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Issues for Heritage Speakers in Slavic LCTL Classrooms. Laura A. Janda UNC-CH janda@unc.edu. Issues that pertain to heritage students:. Mismatches of language and dialect Wide range of abilities Need to provide appropriate challenges and avoid demoralizing others.
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Issues for Heritage Speakers in Slavic LCTL Classrooms Laura A. Janda UNC-CH janda@unc.edu
Issues that pertain to heritage students: • Mismatches of language and dialect • Wide range of abilities • Need to provide appropriate challenges and avoid demoralizing others
Issues that pertain to heritage students: • Mismatches of language and dialect • More prevalent in the non-Russian classes • Mismatches of language: Slovak speakers in Czech classes, Ukrainian speakers in Russian classes, etc. • Mismatches of dialect: Moravian speakers in Czech classes • Wide range of abilities • Need to provide appropriate challenges and avoid demoralizing others
Issues that pertain to heritage students: • Mismatches of language and dialect • Wide range of abilities: proficiency, literacy, and culture • From near-native fluency to none at all • From full literacy to none at all • From rich cultural background to none at all • Need to provide appropriate challenges and avoid demoralizing others
Issues that pertain to heritage students: • Mismatches of language and dialect • Wide range of abilities • Need to provide appropriate challenges and avoid demoralizing others • Vocabulary often comes easy for heritage speakers (often with a big gap between active and passive) • Grammar & Orthography often is harder for heritage students than for non-heritage • Teaming the two types of students can be beneficial for both • Heritage students will need special assignments
Strategies for Teaching Heritage Students • Linguistic Empowerment • Social Empowerment • Cultural Empowerment
Strategies for Teaching Heritage Students • Linguistic Empowerment • Accept their linguistic code as a valid means of communication in certain contexts • Learn about their linguistic code and how it differs from the target code • Focus them on systematic differences between their code and the target code • Social Empowerment • Cultural Empowerment
Strategies for Teaching Heritage Students • Linguistic Empowerment • Social Empowerment • Put them in contact with the appropriate Slavic-American milieu (newspapers, clubs) • Encourage them to communicate with “old country” relatives • Cultural Empowerment
Strategies for Teaching Heritage Students • Linguistic Empowerment • Social Empowerment • Cultural Empowerment • Run a film series • Provide access to pop and high-culture material (music, etc.) • Field trips to relevant sites (cf. Old Salem) • Information on famous/local Slavs/Slav-Americans