"heritage speakers"

[Barbara Mozdzierz]

Dear Emily,

Since one of my second year sections currently has four heritage speakers
in it, I started to develop ideas along the lines you mention in your
email: preparing separate materials, outlining a separate course for them
(maybe we will have such a course in the future -- accord. to recent and
current demographics Russ. heritage speakers are increasing).  Now, to
answer your question:  after refering to them among colleagues w/ the
pejorative term "nativoids", I tried to come up with a term of my own
(e.g. unschooled native speakers, pre-native speakers), before plunging
into the lit (mostly on Asian heritage speakers) and came across the term
"heritage speakers" which I find to be quite on the mark.  This term is
commonly used in L2-research w/ L2 being an Asian lang.

I am intrigued by your suggestion to ask AATSEEL to function as the
coordinator / sponsor of a group of enthusiasts willing to work on a
specialized course for heritage speakers.  I for one would be delighted
to devote more time to it.

I am curious to hear what our colleagues think.

Barbara Mozdzierz
Dept. of German & Slavic
George Washington U
2130 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20052
tel. (202) 994-0930
fax (202) 994-0171
email mozdzier at gwis2.circ.gwu.edu

On Thu, 14 Dec 1995, Emily Tall wrote:

> Have any of you heard of this new term for children of native speakers,
> who are good in aural comprehension and everyday speech but need work in
> ,say, grammar and, probably, vocabulary development? It seems to me that
> now that enrollments are dropping, it behooves us to try to retain such
> students, if possible. To do that (without having a special course for
> them, which is, of course, the best option) I think we need some special
> set of materials. It doesn't have to be massive, just guidelines as to
> what difficulties such students have and how they could profit from
> being in a class with "regular" students. Could AATSEEL coordinate
> such an effort? Any responses or ideas out there? Emily Tall
> SUNY/Buffalo  mllemily at ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
>