Research shows that many immigrant children in Canada face challenges in maintaining their heritage languages, i.e., languages other than English and French or Indigenous languages. Public schools might not recognize or promote the use of heritage languages, many schools do not provide heritage language instruction, and in some instances, students and their parents are actively discouraged from using their heritage language at home. Heritage languages, however, should be maintained to help immigrant students succeed socially and academically and maintain stronger familial bonds. Language maintenance can also lead to multilingualism in a society, facilitating socioeconomic and international relations in the globalized world. In light of these challenges and the importance of maintaining heritage languages, this qualitative case study, informed by the work of critical theorists in the field of additional language education, was undertaken to investigate language maintenance in a heritage language school in a major city in Canada. Issues under investigation included (1) students’, parents’, and teachers’ perspectives on language maintenance, (2) the availability of language maintenance resources at home, school, and in the first language (L1) community, (3) successes and challenges of the students in maintaining their heritage language at home, school, and in the L1 community, and (4) the parents’ and teachers’ effort in facilitating heritage language learning opportunities for children. Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews, field-observations, descriptive and reflective field notes, and participants’ journal writing. The emerging themes included (1) the importance of language maintenance, (2) language maintenance strategies, and (3) language maintenance challenges. This study sought to raise awareness of language maintenance issues faced by immigrants, in this instance a particular Iranian community in Canada, within the contexts of home, school, and L1 community. In documenting students’ successes and challenges in maintaining their heritage language, heritage language teachers’ experiences as non-mainstream educators, and parents’ efforts to provide heritage language learning opportunities for their children, the research aimed to challenge immigrant students’ education with regard to issues of equity. Results are intended to inform immigrant families and communities, and programming and policy to facilitate language maintenance opportunities for children in Canada and other immigrant-receiving contexts.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MANITOBA/oai:mspace.lib.umanitoba.ca:1993/23502 |
| Date | 14 April 2014 |
| Creators | Babaee, Naghmeh |
| Contributors | Schmidt, Clea (Education), Li, Yi (Education) Ghomeshi, Jila (Linguistics) Taylor, Shelley (Western University) |
| Source Sets | University of Manitoba Canada |
| Detected Language | English |
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