The influence that the use of a familiar language has on learning has long been explored with suggestions that a child's mother tongue is the most suited initial language of instruction in school. In Zambia, however, this is not the case as the majority of people think that young children should learn to speak in English as soon as possible…

Utah's public schools are home to an increasing number of K/1-6 dual language (DL) programs established through a state-centralized model that has sparked interest domestically and internationally. We theorize three potential constituencies of DL--maintenance, heritage, and world language--then use critical discourse analysis to examine how…

Culturally Responsive Education has been widely proposed as a mechanism to improve the academic achievement of minority and Indigenous populations. Instruction in heritage languages has been shown to produce desirable outcomes both on linguistic and academic measures. However, culturally responsive and immersion instruction faces a number of…

Community-based heritage language (HL) programs can empower culturally and linguistically diverse students and families to construct hybrid practices linking home and school knowledges to promote learning. This study focused on the analysis of critical incidents in one Spanish HL program involving both youths and adults. Findings revealed the ways…

The Melbourne International School of Japanese (MISJ) is a supplementary Saturday school which offers Japanese language and mathematics taught in Japanese from kindergarten to senior secondary level. Classes are scheduled on Saturdays from 9am to 3pm and approximately half of the program is dedicated to mathematics. While mathematics education…

Based on the finding that teachers' literacy beliefs affect their instructional practices, recent studies on literacy beliefs present an increasing interest in heritage language (HL) because of the rapid increase in heritage learners' enrollment. However, less is known about Korean language teachers' literacy beliefs and practices in college…

This qualitative study investigated the language ideologies and instructional practices of an entire Spanish language faculty at a high school in a new gateway state for immigration. The study examined additive and subtractive practices of teachers as they strived to teach Spanish to heritage language learners (HLLs) enrolled in mixed…

This article argues for the value of heritage language programs and the micro-level language policies that support them, focusing on a case study of a program in the USA to make this argument. We also argue for the importance of recognizing students' heritage languages, cultures, and individual goals and identities in mainstream school programs.…

This article focuses on language displacement in the High Mountains of Central Veracruz. It begins by presenting a brief historical account of the Nahuatl presence in the region in order to distinguish this group from other Nahuatl-speaking groups. Later, it describes the situation of language loss that is currently underway and argues that the…

This article puts forward a solution to the impending shortage of culturally and linguistically competent interpreters: the education of heritage signers as heritage language learners. It examines the current landscape of American Sign Language (ASL) as a course of study and the difficulties heritage signers report when they begin learning ASL. In…

In this study, we examined the bilingual language development among Korean American first-graders in two southern California cities and explored the opportunities for language use available to them in various spaces: at school (one dual language immersion school and one traditional English-only public school), at home, and in the community. Data…

We analyze the way children and youngsters perceive the role of family in the use and acquisition of the heritage language (HL), through two complementary means: drawings produced by children and students participating in a discussion forum. Our study reveals: (1) the convergence of perceptions that children and adolescents have about family…

This paper explores ethnolinguistic vitality among Japanese-Brazilians ("Nikkeis"). First, an 18-item questionnaire was administered to 33 individuals who attended a seminar on bilingual studies held in São Paulo. Then, two bilingual "Nikkei" teachers who participated in the questionnaire and who grew up to be bilinguals…

Drawing on linguistic anthropological notions of language ideologies and sociolinguistic approaches to stance, this study examines the meaning-making resources through which Spanish heritage language (HL) learners orient toward ideological perspectives on language value and linguistic expertise in classroom interaction. Part of a larger…

In 2006, the European Parliament and the Council adopted the Recommendations on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning. The framework sets out eight competences, which citizens need for 'personal fulfilment and development, active citizenship, social inclusion and employment'. Language competences play a prominent role in the framework, with two…