Teaching Heritage and Domestic Language Learners in LCTL Courses

Project Directors: Karen E. Johnson & Joan Kelly Hall, Penn State University

Goal: This project will create multimedia instructional materials designed to enhance the professional development of teachers of less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) in order to enable them to better meet the instructional needs of both heritage and domestic language learners enrolled in post-secondary LCTL courses.

Description:

Multimedia case studies of effective teachers of Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Korean will be developed that contain digitally recorded classroom instructional episodes (selected 2-3 minute video clips) supplemented with teacher commentary (in English) that capture how these teachers adapt their interactional strategies, instructional activities, and curricular resources to meet the linguistic, cultural and pedagogical needs of both heritage and domestic language learners. Additional teacher commentary (selected 2-3 minute video clips) will be drawn from digitally recorded semi-structured interviews (in English) with teachers about their own linguistic and cultural backgrounds as heritage or domestic language speakers, their experiences teaching both groups of learners and the special pedagogical conditions created by their presence in the same classroom.Particular attention will be paid to teachers’ descriptions of the specific linguistic and cultural understandings they and their students bring to the classroom and the specific instructional and other strategies teachers use to create effectual learning communities based on the shared goal of raising all students’ language proficiencies.Each case study will also contain digitally recorded student commentary (selected 2-3 minute video clips in English) on the particular linguistic, cultural and pedagogical challenges they face as heritage and domestic language learners, the kinds of peer intercultural relationships such mixed classes afford, and the role these relationships play in their classroom language learning experiences.

Designed as interactive professional development materials for novice LCTLs teachers, the multimedia case studies will bring users into the minds and classrooms of LCTL teachers and their students, and expose, in their own actions and words, not only the complexities of these unique language learning environments but also provide richly detailed examples of effective instructional practices for teaching all LCTL students.

2008 Summer Workshop at University Park

Challenges in Teaching Heritage and Domestic Language Learners

Wednesday + Thursday, June 25 - 26, 2008 .....9:00am - 4:30pm

This workshop will focus on the challenges that language teachers face as they seek to meet the linguistic, cultural and instructional needs of both heritage and domestic language learners enrolled in post-secondary LCTL courses. Using multimedia case studies of actual LCTL classrooms, workshop participants will be prompted to reflect on their own experiences of working with both heritage and domestic language learners, share the interactional strategies, instructional activities, and curricular resources they rely on to meet the needs of their students, and develop strategies for creating effectual learning communities based on the shared goal of raising all students' language proficiencies.

Presenters: Karen E. Johnson and Joan Kelly Hall, Penn State
PA teachers: ACT 48 - 12 hrs