Welcome to Heritage Language Teaching!

Teaching Heritage Languages: An Introduction

A growing number of students from immigrant families are seeking out instruction in the language spoken in their homes—their heritage language. Generally, these students have a different proficiency in this language than their foreign language counterparts, which makes it difficult to place them in traditional foreign language classes. Therefore, knowing the features and understanding the challenges of teaching heritage populations has become increasingly necessary for language instructors from elementary school through university.

On this website you will find information about heritage languages and heritage language learners, heritage programs and curricula, course content and materials, language skills, and assessment. A number of lesson plans illustrate ways of teaching course content and language skills.

Due to the introductory nature and electronic format of this work, the length of each file has been kept to a minimum, and a systematic effort has been made to describe facts and make suggestions that are heritage language specific. A selective list of readings will enable the reader to focus on particular areas of interest.

Heritage language teaching is a rapidly evolving area of study and research, and this website began as a small-scale attempt at introducing UC instructors to its features and challenges. Therefore, readers are invited to submit contributions that will expand the number and scope of topics covered. Both theoretical articles and descriptions of classroom practices are welcome.

If you are interested in commenting on or contributing to the content of this website, please contact Dr. Olga Kagan.

Enjoy Teaching Heritage Languages: An Introduction!

The website developers

Published: Wednesday, January 03, 2007