEN TO WRITTEN DISCOURSE Starting with composing written forms of conversational discourse • J. Chevalier Heritage Language Literacy: Theory and Practice, Heritage Language Journal, # 2, 2004 • http://www.heritagelanguages.org/

  46. From Home-based to Academic Register • Sociolinguistic approach: students as ethnographers • Recording and analyzing oral production at home/in the community • Explaining the differences between registers: pronunciation/grammar/vocabulary • Explaining the differences between dialects/ regional varieties, etc.

  47. From Everyday Activities to Classroom Tasks • HL-based Activities in the past 6 months • 90% - spoke on the phone • 76% - listened to music • 69% -watched TV or DVDs • 30 % community events (NHLRC Survey 2009)

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