Heritage Language Schools Teach 62 Tongues

Joy Peyton, president of the Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools, announced that the organization has documented nearly 1,000 programs in 44 states. These community-run schools teach 62 different languages, with Korean currently listed as the most-taught subject. The coalition operates as a nationwide initiative designed to connect these local institutions and advocate for their role in preserving linguistic diversity.

The rise of these schools reflects a growing effort among English-speaking families to maintain ties to their ancestral homelands. Experts note that many heritage language learners acquired some familiarity with a non-English language during early childhood. Tanya Ivanova-Sullivan, associate director of the National Heritage Language Resource Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, described these learners as home chefs who learned the language in family kitchens rather than formal classrooms.

Parents and educators emphasize that learning these languages helps preserve family traditions and career options. Arturo Diaz, executive director of the UCLA Center for World Languages, encouraged students to remove apprehension about making mistakes. He stated that learners should use what they already know and have fun with the experience rather than aiming for perfection. Yang Xiao-Desai, a professor of Chinese at San Francisco State University, advised students to ask their grandparents for stories about dishes, recipes, or furniture to practice speaking.

Ana Lúcia Lico, a co-founder of the coalition, immigrated from São Paulo, Brazil, at age 35. She ensured her two sons, now 20 and 23, learned Portuguese while growing up in Northern Virginia. Her older son, Gabriel Lico Bickham, attended a local heritage language school for two hours every Saturday for about a decade. He recalled learning grammar while playing games like Corre cotia, a variant of duck, duck, goose. Lico also exposed her children to Brazilian culture through music, dance, and soccer, noting that the sport provided vocabulary she never had to teach explicitly.

Bickham recently graduated from the University of Virginia. He is also fluent in Spanish. In January, he will leave for Mozambique to take an English teaching assistant position through the Fulbright program. He stated that the language unlocks cultural aspects of his identity. Before or after traveling, Ivanova-Sullivan recommends connecting with extended family on social media platforms to pick up phrases and customs. Organized tours for ancestral homeland visits have also multiplied in the last decade, partly due to the availability of at-home DNA test kits.

Richard Brecht, co-director of the American Councils Research Center, suggested hiring childcare providers who are native speakers or shopping in neighborhoods where the heritage language is spoken. He noted these are additional ways for children to learn the ancestral tongue. The Center for Applied Linguistics, a nonprofit research organization, says that someone with a cultural relationship to a language can be considered a heritage student even if starting from scratch. Ivanova-Sullivan takes her 12-year-old to her native Bulgaria for two months every summer, illustrating the personal commitment many families make to this practice.