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