Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The last decade has seen an important change in second language classrooms as a result of recent immigration patterns all over the world, especially in Western Europe, Australia, and North America. Partly due to these demographic changes and to the impact of globalization on international relations, today more than ever before, an increasing number of bilingual speakers of minority languages wish to maintain and/or (re)learn their family language. As a consequence, post-secondary foreign/second language classes typically geared to students who have little to no background in the target language (L2 learners) have had to accommodate speakers who were exposed to the language at home early in childhood (henceforth, heritage language learners or HL learners) and whose levels of oral proficiency in the language range from minimal to advanced. While many institutions place HL learners in foreign/second language classrooms that follow a traditional L2 curriculum, in the 1970s other institutions started to create special courses to address the specific linguistic and cultural needs of HL learners. These are heritage language programs. With this increasing trend, there is growing recognition that heritage language programs should be informed by a theory of HL acquisition and teaching ( Kondo-Brown, 2003 ; Lynch, 2003 ; Valdés, 1997, 2005 ). To date, there is very little systematic research ... log in or subscribe to read full text