Educating students with heritage languages: present views and future challenges

Abstract

Given the increase of mobility and migration phenomena, around 244 million people around the world are migrants. This trend has turned diversity into one of the main characteristics of contemporary societies. In this context, multilingualism has become highly valued and, consequently, language learning is amply promoted. We will specifically focus on heritage languages (HLs). A HL can be defined as a language spoken at home which, crucially, is not the dominant language of the community at large. In this article, we will basically focus on HLs in educational settings and take also into account the new languages to which migrant students are exposed to, in addition to maintenance and promotion (or lack thereof) of HLs in the host community. Additionally, we will refer to different HL teaching programmes, considering their characteristics and efficiency, and we will focus mostly on Catalan-speaking territories as well as on the connection between LHs and identity. Finally, we will mention some future challenges in these areas from a pedagogical viewpoint and provide some concluding remarks.