Heritage language (HL) learning and teaching presents particularly difficult challenges. Melding cutting-edge research with innovations in teaching practice, the contributors in this volume provide practical knowledge and tools that introduce new solutions informed by linguistic, sociolinguistic, and educational research on heritage learners. Scholars address new perspectives and orientations on designing HL programs, assessing progress and proficiency, transferring research knowledge into classroom practice, and the essential question of how to define a heritage learner. Articles offer analysis and answers on multiple languages, and the result is a unique and essential text--the only comprehensive guide for heritage language learning based on the latest theory and research with suggestions for the classroom.

"Offering a fresh and original perspective on communicative language teaching, this brand new title in the McGraw-Hill Second Language Professional Series provides the latest guidelines and information for practicing teachers as well as for students in teacher preparation courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels." from back cover.

This innovative, timely text introduces the theory, research, and classroom application of critical approaches to the teaching of minoritized heritage learners, foregrounding sociopolitical concerns in language education. Beaudrie and Loza open with a global analysis, and expert contributors connect a focus on speakers of Spanish as a heritage language in the United States to broad issues in heritage language education in other contexts – offering an overview of key concepts and theoretical issues, practical pedagogical guidance, and field-advancing suggestions for research projects. This is an invaluable resource for advanced students and scholars of applied linguistics and education, as well as language program administrators.

A collaborative series with the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education highlighting leading-edge research across Teacher Education, International Education Reform and Language Education. Rethinking Heritage Language Education is an edited collection that brings together emerging and established researchers interested in the education field of Heritage Language Education to negotiate its concepts and practices, and investigate the correlation between culture and language from a pedagogic and cosmopolitical point of view. The scholars, who have contributed to the growth of Heritage Language Education as a discipline, reconsider and enrich their findings by drawing new lines across the boundaries of research and practice. It complements the previous work of these theorists, filling a void in the current literature around the question of Heritage Language Education.

"... focuses on issues at the forefront of heritage language teaching and research. Its state-of-the-art presentation will make this volume a standard reference book for investigators, teachers, and students. It will also generate further research and discussion, thereby advancing the field." María Carreira, California State University – Long Beach, United States "In our multilingual and multicultural society there is an undeniable need to address issues of bilingualism, language maintenance, literacy development, and language policy. The subject of this book is timely.... It has potential to make a truly significant contribution to the field." María Cecilia Colombi, University of California – Davis, United States This volume presents a multidisciplinary perspective on teaching heritage language learners. Contributors from theoretical and applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, psychology, educational policy, and pedagogy specialists explore policy and societal issues, present linguistic case studies, and discuss curricular issues, offering both research and hands-on innovation. - The term "heritage language speaker" refers to an individual exposed to a language spoken at home but who is educated primarily in English. Research and curriculum design in heritage language education is just beginning. Heritage language pedagogy, including research associated with the attrition, maintenance, and growth of heritage language proficiency, is rapidly becoming a field in its own right within foreign language education. This book fills a current gap in both theory and pedagogy in this emerging field. It is a significant contribution to the goals of formulating theory, developing informed classroom practices, and creating enlightened programs for students who bring home-language knowledge into the classroom. Heritage Language Education: A New Field Emerging is dedicated to Professor Russell Campbell (1927-2003), who was instrumental in advocating for the creation of the field of heritage language education.

The Routledge Handbook of Heritage Language Education provides the rapidly growing and globalizing field of heritage language (HL) education with a cohesive overview of HL programs and practices relating to language maintenance and development, setting the stage for future work in the field. Driving this effort is the belief that if research and pedagogical advances in the HL field are to have the greatest impact, HL programs need to become firmly rooted in educational systems. Against a background of cultural and linguistic diversity that characterizes the twenty-first century, the volume outlines key issues in the design and implementation of HL programs across a range of educational sectors, institutional settings, sociolinguistic conditions, and geographical locations, specifically: North and Latin America, Europe, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and Cambodia. All levels of schooling are included as the teaching of the following languages are discussed: Albanian, Arabic, Armenian (Eastern and Western), Bengali, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, Czech, French, Hindi-Urdu, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Pasifika languages, Persian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Vietnamese, and Yiddish. These discussions contribute to the development and establishment of HL instructional paradigms through the experiences of “actors on the ground” as they respond to local conditions, instantiate current research and pedagogical findings, and seek solutions that are workable from an organizational standpoint. The Routledge Handbook of Heritage Language Education is an ideal resource for researchers and graduate students interested in heritage language education at home or abroad.

Teaching Heritage Language Learners: Voices from the Classroom is a groundbreaking volume that offers a guide for language teachers, school administrators & support personnel that will enable them to work more effectively with the growing population of heritage language learners in the nation's schools. Written by & for teachers, this book provides an overview of the research on heritage language education, proposes fundamental teacher beliefs & goals for curriculum & instruction that will enhance teaching & learning, presents framework that educators can use to acquire essential information about their heritage language students, explores the issue of standards for heritage language classes & describes a learning environment in which the diverse range of learner needs can be addressed. The book is further enriched by the presentation & discussion of classroom research of successful teaching strategies, related stories written by teachers about their experiences working with their students & retrospectives from adult heritage language learners looking back at their youth & schooling. It can serve as a valuable companion for staff development & college level courses on language teaching methodology & informative for anyone interested in the teaching of languages other than English.

Heritage language policies define the context in which heritage languages are maintained or abandoned by communities, and this volume describes and analyzes international policy strategies, as well as the implications for the actual heritage language speakers. This volume brings together heritage language policy case studies from around the world, foregrounding globalization by covering five regions: the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australasia. The countries profiled include the United States, Canada, Argentina, Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Uganda, Namibia, Morocco, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, and Fiji. This volume also highlights an expanded definition of ‘heritage language’, choosing to focus on individual and community identities, and therefore including both Indigenous and immigrant languages. Focusing specifically on language policy relating to heritage languages, the chapters address key questions such as Are heritage languages included or excluded from the national language policy discourse? What are the successes and shortcomings of efforts to establish heritage language policies? What is the definition of ‘heritage language’ in official usage by the local/regional government and stakeholders? How are these language policies perceived by the actual heritage language communities?

This volume covers the multidimensional and international field of Heritage Language Education, including concepts, practices, and the correlation between culture and language from the perspectives of pedagogy and research. Heritage Language Learning is a new dimension in both the linguistic and pedagogic sciences, and is linked to processes of identity negotiation and cultural inheritance. It is a distinct pedagogical and curricular domain that is not exhausted within the domains of bilingualism and second or foreign language education. A heritage language is not a second or foreign language, it is the vehicle whereby cultural memory is transmitted over time, across distances, communities, and generations. Heritage languages play an important role ensuring the balance between coherence and pluralism in contemporary societies that have come to realize that diversity is an advantage for social, cultural, and economic reasons. The volume includes topics like First Nation indigenous languages, languages in diaspora, immigrant and minority languages, and contributions from North, central and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. It addresses the social, linguistic, and cultural issues in educational contexts in a new way by taking up questions of globalization, difference, community, identity, democracy, ethics, politics, technology, language rights and cultural policies through the evolving field of Heritage Language Education.

The Routledge Handbook of Spanish as a Heritage Language brings together contributions from leading linguists, educators and Latino Studies scholars involved in teaching and working with Spanish heritage language speakers. This state-of-the-art overview covers a range of topics within five broad areas: Spanish in U.S. public life, Spanish heritage language use and systems, educational contexts, Latino studies perspectives and Spanish outside the U.S. The Routledge Handbook of Spanish as a Heritage Language addresses for the first time the linguistic, educational and social aspects of heritage Spanish speakers in one volume making it an indispensable reference for anyone working with Spanish as a heritage language.