Heritage Language Blog ~ by HL Global Think Tank and FOHLC Europe

Heritage language schools are set up to provide space to maintain a community ’ s language and culture. This was the aim of the educators who founded the Hungarian School of Pafos. Using their experience from teaching in a diaspora context, the two founding teachers developed an approach that allows the dominant language to be used when teaching the heritage language. In this blog post, one of the two teachers tells the story of how the Hungarian school was founded; how theory shaped their practice, and how the everyday practices and experiences from teaching such a heterogeneous group formed their policies. They do this by showcasing the school’s most recent Christmas event. Christmas 2025 celebration in The Hungarian School of Pafos. The Hungarian School of Pafos was established in 2023 in Cyprus, through two educators’ collaboration. Kinga Photiou is a ballet dancer and teacher. Bernadett Jani-Demetriou is a teacher and a researcher. Their different professional backgrounds and teac...

The Sydney Institute of Community Languages Education ( SICLE ) organised the “ Heritage / Community Languages education: New directions Online Conference ” which took place over several evenings in November 2025. The latest research in the field of Languages education, including Community / Heritage Languages and TESOL was shared.   Kati Varela opening the conference on November 4, 2025. There were presentations from new and experienced researchers who talked about a range of topics including assessment, inclusivity, leadership, bilingualism, online learning, teachers’ professional learning, intercultural understanding, entrepreneurship, learner engagement, and challenges in languages education. Each presenter had 30 minutes, including question time, and there were two presentations per evening. These presentations were free and will be available online. We asked our director, Ken Cruickshank, to talk about how the conference came about: Dr. Ken Cruickshank closing the conference...

In this blog post, we hear from Jana Aguilar Marquez and Michaela Martínez Pauker about a truly fun and creative way to stimulate home language use around the holiday time. These educators run a Czech heritage language project " Pinčlata"  in Germany and have some great tips for parents home with the children over the winter break. They describe celebrating Christmas and work with children who are developing the Czech language, but the idea of getting a magical helper to spawn exciting conversations with your children can also be adapted to other contexts and languages. Many thanks to Jana and Michaela for this fantastic contribution! You may have noticed that in recent years, a new mysterious item has appeared in stores before Christmas: tiny elf doors . They usually hang discreetly among all the artificial garlands, sometimes accompanied by miniature brooms and buckets, skis, and rolling pins. These are accessories for Christmas elves, who have started making their way to u...

A slide showing the history and growth of the Czech School of Dublin . “Parents think it will be easy for their children to pick up multiple languages — because children are like little sponges,” said guest speaker Ivana Rocca Kovářová at the most recent FOHLC Café ( Forum of Heritage Language Coalitions in Europe ). “But then their children start school in Ireland and they see what a challenge it is.” Participants of FOHLC Café. Seeing the need for extra support, Ivana and her colleague founded the Czech School Dublin little more than ten years ago. “We started in the garden of a friend’s house, with five children,” she recalled. Not long after, the school gained access to a community center and the local library for its classes. “ We know children need to move at this age to learn and stay focused. ” Ivana manages the preschool section which contains two groups: “Talking with preschoolers” for children aged 3 to 5 and “Zero Year” for children aged 5 to 7 which she also leads as a te...