Teaching Heritage Languages: Bringing Research on Identity, Ideology, and Interaction Into Teaching Practice
Heritage language (HL) learners are often described as “semi-fluent,” “non-standard,” or “deficient". These labels obscure the dynamic, socially embedded nature of their linguistic lives. This webinar brings current research on identity, ideology, and interaction into direct conversation with classroom practice, offering instructors theoretically grounded yet practical approaches to heritage language teaching.
The webinar begins by defining heritage languages and heritage learners, emphasizing that heritage language development is nonlinear, historically situated, and shaped by shifting social contexts. Drawing on key research findings from applied linguistics, the webinar highlights four interrelated principles that inform the discussion throughout:
(1) heritage language and identity are dynamic and continuously negotiated
(2) home and heritage languages evolve across time, space, and domains of use
(3) societal language ideologies profoundly shape how learners value their own linguistic resources
(4) language shift and maintenance are driven by everyday micro-interactions rather than macro forces alone.
Building on this foundation, the webinar proposes a set of pedagogical principles for HL instruction: identity-centered and sociocultural pedagogy, translanguaging as a resource-oriented approach, critical language awareness, and form-focused instruction embedded in meaningful, culturally relevant contexts. These principles are illustrated through concrete classroom methods, including learner autobiographies, language portrait projects, collaborative translation and creative writing, critical analysis of public discourse, and interaction-focused routines such as dialogue journals and role plays.
By foregrounding learners’ lived experiences and everyday interactions, this webinar invites educators to rethink heritage language teaching not as remediation toward monolingual norms, but as an inclusive, dynamic practice that affirms learners’ evolving identities and multilingual repertoires.
Speaker: Dr. Agnes He from Stony Brook University
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