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...

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...

In an increasingly diverse world, the ability to honour and celebrate linguistic variety has never been more important. That’s precisely the aim of Traditional Tales, Untraditionally Told   — a project I lead at the University of Sheffield, in collaboration with the Maker{Futures} team. This project invites schools and libraries to reimagine storytelling through the lens of multilingualism and creative, maker-centred engagement, and holds exciting opportunities for heritage language education. A fresh take on storytelling: Language meets making At the heart of Traditional Tales, Untraditionally Told is the belief that storytelling doesn't need to be confined to a single language or traditional format, and that children should be encouraged to bring their home/heritage languages into public spaces. The project brings multilingual families into libraries and schools, empowering them to tell stories using all their languages  — t hrough playful, hands-on making and digital, sto...

At our most recent FOHLC Café , we had a lovely meetup of fourteen professionals in heritage language education, who gathered online from Iceland, Netherlands, France, Spain, the U.S., England, and Ireland. They grabbed a cup of coffee and met up to get inspiration for how to motivate teenager language learners. One solution? Journalism works!   “When teens see a connection between French language and professional opportunities, their motivation increases significantly.” - Stéphanie Adelaide   Our first guest speaker was Danielle Capron in Germany. She teaches French heritage language learners in Frankfurt and was having trouble keeping the older students engaged. There were students quitting when they reached secondary education. Having had experience working at a radio station, Danielle had the idea to start a radio show project with her students. For 6 hours per month they created a program with content, interviews, and music – and once a month the students meet...

By Jim Anderso n,  Goldsmiths University of London, with schools and universities across the world Community based heritage language schools often experience difficulty in engaging students in studying the HL, especially once they go beyond primary age. There may be a feeling that the language does not connect with their lived experience or with real world issues. The link to culture may feel artificial and unchanging. There may be little opportunity for students to invest themselves emotionally in their learning or to feel the excitement of genuine meaning-making.   Addressing the needs of HL learners The international Critical Connections project, launched in 2012, seeks to address the above issue by involving young people in creating short bi/multi-lingual digital stories around issues which matter to them such as the environment.  It is innovative in bringing together learners of heritage as well as foreign languages in community based as well as mainstream sett...