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CHAPTER 29
EXPLORING THE VALUE OF HERITAGE LANGUAGES AND CULTURES IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN A GLOBALIZING WORLD: The Case of Mandarin Classes in a Secondary School Roumiana Ilieva
Simon Fraser University, Canada
Introduction white paper, published following a National Conference in 2007 on International Languages and Education in Canada, asks:
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How to make our way in a globalized world? This is the pressing question nations and people grapple with today. It is a multi-dimensional question with serious economic, political, cultural, and social implications. At the intersection: how do we communicate using language and how do we leverage linguistic diversity to ensure a high quality of life for all Canadians. (Mineer, 2008)
Language education in Canada’s provinces is a complex matter reflecting the social heterogeneity and policy framework of this multicultural nation. Viewed critically, the inextricable relationships between power, language, and ideology (Bourdieu, 1991) raises the question as to whether language policies and programs serve to legitimate or to marginalize the languages, cultures,and identities of immigrant and/or minority students within public education. This is an important question to address in the globalized interdependent world in which we live. This chapter will first look at language policies affecting current heritage language programming in British Columbia (BC), Canada.Given the policy context, it will then discuss data from a study
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in Mandarin language classrooms in one secondary school in BC with a view to reflect on challenges in valuing the cultural and linguistic resources and identities the heterogeneous student populations in such classrooms bring. These challenges highlight the need to go beyond current powerful social practices and discourses in language education which continue to render invisible multilingual practices and transnational identities in public schools. Perhaps we can begin to address the questions posed in the white paper by exploring the ways heritage languages and cultures in Canada are valued or devalued in the public school system and situated within broader language education discourses in a globalizing world. Heritage Languages and the Language Policy Context in British Columbia In Canada the term “heritage language” emerged in the 1970s to denote languages other than the official languages of the country (English and French) or the indigenous languages of the First Nations populating the land (Cummins, 2005; Duff & Li, 2009). The 70s and 80s saw a plethora of activities and legislative support to advance heritage language instruction and maintenance, and as Duff (2008a) observes, Canada was viewed as a world leader in that regard. In the 70s and 80s the interest in heritage language programming in public schools or in after-school and weekend community schools was the result of upholding official federal and provincial policies of multiculturalism within a “bilingual framework” (e.g., Canada Multiculturalism Act, 1988) which acknowledged the diversity of the population as an essential part of the Canadian cultural mosaic. Diversity continues to characterize Canada’s population, with more than 20% speaking neither English nor French as a mother tongue (Statistics Canada, 2006)1, but the interest into heritage languages has waned since the 1990s2. Indeed, heritage language programming is no longer en vogue with policies, and within the public school system, there has been a shift in terminology from heritage to international languages (Beynon, LaRocque, Ilieva and Dagenais, 2005; Duff, 2008; Tavares, 2000). This shift represents distaste with a term supposedly reflecting a focus on the past and traditions with a term disclosing the impact of globalization on educational systems and discourses in Canada. The increased sense of interdependence and the significance of Asia and other emergent markets in the new global economy has had its impact on the focus of language
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programming in the country. As Tavares (2000) observes, in the 1990s a focus was emerging in second language curricula with “less emphasis on cultural maintenance and more emphasis on the application of languages for career opportunities and economic development in a multilingual global society” (p. 161). The significance of these programs was that they were not intended as “heritage” programs targeted at Canadian students of Asian ancestry, but directed primarily at students with no heritage connection to the languages or cultures of the Asia-Pacific region (ibid.). A brief overview of the language education policy in one of Canada’s provinces, British Columbia, would provide an example of this shift. The BC Ministry’s of Education Language Education policy of 1996/2009 guides heritage/international language education programming in the public school system. According to this policy document: The Government of British Columbia will ensure all students will have the opportunity to learn languages that are significant within our communities.
Viewed from a critical perspective, this statement suggests that the policy opens up possibilities for, but does not commit to, availability of instruction in particular languages significant in particular communities. As Duff (2008) writes about the BC context in her recent overview of heritage language education in Canada: The BC language policy was problematic [as] it blurred and collapsed heritage and second (modern/international) language courses and programs … [and] left decision regarding which languages would be offered at schools up to local school districts which meant that decisions tended to be based on resources available within the district. (p. 84)
This meant languages representing the heritage of large diasporic communities in British Columbia waited for the mobilization of community resources to enter public schools as part of available language classes with political factors often entering into the decision-making process.This process continues to develop today on a somewhat ad-hoc basis. The blurring is evident, as well, in the second/additional language approach to programs in languages that could be heritage languages for many students defacto attending these classes. First, as Beynon et al (2005) note,
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virtually all “international” language programming in BC public schools takes the form of specific courses in additional languages as opposed to integration of language in a variety of subjects. Second, Beynon et al’s review of the comprehensive curriculum templates developed with Ministry of Education support for international languages at the secondary level suggests that the discourse in these Instructional Resource Packages (IRP’s) is detailed in regard to cultural and social referents as part of language instruction, but is ambiguous in reference to who constitutes the student audience. For example, students of Punjabi or Mandarin are asked to interview their own family members and to compare their experiences to those of the Punjabi or Chinese community. The authors point out that “whether the IRP’s assume no students of these minority ancestries are enrolled in the classes is not made clear” (p. 125). Similarly, at the elementary school level, “the second language curriculum is developed for students who are just beginning to learn the second language” (p. 123). Employing a critical lens, Beynon, et al. conclude that the tasks and activities that curriculum guidelines suggest appear to exclude from in-school “international” language classes those minority students for whom such languages are heritage languages and who would benefit socially and educationally from participation. The provincial policy [re]definitionof heritage languages as international languages appropriates these from the potential educational biographies of minority language students and interpolates them into the educational biographies of mainstream students defacto delegitimizing the languages and cultures of minority or immigrant students. Given these policy discourses around international/heritage languages in public education, it would be helpful to explore the make-up and the experiences of students within international language classrooms. The study discussed below offers some insights in that respect. Heritage Language Students in International Language Classes There is ample literature pointing to the role a heritage language plays in students’ intellectual development, their family and heritage language community affiliations, and cultural identifications (Abdi, 2009; Beynon and Toohey, 1991; Comanaru and Noels, 2009; Cummins, 2000, 2007; Duff and Li, 2009; Guardado, 2009; Hornberger, 2005; Li & Duff, 2008). Research into the differences and similarities between heritage and non-heritage language learners is also burgeoning (Lu and Li, 2008; Triantafillidou and Hedcock,
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2007). But there is scant research on the experiences of what would traditionally be considered “heritage” language learners into classes in “international” languages. Moreover, this scant literature seems to note marginalization of such students and lack of attention to their specific linguistic needs and aspirations. A recent study in the US (Harklau, 2009) discusses the growing interest in the experiences of Spanish heritage language learners in high school Spanish classrooms, the language ideologies at play in classrooms with mixed Latino heritage and monolingual white students, and documents the experiences of two heritage language speakers who increasingly felt alienated from their Spanish classes. In BC, there have been recently some studies examining the experiences of heritage language students in university language courses (Li, 2005; Shinbo, 2004). Li, for example, observed that heritage language learners of Chinese in a university course in Mandarin in BC were by no means a homogeneous group in terms of language, national background and literacy profiles, but they were all attending the class for integrative and instrumental purposes (i.e., as a way of exploring their own ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and also in order to increase their future career opportunities). There are also some studies focusing on the experiences of heritage language learners in international language classes in BC public schools (Abdi, 2009; Buteri, 2003). Abdi (2009), who conducts research with students in Spanish classes, observes that a growing number of students are choosing to enroll in high school classes for their heritage language development and posing challenges for teachers who have to teach them alongside non-heritage foreign/ international language students. Abdi’s study looked at the interactions of heritage language and foreign language students in these mixed classes of Spanish at the high school level with a view to provide insights into how best to accommodate various types of students in a language course. Abdi found that willingness to speak was an important factor affecting heritage language students’ status in the classrooms together with other factors such as age or social group affiliations. A study into a Mandarin program in a secondary school by Buteri (2003) offers insights into the experiences of Chinese immigrants and Canadianborn Chinese in the program. The secondary school is located in a neighborhood in the Greater Vancouver area which is the home of a large population of Canadians of Chinese ancestry as well as newly arrived immigrants, primarily from mainland China and Taiwan. The study suggests that students
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of Chinese backgrounds enrolled in the program saw their class as a place where their language resources gave them better chances of high grades and enhanced possibilities for university admission, a place where they could talk in their first language, make more friends and engage in new, positive ways with the reality of having a Chinese background. Their most important recommendation was to make the class more responsive to students’ diverse origins and Chinese dialects. Other recommendations referred to the importance of incorporating simplified, and not only traditional, writing in the Mandarin classroom, the desire to include language classes in Cantonese, as well as Mandarin, at the secondary level, and design separate courses for native and non-native speakers of Mandarin at the high school level. The research discussed here was conducted at the same school half a decade later and thus offers insights into how or whether there have been changes in how Mandarin as an international language classes are designed as well as the experiences of students in this school. Language and Culture(s) in Mandarin as a Second Language Classrooms in one School Data Collection The data reported here were collected for a study designed to investigate understandings about language and culture(s) developed through engagement with the Mandarin as a Second/International Language curriculum for high school classes. The goal was to add to research and knowledge specifically on the place and role of heritage languages in the public education context. Thirty-eight students taking Mandarin in 3 different classes (Mandarin Grade 9, Mandarin Grades 9, 10 and 11 for native writers, and Mandarin Grade 12) volunteered to participate in the study and responded in focus groups to open-ended interview questions that inquired into the understandings they develop about Mandarin language and Chinese culture(s) thanks to their involvement in a Mandarin language classroom in a public school setting. Focus group interviews were conducted in the students’ language of choice (i.e., English or Mandarin or a mixture of English and Mandarin). The Mandarin teacher in the school is a Chinese-born immigrant who arrived in Canada as an adult and obtained a Master’s degree from a Canadian university. She responded to open-ended interview questions that inquired about the views the teacher had and tried to transmit to her students about
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Mandarin language and Chinese cultures as per her understandings of the curriculum mandates and her personal perspectives on the Mandarin as an international language courses that she teaches. In addition, student participants filled in brief questionnaires providing background demographic information (e.g., age, gender, place of birth, primary language of communication, and so forth) and were also invited to describe, if they wish, their identity affiliations. It is hoped that the data discussed here will advance us towards the development of expanded understandings of complexities surrounding experiences with language and culture(s) in Mandarin language classrooms and, by implication, in other modern/international language classrooms among the heterogeneous student populations in these courses. The data were analyzed through the lens of critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2003) with a view to discern the belief systems, the relationships and the identities shared and performed in the interviews. Each of the three classes was observed for 2 classroom periods and curriculum materials used in the classrooms at the time of observations were consulted. Data Analysis “Regular” Mandarin and Mandarin for “Native Writers.” As mentioned, the collected data point to developments in the teaching of Mandarin in a school half a decade after Buteri’s (2003) study in the same school. The main changes included the incorporation of both simplified and traditional writing in all Mandarin classes and the attempts to differentiate the classes on the basis of language proficiency and assumed native-like knowledge of the language into “Mandarin” classes and “Mandarin for native writers” class. There have been calls in the literature that placing students in heritage and non-heritage tracks in language programs is likely more effective and that the instructional approaches, materials and priorities for heritage language learners may need to be very different from those for foreign/international language learners (Duff, 2008b; Kondo-Brown, 2010; Triantafillidou and Hedgcock, 2007) and this school’s language programming seems to be in agreement with such views. While Li and Duff (2008) observed that in colleges and universities in BC Chinese courses are still primarily designed for learners with no significant familiarity or connection to Chinese languages and cultures, this
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particular school has made an attempt to diversify its offerings of Mandarin classes given the large number of students with Chinese affiliations who attend such classes. Thus, these classes, while offered as classes in an “international” language, appear to welcome heritage language speakers. The largest number, a little over 32 percent, of all 38 participants in the study were born in China and the same number of participants were born in Canada and Taiwan (21.6 percent each). In addition, the primary language of communication for over 32 percent of the students was Mandarin while for 19 percent it was English and 13.5 percent reported both English and Mandarin as primary languages. Just over 10% stated that their primary language of communication was Cantonese and the remaining participants pointed to more than two languages or other languages like Korean, Turkish and Japanese as primary languages for communication. Only 9 out of 38 students had not attended school outside Canada. As pointed out, the classes in the school distinguish between “regular” Mandarin and Mandarin for “native writers”, and acknowledge in their designation that Mandarin is indeed a “heritage” language for some of the students. While Mandarin Grade 9 is intended for “beginner students who have no or little Chinese language background” and Mandarin Grade 12 is for “students who have prerequisite of Mandarin 11 or equivalent”, Mandarin Grades 9, 10 and 11 “is intended for native Chinese writing students (including Mandarin and Cantonese speakers) who have attended schools in Chinese speaking countries for about 3 or more years or students who have equivalent language levels” (School website). As evident in the designations, the classes seem to be structured on the basis of language proficiency and native speakerness/familial affiliation where high language proficiency is associated with native speakerness and familial association. These designations do not seem to acknowledge possible ethnic, historical or sociopolitical investment in the language decoupled from language proficiency (which represents one of two perspectives commonly associated with definitions of heritage language learners3, the second focusing solely on actual linguistic proficiency) (Bale, 2010; Valdes, 2001). Such decoupling, which assumingly aims for homogeneity among students with respect to (lack of) language proficiency could potentially have curriculum and pedagogical implications where engagement with student ancestral ethnolinguistic identities and investment in the language is unlikely to be common in the “regular”
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Mandarin classrooms. As will become evident in the next section, such engagement was not common in any of the classrooms. The construction of native-like proficiency (i.e., a class for “native writers”) along the axis of literacy in the Mandarin 9/10/11 class is also a distinction aimed at putting together students in more homogeneous groups. What is interesting, however, is that these differentiations do not do justice to the heterogeneity characterizing these students, especially given the transnational mobility that characterizes the times we live in.One of the “native writer” students identified herself as a Muslim, Turk/Canadian and her proficiency in Mandarin was the direct result of the transnational opportunities common in the globalized world in which we live as she followed her father’s settling in China to establish a trading business and had 4 years of schooling there prior to immigrating with her parents to Canada. With regards to this heterogeneity, the self-identifications data from the questionnaires collecting demographic information are truly fascinating in presenting the kinds of complex identity positions/affiliations with which students enter both “regular” Mandarin and “Mandarin for native writers” classrooms. A student who identified himself as Asian American was born in the US, but then lived in Hong Kong till he was 7 years old after which time he went to Canada for 3 years and then back to Hong Kong and now, in high school, back to Canada. Some further examples of these complex identity affiliations are: I am a Japanese born Chinese with a Canadian citizenship. I am Chinese and a banana4. Canadian, female, English/Irish/Ukraine heritage.
Appreciating this diversity can be truly challenging for a teacher mandated to teach Mandarin as an “international” language with the expectation that a learning outcome for her high school students in relation to developing understanding of culture and society would involve identifying “some similarities between their own customs and those of Chinese cultures” (in grade 9) or identifying and discussing “similarities and differences between their own customs and those of Chinese cultures” (in grade 10) or identifying “customs and traditions from various cultures in the Canadian mosaic, and compare[ing] them with those of Chinese cultures” (in grade 11) (BC Ministry of Education, 1998). These curriculum discourses frame students in
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the Mandarin classes as devoid of ancestral ethnolinguistic affiliations with native speakers of the language. Indeed such curriculum guidelines can in no way be reconciled with a class for “native writers” and render the learning context quite confusing. Another set of data speaks about another level of complexity referring to the different investments (McKay and Wong, 1996; Norton, 2000) in the language and knowledge of the culture(s) associated with Mandarin. Just a quick review of data only from students in the “native writers” class speaks to the challenges that a teacher in this class faces. In response to my question asking about motivations to take the class, I got a multitude of answers such as: S1: We have Mandarin backgrounds and Mandarin 9 is easy to us. We all want to move to Advanced Placement. … S5: I love Mandarin. I am Chinese. …I love my country. S2: My parents made me. S3: I just came here [to Canada] and I thought if I took this course, it could be easier to find friends on the first day of school.
The quotes above coming from four students in the “Mandarin for native writers” class display very different investments. S1 is in the class because he wants to advance to an Honours level Mandarin class which would add to the academic capital with which he graduates high school. S5 is in the class because that allows for an enactment and display of affiliation with her native country China. S2, a Canadian-born Chinese, seems disengaged with the content and only following parents’ wishes and S3 is a newly arrived immigrant looking forward to forging connections with local students who share some linguistic and cultural knowledge with him. As Li and Duff (2008) observe, traditional dichotomies of motivation (integrative vs. instrumental), just as those related to “native” and “non-native” speakers or “native” versus “target” languages/cultures become blurred and blended among learners of Chinese as a heritage language. The researchers also comment that learners’ identities and trajectories in diasporic communities, like their own affiliation with the language and motivation for studying it, are dynamic, contingent, multidirectional, and hybrid. The data above confirm these positions and point to strong emotional responses to students’ presence in an “international” language class; emotional responses
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that teachers may not need to engage with commonly in classrooms populated only by non-heritage learners. In addition, engagement with curriculum on Chinese cultures in the native writers Mandarin 9/10/11 class may also be challenging given that: S5: Some people came here [to Canada] earlier, like in Grade 1 or 2, they might not know as much about Chinese culture. Like … taking this course, these stories [we] read [are] like Chinese history or Chinese culture and they can learn about it. For some people who came here later like Grade 5 or 6, they know a lot about Chinese culture already. The stuff that we learn is a kind of review of the knowledge that we have already known...so it is a kind of not that useful.
Clearly S5, who, as attested on the previous page, saw the class as a place to perform her Chineseness, is somewhat dissatisfied as she is not exposed to developing new cultural knowledge about her motherland. Thus, heterogeneity of experiences and cultural knowledge among these students seems evident again and requires that we begin to complicate the common sense assumption that language programming in separate tracks for heritage and non-heritage speakers would be necessarily more effective for language and culture learning. Who/What is Chinese in a Mandarin Language Class? Another theme evident in the data refers to assumptions around Chinese communities and culture(s) pervading the Mandarin classrooms. One of the interview questions posed to the students was: Are there things about life in Chinese communities in Canada that you want to learn in this classroom? The teacher was asked a related question (i.e., whether there were things about life in Chinese communities in Canada that she found important to communicate to her students?). As the quotes below attest, responses to these questions speak to the devaluing of local Chinese communities and cultures and perhaps too much of a focus on the “mother” country in terms of negotiating knowledge and understandings about language and culture as it was the culture(s) of China on the other side of the Pacific ocean that occupied the curriculum materials5. In addition, there was little focus on diasporic communities as a resource to learn about and negotiate linguistic and cultural knowledge. Overall both students and the teacher reacted with surprise to this question.
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For example, when asked: J: So [in the class] did you ever think about knowing more about Chinese communities in Canada? In Vancouver?
one of the students in a focus group in the Mandarin 12 class succinctly responded: S1: No, isn’t that us?
The dismissal of any value in learning more about “themselves” in a Mandarin class in a public school which is evident in this student’s response speaks volumes to the absence of discourses around her that invite appreciation of diasporic experiences as legitimate and powerful enactments of “Chineseness” in an “international” language class in a public school. The conversation with the teacher required longer negotiation of what in fact was being asked: R: OK, what about anything about life in Chinese communities in Canada… T: Life in what? R: In Chinese communities in Canada because you talked about Chinese culture… T: About Chinese people living here? R: Yes. Is there something about Chinese people living here that you talked about in class or? T: There are so many. First generation is so different from second generation and third generation, right? R: Yes, I mean, my question is, “Is there discussion of these things at all?” T: You mean in class? R: Yes, do they talk about these things in class or not? T: About Chinese people? R: Chinese people in Canada. T: They talk about their parents. But we don’t talk about other Chinese people. R: So what were they saying about…? T: I think in Social Studies class they talk about, you know…imm R: Immigration. T: Yes, immigration.
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The extended interaction above between the teacher and me around the significance of this question is another example of the invisibility and devaluing of the rich and varied experiences and languages of Chinese people in Canada as tools to cherish Chinese cultures in a Mandarin as an international language classroom. The fact that the teacher interrupted this line of inquiry by making reference to a Social Studies class as the rightful place to discuss ethnicity or immigration displays the apparent lack of cross-curricular integration of knowledge building and appreciation of the diversity of languages and cultures in this public school context. The disassociation of Mandarin class with learning about diasporic communities seems quite remarkable given the large number of students in these “international” classes that are members of these communities and represents the power of monolingual and monocultural views on language education. Curriculum Resources. A third and final theme to be discussed here (given the brevity of the chapter) refers to the inadequacy of curriculum resources as experienced in these classrooms. The quotes below attest to that: E: Do you notice … any differences or similarities between your personal ideas of Chinese language and culture and what you actually learn in classroom here, for Chinese language and culture? S2: The textbook we are using is very out of date. … China is developing quickly …. The content in the textbook is very different from the “China” that I read in newspaper. Tremendous changes happened in China ….[the textbook] says Chinese people mostly take public transit or ride bike when they travel around. But the reality is that most people in China now have their own cars … … S1: The content in the textbook is very silly…. For example, the book tells stories which happened when Chinese people just start using computers. But every family can have a computer. So I feel… S2: I feel a kind of disappointed. L: ...So how you find what in your textbook is different from what you have known about China… S1: The Internet. S3: Newspaper. And we know from friends. We have friends not only in Canada. We have friends in China, Taiwan, and any other country. And then they inform us. We phone them; they phone us, or MSN or anything6. We talk about what is going on. We don’t only talk about our own
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life. We talk about what is going on globally. So that is how we know all these stuffs about how the textbook…Sometimes I told them about the textbook and they said: “Oh, you know it is so old. It doesn’t catch up to what we are doing now.” …We still learn stuff. It is not just the stuff that we think is useful for outside...the classroom.
It is common knowledge nowadays that “new communications and transportation technologies have made transnational practices more intense, more immediate and more systematic than in the past” (Satzewitch & Liodakis, 2007, p. 222). This reality enhances transnationalism: “the process by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement” (p. 214) and “maintain strong cultural ties to actual or imagined communities in their countries of origin while living in diaspora” (Guardado, 2008, p. 222).The quotes above suggest that the students in the “international” Mandarin classrooms for whom Chinese languages are heritage languages commonly experience virtual/internet communities as spaces for global identity negotiation and language maintenance and live transnational lives on a daily basis.They also speak to the shortcomings of curriculum texts available in the setting to portray realistic complex pictures of contemporary China and to avail them of knowledge they would consider “useful” in contexts outside the classroom. S4: What we learn here is the positive side of China, of course…And then we have been in China our experience is a kind of different really. Some of the kids are poorly educated. When I went to those museums, I found kids peeing on the wall of the museum.
This quote is further illustration of limited possibilities to enact and negotiate transnational identities in the Mandarin as an international language classes in one public school setting.Interview data suggest that the textbooks in the Mandarin 9 and 12 classrooms were dated Australian textbooks intended for high school learners of Chinese as a foreign language and the textbook used in the Mandarin 9/10/11 class for native writers was published in Beijing and intended for undergraduate students of Chinese as a foreign language. Neither textbook was geared to attend to the knowledge base and potential ethnolinguisic affiliations and transnational identities of many of the students in these classrooms and I urge, like Li (2008), that curriculum development in
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the area of international language instruction needs to attend more closely to the reality of contemporary classrooms with a large number of heritage language learners in them. What is important as well is that their transnational experiences and aspirations for globalized identities shouldalso be considered in the development of curriculum. Here is an illustration of the new possibilities some heritage language learners of Mandarin see for themselves: S5: A lot of Asian parents right now and their kids, they are still pretty Asian, they will say “Hey, you know, finding a job in Canada is not easy any more, you can go back to China. You know Chinese; you know English, you should go over the world, don’t just stay here. So much opportunity is there.” Like my dad said: “If you cannot do Taiwan, it is OK. You go to China, you go to everywhere that speaks Chinese right? And you also know English right? That will make your world a little bit bigger.”
These possibilities seem to be in sharp contrast to the “compare and contrast” learning outcomes that the curriculum guidelines, as discussed earlier, espouse. As Suarez-Orozco (2004) observes, globalization and the intensification of human mobility are contributing significantly to a world (and thus classrooms) that are increasingly multicultural expanding experiences and identities well beyond national boundaries. What such realities suggest for international language classroom settings is perhaps the need to engage more fully with the development of global citizenship identities for “a bigger world”. Concluding Thoughts The data discussed in this chapter are not generalizable given the number of participants in the study and the single venue where it was conducted. Nevertheless, the data are illustrative of themes addressed in other studies about heritage language students in international classrooms (Abdi, 2009; Harklau, 2009) and also bring into focus the necessity to engage with the transnational experiences of heritage language speakers in such settings. The data presented here clearly attest to the need to expand our language education policies and curriculum guidelines to be much more in line with the current realties of our globalized world. He (2006) argues that a learner’s heritage language development depends on the degree to which s/he is able to find continuity and coherence in multiple communicative
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and social worlds in time and space to develop hybrid, situated identities. I would like to add to this that nowadays these hybrid identities commonly entail transnational experiences that need to be negotiated in the “international” language classrooms for these students to have a sense that they are truly learning something useful for “outside” the class. Such claim is in line with Barea et al’s (2010) argument that migration trajectories are increasingly transnational, circular- or pendulum-like. The case of the student who identified himself as Asian American in this study seems an example of such migration trajectory. While there have been recently programs, primarily in university settings, that offer separate classes in a language for heritage and non-heritage language learners (Kondo-Brown, 2010; Li, 2008), the separation and lumping in two assumingly more homogeneous groups like a “regular” class and a class for “native writers” is not necessarily enough. I am questioning the dichotomy assumed in such views. As the data in this study suggest, heterogeneity in ethnolinguistic affiliations, investments, and cultural knowledge is perhaps unavoidable in any international language class regardless of level of language proficiency as linked to heritage or non-heritage experiences and our task needs to be to take this complexity head on. Commonality in transnational experiences on the basis of new technologies and social media also seem inevitable among urban youth nowadays. Thus we need to recognize more fully student heterogeneity whose acknowledgement would help us in moving to a more fluid characterization and “naming” of such classes beyond an assumption of “native” and “non-native” proficiency and, potentially, to being more responsive to the fluidity that needs to accompany our instruction in such “international” language classes. We need to work with the diversity of experiences, knowledges, and identities students bring and recognize their strengths either in terms of cultural knowledge or linguistic proficiency or agency in claiming heritage language affiliation (Hornberger and Wang, 2008). Accommodating diversity through a variety of individual and group project work where individual expertise is acknowledged and used could be very rewarding in international language classes. In addition, Kondo-Brown (2010) makes a number of helpful recommendations for a research agenda in relation to the advancement of heritage language competence in educational settings, which would take into account the heterogeneity of learners in these settings. I would like to add to her list the importance of taking more fully
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into account students’ investments and affiliations, especially in relation to developing transnational identities. Carreira (2004) argues for the importance of focusing on identity and language issues, as these relate to family background in all language courses where heritage language learners are enrolled. This is the viewpoint that I have espoused. The data presented in the section “Who/what is Chinese” highlight the importanceof bringing into Mandarin classrooms curriculum and pedagogical tools that engage diasporic communities and identities. Sharing experiences about immigration or cultural adaptation, and so forth, need to be viewed as a valuable resource that offers insights into different ways of being Chinese. In addition, valuing heritage languages and cultures would entail valuing and engaging with students’ transnational experiences and identities in the globalized world in which we live, and possibly engaging in more varied modalities of instruction that reflect more truly the real communication practices of our students. Clearly such ambitious goals can be achieved only if university faculties of education can ensure that pre-service and in-service teachers enter their classrooms well prepared to support the development of students’ multilingual and multicultural competencies. In addition, as Suarez-Orozco (2004) argues, “preparing youth to successfully navigate our multicultural world is essential to preparing them to be global citizens” (p. 198). Thus teacher preparation is crucial for engaging with the inherent complexities of students’ backgrounds, experiences and aspirations and tapping into the reservoirs of knowledge and identities students bring into the classroom. In reflecting on the ways heritage languages and cultures are valued or devalued in public school contexts in Canada and in engaging with the questions the White paper cited in the introduction posed, Li and Duff ’s (2008) observation might be useful to conclude this discussion that aims to go beyond current powerful discourses which delegitimize the languages and cultures of minority or immigrant students: Understanding [Chinese heritage language] students’ heterogeneity and their potential will help us to better serve linguistically diverse learners and maximize the social, academic, economic, and cultural benefits of [heritage language] maintenance and development in Canada … and other diasporic contexts. (p. 13)
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Notes
1. 2006 census respondents reported speaking 200 languages other than Canada’s official languages, English and French. Chinese languages were the third-most spoken, growing by 18 percent since the 2001 census. 2. There seems to be a surge of interest in heritage language and heritage language education in the US post 9/11, but, as Wiley (2007) observes, this interest is fueled more by economic and national security interests and does not truly advocate for the development of multilingualism in a dominant monolingual society. 3. Given the brevity of this chapter, definitions of who counts as a heritage language speaker or learner in the literature will not be addressed at length. Suffice to say that one approach defines heritage learners in terms of their ability to speak or understand the language while another focuses on an individual’s affiliation with an ethnolinguistic group (see Valdes, 2001). Recent work seems to espouse Hornberger and Wang’s (2008) ecologically based broad definition where heritage language learners “are individuals who have familial or ancestral ties to a particular language that is not English and who exert their agency in determining whether or not they are [learners of that language and culture]” (p. 27). 4. “Banana” is a pejorative term used to denote a person of Asian descent marginalized for having assimilated into Western culture and thus “yellow on the outside”, but “white inside”. 5. The curriculum materials will be briefly touched upon in the next section. Facebook is still not available in China, even though a similar social networking service is.
References
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