Not Your Language or My Language, But Our Languages: Heritage Language Learning as an Opportunity for Empowerment and Community Development

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday V)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Making empowerment sustainable

Proposal

 Migrants often face challenges due to differences in the culture they were born into and the culture of their new homes. We most clearly see the struggle of adapting from the old country to the new one through language. For some time now, there has been a lot of discussion and debate regarding second language and/or bilingual education. Is their mother tongue an asset or a deficit? How do we as educators ensure students are being supported so that they are receiving equal opportunities to the native students? Do they have the right to expect equal opportunities? Students need support as they go through school. Schools and society expect that support system to be the students' families. But if a student has been socialized and educated in a language their parents are unfamiliar with, how do we assist in the development of their support systems? These questions are all difficult to answer. But a viable solution is heritage language support. In order to display a successful example of heritage language support, I will discuss the Canadian system and how it may be adapted to suit the global issue of equitable education. I will justify the cost of such programs through the exceeding benefits they provide not only the students receiving such an education but the communities in which they are being raised.

Author

• Fae Webber, Soka University of America