Teaching Heritage Language Learners: Research Data and Pedagogical Implications

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Teaching Heritage Language Learners Research
Data and Pedagogical Implications

• Olga Kagan, Director, National Heritage Language
  Resource Center

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A heritage language learner a working definition

• Broad definition those who have been raised with
  a strong cultural connection to a particular
  language, usually through family interaction
  (Fishman 2001 Van Deusen-Scholl 2003). NO
  MEASURABLE PROFICIENCIES
• 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. MEASURABLE
  PROFICIENCIES
• Source Polinsky and Kagan 2007

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The purpose of this workshop

• Suggest research questions that may lead to
  improvements in
• HL curriculum
• HL materials
• FOR HLLs of NARROW DEFINITION, i.e. those
• who (typically) can have oral and aural
• proficiencies

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Curricular Components

• Demographics/sociolinguistics
• Community history history and community
  interests students motivations
• Linguistics
• The baseline language of the community
• HL learner characteristics across languages and
  by language
• Psycholinguistics
• The processes of language retrieval, maintenance,
  and acquisition HL specific strategies

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Why Demographics?

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

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A book on communities and language education (CUP
in press)

• Ed. Kim Potowski
• Histories of immigration
• Language loss and maintenance
• Community attitudes
• Attempts to make predictions

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Ten languages most frequently spoken at home,
the 1990, 2000 Censuses and 2007 Community
Estimate A Comparison
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A heritage language learner a working definition
rooted in community and family

• 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. MEASURABLE
  PROFICIENCIES

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Four Waves of Russian Immigration to the US

• First wave After the communist revolution of
  1917 (to Europegtto US)
• Second wave After WWII
• Third wave Early 1970s-late 1980s
• Forth wave After the collapse of the S.U.

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The recent wave of Russian immigration1970s-prese
nt

• 76 of Russian speakers are born abroad
• 42 arrived before 5
• 28 between 6-10
• NHLRC Survey

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Broad/narrow definitions (Russian) Kagan
Dillon 2001 Kagan 2005

• GROUP 1 completed/almost completed
• high school in the former SU
• GROUP 2 attended/completed junior high or
  equivalent
• GROUP 3 attended/completed
• elementary school
• GROUP 4 emigrated at a pre-school age or born
  outside the former SU

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Kondo-Brown, 2005 (Japanese)

• Role of a Japanese-speaking mother
• Group 1. No Japanese-speaking parent or
  grandparent. Grandparents born in the U.S.
• Group 2. No Japanese-speaking parent.
• At least one grandparent born in Japan.
• Group 3. At least one Japanese-speaking parent
  born in the United States or Japan.

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A Japanese HL Class(Carreira Kagan in prep)

• Japanese 100 12 students
• 6 (US born) four or more years of a community
  school in the US.
• 1 (foreign-born) six to eight years of school in
  Japan.
• 1 (raised in a Japanese-speaking home in Korea)
  attended Japanese school for five years.
• 2 (US born) 1-2 years of schooling in Japan
• 2 (one US born one foreign) no formal
  schooling

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Different levels of HL and classroom practices
UCLA Russian Program

• R 100 Literacy in Russian (groups 3/4)
• R 102 Flagship Advanced/Superior Russian R 107
  Russian for Social and Cultural Studies
• R 103 Russian for native and near-native
  speakers
• R 108 Business Russian

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Discussion Question 1

• In your language, what groups of proficiency do
  you expect? What factors would they depend on?
• History of immigration?
• Language maintenance in the family?
• Attendance at community schools?
• Other?

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NHLRC Survey of Heritage Language Learners

• An on-line survey
• 1,700 responses
• 22 languages
• Survey Report http//www.nhlrc.ucla.edu

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HL Motivations a bridge between community and
classroom
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Motivations by Language (NHLRC Survey, Carreira
Kagan in prep)
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Discussion Question 2

• What are the ways to incorporate motivations in a
  HL-specific curriculum and materials?

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Learner Characteristics Age of Arrival and HL
proficiency

• NHLRC Survey

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Age of Arrival 43 younger than 5
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77

• U.S.-born
• arrivals before age of 5

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Age of Arrival and Speaking HL
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Age of Arrival and Reading time
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Age of Arrival and Internet Use
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Age of Arrival and Self-rating
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Linguistic Biographies

• Supply valuable information
• Self-assessment is of value
• It can be used for placement
• Question What is the shortest questionnaire that
  can yield results for placement?

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To salvage heritage languages

• it is crucial to find ways to foster an
  environment that supports heritage-language
  speakers regular and active use of the language
  beyond the preschool years.
• T. Au (2007)

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The least proficient HLLs

• Access to language since age 0
• Output interrupted at age 5
• Continued exposure to the HL
• at home
• through some HL media
• In the community
• Compared to peers in the L1 country,
• not a full range of access
• Compared to L2 learners, the access is
  enormous

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Discussion Questions 2-4

• What does the combination of English and HL look
  like?
• How can we connect HL activities outside of class
  with classroom practices?
• What are the main differences in teaching L1s,L2s
  and HLLs?

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• Do HLLs see themselves as native speakers of
  their HL?

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Carreira and Kagan (in preparation)

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Carreira and Kagan (in preparation)
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Discussion Question 5

• How do HLLs evaluate their own language
  competencies?

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On a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being "not
important" and 5 being "extremely important", how
important is it for you to accomplish the
following goals in your HL class?
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What is easy and hard for you to do in English?
1-5
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What is easy and hard for you to do in HL? 1-5
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Self-assessment of aural comprehension in HL.
1-5. Compare to L2?
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Research on Vocabulary

• Vocabulary is emerging as the best indicator of
  HLLs overall proficiency
• Polinsky (1995, 1997, 2000) - Russian
• Kanno et al.( 2008) - Japanese
• Increasing vocabulary may emerge as the primary
  goal of HLL instruction

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Lexical approach to L2 teaching

• Lexis, not grammar, is the basis of language.
• language consists of grammaticalized lexis, not
  lexicalized grammar.
• One of the central organizing principles of any
  meaning-centered syllabus should be lexis.
• Lewis, M. (1993). The lexical approach The state
  of ELT and the way forward. Hove, England
  Language Teaching Publications.

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Lewiss Suggestions to Lexical Approach HL
specific and 21st century

• Intensive and extensive listening and reading
• Language comparisons and translation
  chunk-for-chunk, not word-for-wordaimed at
  raising language awareness. Add dialects
• Guessing the meaning of vocabulary from context.
• Noticing language patterns and collocations.
• Working with language corpora and Internet
  sources
• Using language for discovery and research

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Discussion Question 5

• What HLLs lexical deficiencies?
• What are the most efficient ways to expand HLLs
  vocabulary?

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Research on Grammar

• incomplete L1 acquisition in heritage speakers is
  selective and localized.
• some areas of grammatical knowledge appear to be
  more susceptible to incomplete development than
  others.
• Montrul et al. (2008)

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Indications of systematic differences

• Differential Object Marking in Spanish
• Montrul (2004,2008)
• Gender in Russian
• Polinsky (2008)
• Inflected infinitives in Brazilian Portuguese
• Rothman (2007)
• Cohesive devices in Russian
• Friedman and Kagan (2008)
• Polinsky HL grammar

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Discussion Question

• In the language you teach/research,
• what are the MAIN grammar points
• that NEED to be taught to HLLs?

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Discussion Question

• What kind of assessment is appropriate for HLLs
• Linguistic biographies
• Oral interviews
• Aural comprehension
• Written testing
• Portfolios
• Other

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• The processes of language retrieval,
• maintenance, and acquisition
• HL specific strategies

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Vygotskys ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) and
HLL assessment and teaching

• 1) Tasks a difference between what learners can
  do without help and
• where they need help (scaffolding)
• 2) Skill-oriented zones young children learn
  their native language by
• being placed in a ZPD
• 3) It is impossible to understand a child's
  potential intellectual
• Development using a one-way assessment
• 4) Arguments against standardized testing as a
  means to gauge
• students intelligence
• Wells, G. (1999) Dialogic inquiries in education
  Towards a Sociocultural Practice
• And Theory of Education, CUP

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Vygotskys ZPD EXTENDING THE CONCEPT TO HLLs

• We put students who learned HL in ZPD, into a
  constrained environment
• Retrieval may happen best when relearning by
  socializing
• FL-type testing may NOT assess well naturally
  acquired and partially attrited knowledge

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Static Assessment (SA) VS Dynamic Assessment
(DA)(Poehner 2008)

• SA isolating abilities that are conceived as
  stable, discrete traits that can be sampled and
  measured
• DA helps improve functioning and entails
  understanding the process of development

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HL Strategies

• Large chunk reading and listening
• Surfing the Internet
• Participating in community events
• Speaking the HL with family
• Noticing and asking questions
• Practicing ambiguities
• Playing language games
• ???

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A strategy HL may welcome
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Discussion Questions

• What are HL-focused classroom practices?
• What are HL strategies?

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L2 VS HL Teaching Videos

• Korean, Sun-Hee Lee and Nayoung Kwon, Wellesley
  College
• Tagalog, Nenita Domingo, UCLA
• Russian, Larisa Karkafi, UCLA

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Discussion Question

• Tagalog and Russian Do you see a difference
  between these classes and a typical L2 class?
• Korean Is the testing appropriate for HLLs?
  Whats being tested? How do the speakers
  speaking proficiencies differ?

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In a nutshell

• HL language groups, learner competencies, and
  classroom practices Motivations and interests
• Baseline language of HLLs
• Self-rating and language placement
• Vocabulary
• Grammar
• Differences between L2 and HL teaching
• HL specific strategies

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Questions

• QUESTION 1 Community and Curriculum
• 1. In your language, what groups of proficiency
  do you expect? What factors would they depend
  on? History of immigration? Language
  maintenance in the family?
• Attendance at community schools? Other?
• 2. How to connect HL activities outside of
  class with classroom practices?
• QUESTION 2.
• From either your experience or research, what
  does the combination of English and HL look like?

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Questions (cont)

• QUESTION 3
• How do HLLs evaluate their own language
  competencies? Could their self-rating be used
  for placement purposes?
• Question 4
• In the language you teach, what are HLLs lexical
  deficiencies?
• What would you propose as the most efficient ways
  to expand HLLs vocabulary?

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Questions (cont)

• Question 4
• In the language you teach, what are HLLs lexical
  deficiencies?
• What would you propose as the most efficient ways
  to expand HLLs vocabulary?
• Question 5
• In the language you teach/research, what are the
  MAIN grammar points that NEED to be taught to
  HLLs?

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Questions (cont)

• Question 6
• What are the main differences in teaching L2s and
  HLLs? Assessments, including linguistic
  questionnaires? What is the shortest optimal list
  of questions in a questionnaire?
• HL specific strategies?

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CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT The THREE FOCI

• Focus on language
• Massive vocabulary development
• Certain grammatical points
• Focus on motivation and identity
• Large chunk reading and aural input
• Interaction with the community
• Focus on pedagogy
• macro approaches content and culture-based
  task-based project-based

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References

• Au, T. K-f Salvaging Heritage Languages in
  Heritage Language Education A New Field
  Emerging, ed. Brinton, Kagan, Bauckus
• He A. W. (2006) Toward an Identity Theory of the
  Development of Chinese as a Heritage Language.
  Heritage Language Journal, Volume 4, Number 1
• Kagan, O. Dillon, K. (in press) Bridging
  Contexts, Making Connections Selected
  Proceedings from the Fifth International
  Conference on Language Teacher Education. 
  Minneapolis, MN Center for Advanced Research on
  Language Acquisition, University of Minnesota.
• Kagan, O. Dillon, K. (2001) A New Perspective
  on Teaching Russian Focus on the Heritage
  Learner . Slavic and East European Journal 45.3
  (2001) 507-18. Reprinted in Heritage Language
  Journal Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 2003
• Kagan, O. (2005) In Support of a
  Proficiency-based Definition of Heritage Language
  Learners The Case of Russian. International
  Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism,
  8, 213-221.
• Kagan, O., Friedman. D. (2004). Using the OPI
  to place heritage speakers of Russian. Foreign
  Language Annals 36(4), 536-545.
• Kanno, K., Hasegawa,T., Ikeda,K.,Ito Y.and Long
  M. Prior Language-learning Experience and
  Variation in the Linguistic Profiles of Advanced
  English-speaking Learners of Japanese. In
  Brinton, D., Kagan, O., and Bauckus, S. ed.
  Heritage Language Education A New Field
  Emerging. Pp. 165-180
• Kondo-Brown, K. (2002) Family and School Factors
  Influencing Academic Performance of Bilingual
  Shin Nisei Students in Hawaii. Asian and Pacific
  Islander
• American Education Social, Cultural, and
  Historical Contexts. Ed. Eileen Tamura, Virgie
  Chattergy, and Russell Endo. South EL Monte, CA
  Pacific Asia Press, 2002. 149-74.
• Kondo-Brown, K. (2005). Differences in language
  skills Heritage language learner subgroups and
  foreign language learners. The Modern Language
  Journal, 89(iv), 563-581.

75
References

• He A. W. (2006) Toward an Identity Theory of the
  Development of Chinese as a Heritage Language.
  Heritage Language Journal, Volume 4, Number 1
• Kagan, O. Dillon, K. (in press) Bridging
  Contexts, Making Connections Selected
  Proceedings from the Fifth International
  Conference on Language Teacher Education. 
  Minneapolis, MN Center for Advanced Research on
  Language Acquisition, University of Minnesota.
• Kagan, O. Dillon, K. (2001) A New Perspective
  on Teaching Russian Focus on the Heritage
  Learner . Slavic and East European Journal 45.3
  (2001) 507-18. Reprinted in Heritage Language
  Journal Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 2003
• Kagan, O. (2005) In Support of a
  Proficiency-based Definition of Heritage Language
  Learners The Case of Russian. International
  Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism,
  8, 213-221.
• Kagan, O., Friedman. D. (2004). Using the OPI
  to place heritage speakers of Russian. Foreign
  Language Annals 36(4), 536-545.
• Kanno, K., Hasegawa,T., Ikeda,K.,Ito Y.and Long
  M. Prior Language-learning Experience and
  Variation in the Linguistic Profiles of Advanced
  English-speaking Learners of Japanese. In
  Brinton, D., Kagan, O., and Bauckus, S. ed.
  Heritage Language Education A New Field
  Emerging. Pp. 165-180
• Kondo-Brown, K. (2002) Family and School Factors
  Influencing Academic Performance of Bilingual
  Shin Nisei Students in Hawaii. Asian and Pacific
  Islander
• American Education Social, Cultural, and
  Historical Contexts. Ed. Eileen Tamura, Virgie
  Chattergy, and Russell Endo. South EL Monte, CA
  Pacific Asia Press, 2002. 149-74.
• Kondo-Brown, K. (2005). Differences in language
  skills Heritage language learner subgroups and
  foreign language learners. The Modern Language
  Journal, 89(iv), 563-581.

76

• Montrul, S. (2004). Subject and object expression
  in Spanish heritage speakers A case of
  morpho-syntactic convergence. Bilingualism,
  Language and Cognition 7,125142.
• Montrul, S. (2008). Incomplete acquisition in
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• Polinsky, Maria. 1995. Cross-linguistic parallels
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• Polinsky, Maria. 2000. A composite linguistic
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• Polinsky, M. (2006). Incomplete acquisition
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• Polinsky, M. (2007). Russian gender under
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• Polinsky, M. Kagan, O. (2007). Heritage
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References

• Rothman, J. (2007) Heritage speaker competence
  differences, language change, and input type
  Inflected infinitives in Heritage Brazilian
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• Sohn, S-O., Shin, S-K. (2007). True beginners,
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  strategies for Korean heritage learners. Foreign
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• Schwartz, Ann M. 2001. Preparing teachers to work
  with heritage language learners. In J.K.Peyton,
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  229-252. McHenry, Il Center for Applied
  Linguistics and Delta Systems Co.
• Valdés, Guadelupe. 2000. The teaching of
  heritage languages An introduction for
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  Rifkin, eds. Teaching and Learning Slavic
  Languages and Cultures, 375-403. Bloomington, IN
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