[HERITAGE-LIST] FYI: Proposal for new society, Arabic Heritage Learners

[Scott G. McGINNIS]

The following courtesy of a posting at Arabic-L (slightly edited). Please contact the originator of this e-mail, Nehad Shawky, directly at shawky at aucegypt.edu, rather than posting to heritage-list at this time.

Date: 13 Apr 2009
From:Nehad Shawky <shawky at aucegypt.edu>
Subject:Arabic Heritage Learners, new Society

Dear Colleagues,
Due to the growing of the heritage language field, many issues arise in the course of giving my paper on "Pedagogies for Arabic Heritage Learners" (2009). I really was wondering if my colleagues share with me the view that AHL differs from AFL...new curricula need to be designed, Arabic corpus is needed.

I suggested also teacher-oriented versus student-centered pedagogy. The focus here is on Heritage Learners of Arabic those who come from different background than AFL students...placement test, assessment, validity of results...[there is also the question of] accredited or not,and does [such a program] fit into the K-12 education system?

Societies and groups exist for different languages but none is targeted towards housing AHL our Arabic Heritage Learners.  Hence, I thought of AHL Society. Why not share ideas to reach a consensus on how to plan language, how to house AHL...in a structured form & content. Thank you.
NB: In my paper I suggested AHL short for Arabic Heritage Learners - also happens to be 3 grandchildren of mine.