Heritage Language Institute
Held June 22-26, 2002, UCLA
Teaching Heritage Languages: Principles, Practices, and Future Possibilities
Guadalupe Valdés, Stanford
This presentation offers a brief overview of the linguistic and educational conditions that gave rise to the focus on the teaching of heritage languages with the foreign language profession in the United States. Using the case of Spanish, it presents current basic principles informing heritage language instruction and traces the evolution of these principles and practices over time. Finally, it focuses on the future and identifies key challenges facing the development of comprehensive programs of heritage language learning within existing institutional structures.
