DOCUMENT RESUME ED 481 792 FL 027 874 AUTHOR Lacorte, Manel; Canabal, Evelyn TITLE Interaction with Heritage Language Learners in Foreign Language Classrooms. PUB DATE 2003-0C-00 NOTE 25p.; In: The Sociolinguistics of Foreign-Language Classrooms: Contributions of the Native, the Near-Native, and the Non-Native Speaker. Issues in Language Program Direction, A Series of Annual Volumes; see FL 027 869. PUB TYPE Reports Descriptive (141) EDRS PRICE EDRS Prite MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Cultural Influences; *Heritage Education; Higher Education; Language Teachers; *Native Speakers; Preservice Teacher Education; Second Language Instruction; Second Language Learning; Social Influences; Sociocultural Patterns; *Teacher Student Relationship IDENTIFIERS *Heritage Language ABSTRACT This paper examines classroom interaction between native and non- native instructors and heritage language (HL) students in regular university foreign language (FL) courses, ranging from beginning to advanced levels. After an overview of FL teaching and HL students in U.S. universities, the paper deals with three areas within classroom interaction: the sociocultural backgrounds of both HL learners (1) and native and non-native instructors; the pedagogical conditions of FL classrooms (2) with HL students; and (3; the affective dimensions of the relationship between instructors and HL students. The paper's analysis of these issues serves as a basis for a pedagogical framework for use by native and non-native instructors teaching a FL that is also the home language of HL learners, as well as for programs of FL teacher education. Finally, the paper offers some suggestions for future research into the multifaceted social, cultural, and pedagogical conditions of FL classrooms with HL learners. (Contains 80 references.) (SM) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Interaction with Heritage Language Learners in Foreign Language Classrooms 9,404)) Manel Lacorte and Evelyn Canabal University of Maryland-College Park 00 44 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND his document has been reproduced as DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS received from the person or organization rr BEEN GRANTED BY originating it. Minor changes have been made to &16T,L0 improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) BEST COPY AVAILABLE Interaction with Heritage Language Learners in Foreign Language Classrooms Manel Lacorte and Evelyn Canabal University of Maryland-College Park tahreerseutlht noifcthgerogurpowts inh tohfeHuisnpiatendics, AtastieasninAfrirecceannt, yAreaarbsic, aonsdt institutions of higher education have experienced significant changes in the composition of their student body, more accurately re- flecting the multicultural nature of the country. Logically, as the stu- dent population becomes more diverse in general, the population of FL classrooms does so as well. In recent years, there has been an in- crease in the presence of heritage language (HL) learners, i.e., students from homes where languages other than English are spoken, or who have had in-depth exposure to another language (Campbell 1996; UCLA Steering Committee 2000). Studies in general education and FL teaching and learning have addressed many questions that concern HL learners, such as their range of proficiencies, and the instructional goals and models appropriate for that population. However, little re- search has been conducted on the social and pedagogical climate of classrooms where native as well as non-native instructors teach a FL which is also the home language of the HL learner. This paper exam- ines classroom interaction between native and non-native instructors and HL students in regular university FL courses, ranging from be- ginning to advanced levels. After an overview of FL teaching and HL students in U.S. universities, the paper deals with three areas within classroom interaction: (a) the sociocultural backgrounds of both HL learners and native and non-native instructors; (b) the pedagogical conditions of FL classrooms with HL students; and (c) the affective di- mensions of the relationship between instructors and HL students. I- Our analysis of these issues serves as a basis for a pedagogical frame- .. work for use by native and non-native instructors teaching a FL that is also the home language of HL learners, as well as for programs of .... We would like to thank Maria Carreira, Kim Potowski and Scott McGinnis ---. for their instructive comments on earlier drafts of this article. 107 3 108 The Sociolinguistics of Foreign-Language Classrooms 9'°' FL teacher education. Finally, the paper offers some suggestions for future research into the multifaceted social, cultural, and pedagogical conditions of FL classrooms with HL learners. Foreign Language Teaching and Heritage Language Learners in the U.S. The results of the 1998 survey of FL registration carried out by the Modern Language Association (MLA) given in Table 1 indicate that Spanish is the first choice among university students, and that it oc- cupies a significant place in the undergraduate curriculum (Brod and Welles 2000). The statistics also show that enrollment in other tradi- tional FLs is decreasing, and that students are learning a greater vari- ety of languages. Numerous studentsespecially in large institutionshave tradi- tionally taken FL courses in order to fulfill part of their requirements in certain academic fields. However, other students enroll in interme- diate and advanced language or content-based FL courses, which allow them to obtain honorific mentions or citations in the language, and even pursue a secondary or complementary program of studies e.g., Spanish and Business, German and Philosophy, French and Diplomacy, Italian and Art History, etc. As mentioned in the introduc- tion, with the recent population shift in the U.S. there has been a widespread increase in the number of students with diverse ethnic, Table 1 1998 Foreign Language Enrollment in U.S. Higher Education (MLA) Percentage change 1995 1998 Spanish 606,286 656,590 8.3 3.1 French 199,064 205,351 7.5 German 89,020 96,263 3.5 Japanese 43,141 44,723 Italian 49,287 43,760 12.6 Chinese 26,471 28,456 7.5 3.8 Russian 24,729 23,791 10.0 Hebrew 7,479 6,734 4,444 23.9 5,505 Arabic Korean 3,343 34.0 4,479 Other languages 17,271 2.9 17,771 4 109 Interaction with Heritage Language Learners Table 2 Profile of American College Population (U.S. Census Bureau, 1999) 1999 1979 White non-Hispanic 71% White non-Hispanic 84% 13% Black Black 10% Asian/Pacific Islander 7% Other races 2% Hispanic 9% Hispanic 4% cultural or linguistic backgrounds. In 1999, 38% of public school stu- dents were considered to belong to a minority group, especially His- panic (National Center for Education Statistics 2001). According to a population survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau (1999) as re- ported in Table 2, the race and ethnic composition of college students has also changed during the past two decades. Many universities and colleges currently implement procedures or policies regulating the placement of HL students in the basic sequence of FL courses focused on the traditional linguistic skills in specialized programs for HL learners (where they exist) or in advanced FL courses dealing with content areas such as literature, cultural studies, or lin- guistics (Draper and Hicks 2000). These placement policies can be based on a single source or a combination of data from tests, struc- tured or semi-structured interviews, referrals, etc.1 For the most part, FL courses are designed for monolingual speak- ers of English with little or no knowledge about the language or the people and the cultures involved (Campbell and Peyton 1998), even in the case of less commonly taught language courses where enrollments are often dominated by heritage learners (Brecht and Ingold 1998). Lower-level FL courses in medium and large institutions are usually taught by teaching assistants (TAs), lecturers or adjunct faculty.2 Courses at a more advanced level are generally conducted by tenure- track or tenured faculty members. In contrast to the multisectioned lower-level classes, where TAs and other instructors generally work under the supervision of a course supervisor or a language program coordinator, advanced-level classes tend to fall under the responsibil- ity of the faculty member who has designed, or has been asked to teach the course (Gutiérrez 1990). The following sections of this paper will focus on FL classrooms where heritage learners interact with native TAs (NTAs) and non-native TAs (NNTAs), an area of more im- mediate interest for FL program coord inators. 110 The Sociolinguistics of Foreign-Language Classrooms g4) Research on Heritage Language Learners The term "heritage language learner" is a relatively new concept in language education research, which covers a wide range of profiles such as "home background speaker," "native speaker," "quasi-native speaker," "bilingual speaker," "semilingual speaker," "residual speaker," etc. (Draper and Hicks 2000; Valdés 1997). Several volumes on heritage learners of Spanish and Chinese (AATSP 2000; Colombi and Alarcón 1997; Merino, Trueba, and Samaniego 1993; Valdés, Lozano, and Garcia-Moya 1981; Wang 1996; Webb and Miller 2000) discuss the de- velopment of this new field known as "teaching of heritage speakers." Up to now, researchers have examined: Characteristics of HL learners (Feuerverger 1991; Hidalgo 1997; Roca 1997; Rodriguez Pino 1997; Valdés 1995). Role of FL pedagogy in teaching bilingual students and in maintaining minority languages (Brecht and Ingold 1998; Campbell and Peyton 1998; Valdés 2000; Zentella 1986). Teaching of dialect, prestige or standard varieties (Carreira 2000; Hidalgo 1997; Porras 1997; Valdés 1998, 1999; Villa 1996). Testing and assessment (Liu 1996; Otheguy and Toro 2000; Teschner 2000; Valdés 1997; Wang 1996; Ziegler 1981). Curricular and pedagogical issues (Colombi and Alarcón 1997; Mazzocco 1996; Merino, Trueba, and Samaniego 1983; Roca and Gutiérrez 2000; Romero 2000; Sak- Humphrey 2000; Wang 1996). Teacher education (Clair and Adger 1999; Gutiérrez 1997; Peng 1996; Roca 1997; Romero 2000; Scalera 1997; Sylvan 2000; Valdés 1999; Villa 1996). Perspectives on bilingualism and language loss, teacher atti- tudes and beliefs (Clair and Adger 1999; Gutiérrez 1997; Roca 1997; Romero 2000; Scalera 1997; Sylvan 2000; Valdés 1999; Villa 1996). Although most of the research carried out in the U.S. has dealt with Spanishprimarily due to both historical and demographic rea- sonsthe above studies and their findings suggest a need for further research on issues that may affect heritage learners in every language. Much has been written about the teaching needs and practices of the heritage population, not only in relation to what goes on within the classroom, but often about the impact of HL programs in specific communities. Some of these programs, aimed at language proficiency 111 Interaction with Heritage Language Learners f and cultural heritage maintainance, have slowly but steadily estab- lished connections with school districts and universities so that her- itage learners may receive academic credits in exchange for their work in community language schools.3 Furthermore, the increasing aware- and learning of foreign ness of the differences between the teaching languages, second languages, native languages and heritage languages has opened a Pandora's box of questions that require urgent and care- ful attention from researchers. In this respect, issues that had fre- quently been raised through anecdotal descriptions alonee.g., placement, assessment, materials, and goalshave begun to be ana- lyzed more systematically, addressing Valdés' argument that current practices are not "informed by a coherent set of theories about lan- guage learning" (Valdés 1997, p. 17). Social and Cultural Backgrounds Research has already demonstrated that "heritage language learners student" (Draper are different from the traditional foreign language and Hicks 2000, p. 20), especially with regard to their sociolinguistic background. It is thus essential to explore the uniqueness of HL learn- and non-native ers in order to understand their interaction with native instructors in the FL classroom. The social and cultural background of HL learners may involve questions such as: How well established is the student's heritage community? How strong is the contact between the heritage community and its country or countries of origin? How well established is the student's heritage community? What are the perceptions toward the specific ethnic group speaking the heritage language? Despite these and other questions, the following variables language: can be considered as common to heritage learners in every Age Family background Socioeconomic background Level of education Level of competency Degree of contact and attitudes toward heritage community Degree of acculturation to the mainstream community Resources of the HL community (newspapers, TV stations, school programs, community-based activities, etc.) It is difficult to "match" heritage speakers' individual language abilities in every FL course or to tailor courses to serve HL learners' 112 The Sociolinguistics of Foreign-Language Classrooms 1/4g42' needs, especially when some basic questions have not been answered. For example, it is crucial that teachers know how different language skills may transfer to ensure that pedagogical practices will suit the objectives of a course for such diverse group of students. Also, a her- itage learner may be fluent in the prestige variety or in the colloquial (and often stigmatized) variety of the target language; he or she may be English-dominant with or without good academic skills; he or she may be a recent immigrant or may be a U.S. born second or third gen- eration bilingual (Valdés 1997). Some may resist enrolling in an aca- demic course on their heritage language after having internalized that their language is defective and needs to be "corrected." Other students are mostly receptive bilinguals conditioned not to "produce" anything in the target language. These learners may often switch languages in the midst of a conversation; they are probably members of speech communities in which more than one language is typically used and, in a classroom context, they often seem unable to understand gram- matical explanations about their own heritage language. The use of TAs in U.S. research universities became a standard practice in the 1960s when the influx of war veterans and a general population growth caused a shortage of instructors at the post-sec- ondary levels (Schulz 2000). Universities appreciated the advantages involved in "offering TA support to attract graduate students and at the same time to hold down the cost of undergraduate instruction" (Guthrie 2001, p. 20). After the 1970s, the number of international teaching assistants (ITAs) started to increase steadily, due to favorable academic conditions offered by U.S. institutions to international stu- dents and scholars, and a general interest in new cultural and peda- gogic perspectives in higher education (Chalupa and Lair 2001).4 While in the 1960s a majority of FL departments did not provide training and supervision for their TAs, preservice and inservice prepa- ration is now widely common in most institutions in a number of for- mats such as methods courses, TA orientations, pedagogic and professional workshops, resource centers, mentoring programs, etc. Despite the improvements made in professional development of TAs, the literature related to TAs in FL education has pointed to several concerns regarding the personal, academic and professional needs of both NTAs and NNTAs. For example, some writers have argued that TA training may be more related to institutional demands than to the overall education of TAs as professional teachers of language, litera- ture, and culture (Gorell and Cubillos 1993; Kinginger 1995). In addi- tion, the academic culture of FL departments may still reflect an image of language teaching and TA training as subordinate to the teaching of literature and cultural studies (Patrikis 1995). This could 8 113 Interaction with Heritage Language Learners be the case in some departments with a strong literary orientation, where TAs and ITAs may be less interested in teaching FL ora much more common situationmay be subjected to arduous teaching schedules, high academic expectations, and meager economic condi- tions of their graduate assistant status, regardless of whether they are teaching monolingual or heritage students. Other studies have analyzed characteristics of TAs and ITAs con- cerning the balance between language ability and intercultural and pedagogic skills, the teaching of grammar and other cross-cultural issues in the language classroom, and the process of acculturation to the institutional context. Nelson's (1990) review of literature on ITA re- search deals mainly with teaching behaviors that might be considered effective instruction, like asking and answering questions, giving ex- planations, and relating old and new information. The review con- cludes that college students prefer ITAs who use interactive and interpersonal teaching behaviors and who talk about their native cul- ture in class. Salomone (1998) focuses on the teaching of grammar as a crucial problem for ITAs in American colleges and universities. In contrast to current teaching approaches in the U.S. that emphasize in- class functional language use, the teaching practices of ITAs are typi- cally grammar-based practices. The results indicate that ITAs in this study seemed to be unsure about how to teach grammar, and some- times unable to explain specific grammatical concepts to their stu- dents within a communicative approach to language instruction. Other pedagogic and cross-cultural issues refer to the ITAs concerns over student behavior, students' lack of language background in both English and the FL, student apathy, and differing perceptions of the teacher's role and the student's role (Salomone 1998, p. 558). Chalupa and Lair (2001) examine the situation of ITAs with regard to three dis- tinct categories: language, acculturation, and university policy. As in Salomone (1998), information was collected from ITAs with diverse linguistic and professional backgrounds. The results of this study in- dicate again the difficulties that ITAs may have in keeping a balance between grammar teaching and a communicative orientation, espe- cially when it comes to explaining complex grammar structures. Cul- tural differences may arise in the level of formality or informality in the classroom, the dynamics of teacher-centered vs. student-centered instruction, and the personal interaction between students and in- structors. Other comments from ITAs about U.S. students concern their "lack of respect and self-motivation, their lack of seriousness with regard to their education despite high tuition costs, their negative reaction to instructor strictness, and the apparent pampering of the students by the educational system" (Chalupa and Lair 2001, p. 135). . 114 The Sociolinguistics of Foreign-Language Classrooms '2° Finally, differences between NTAs and NNTAs may also be noticed in terms of their knowledge about the overall U.S. educational system, and institutional policies related to grading, attendance and punctual- ity, academic misconduct and discipline, and sexual harassment. Pedagogical Conditions Research conducted in the second or foreign language classroom has provided teachers with answers to some queries about balancing com- prehension and production, teaching grammar, treating errors, etc. (see e.g., Chaudron 2001; Ligthbown 2000; Pica 1994). Finally, the de- velopment of the Standards for Foreign Language Learning (1996) has pointed to the combination of linguistic and cultural skills as the foun- dation for proficiency in a FL, and the need to reconsider issues such as the length of the sequences of language study, standards-based as- sessment, and teacher development (Phillips 1999). These advances have clearly had a positive effect in areas of FL teacher development such as assessment of teacher effectiveness, models for preservice and inservice development, supervisory practices, and data-based studies relevant to teacher development (Schulz 2000, 495). However, many P. problems remain unexplored, especially in regards to the specific social and pedagogical conditions that FL teachers find in their class- rooms. This section focuses on pedagogical concerns in courses with HL students, and more specifically on the linguistic competency in English and the target language, the linguistic interaction between the classroom participants, and the techniques and teaching materials commonly used in FL instruction with HL students. At the secondary level, FL teachers presently face a quite difficult situation, wherein they may have to deal with traditional FL students (monolingual Anglophone students); second- and third-generation heritage students who are largely English-dominant; and newly ar- rived students possessing little or no knowledge of English and differ- ent degrees of schooling from their countries of origin (Valdés 1997). In colleges and universities, the use of linguistic and cultural registers is compounded by the diverse backgrounds of both instructors and students. Newly arrived HL learners generally have high levels of lin- guistic and cultural competency in their first language, but they may lack second- and third-generation learners' familiarity with the lin- guistic and cultural characteristics of both English and the heritage language. Likewise, NNTAs often know the language and how to talk about it, while NTAs often have a less structured knowledge of their own language, but are more familiar with the target culture(s). An- other group of TAs would consist. of HL learners enrolled as graduate 0