Heritage Language Preservation: Chinese as a Model for Inter-Sector Collaboration

1. Heritage Language Preservation: Chinese as a Model for Inter-Sector Collaboration Scott McGinnis Defense Language Institute-Washington Office

2. National Language Instruction Capacity Sectors in the United States(Brecht & Walton 1993) • Heritage Language Sector • Government Sector • Private Provider Sector • Education (Academic) Sector (K-16+) • (Overseas Sector)

3. Major Chinese Language Organizations & Government Offices • NCACLS: National Council of Associations of Chinese Language Schools (primarily Taiwan-connected) • CSAUS: Chinese School Association in the United States (primarily mainland Chinese-connected) • CLASS: Chinese Language Association of Secondary-Elementary Schools • CLTA: Chinese Language Teachers Association (over 50% higher ed) • NOCFL: National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (“Hanban”)

4. Enrollments in Chinese Language Instruction Capacity Sectors in the United States – 2002 • Heritage Sector: ~140,000 (~100,000 NCACLS, ~40,000 CSAUS) • Government Sector: ~350 (FSI + DLI) • Private Provider Sector: ? • Education Sector: ~59,000 (~24,000 K-12 + 34,153 higher ed) 70%+ students in Heritage Sector

5. The “Mirror” & “Compass” Phases of the Chinese Heritage Language Sector • The “Mirror” Phase (20th Century): A mirror of first the home country, and then the American K-12, educational systems • The “Compass” Phase (21st Century): A compass for curriculum, professional and testing development, as well as societal improvement • Greatest collaboration among heritage and overseas (including government) sectors • Where collaboration with education sector occurs, it is primarily with pre-collegiate

6. The Curricular & Testing Compass – AP Chinese Curriculum & Test • Initial impetus for establishment through SAT II Chinese Test Development Committee • Little to no formal organizational support from CLTA • Major grassroots support role by NCACLS and CSAUS – the latter of which has extremely strong ties with NOCFL • Establishment of AP Chinese Curriculum and Test made possible with the financial support of Chinese Ministry of Education and NOCFL – cf. AP Italian Language and Culture

7. AP Italian Curriculum & Test – principal financial supporters • Italian government • National Italian American Foundation • Order of the Sons of Italy • UNICO National (largest Italian American service organization in the United States) • American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI) last on list

8. AP Chinese Curriculum & Test –Task Force Heritage Sector-relevant Issues • Of 15 Task Force members, nine have direct and extended first-hand experience working in/with heritage sector schools • Of 15 Task Force members, two are from overseas “sector” (one K-12 and one higher ed) • Recognition of heritage sector schools as “market” for AP Chinese Curriculum (and indirectly, AP Chinese Test) • Recognition that heritage learners will constitute a significant portion of the first cohorts of AP Chinese students

9. The Professional Development Compass – Joint Ventures • 1998-2002 (Heritage & higher ed): The Penn (Summer) Chinese Language Teachers Institute • 1993-present (K-12 and government): CLASS summer teacher training institutes • 1993-95: Taiwan (support from ROC Ministry of Education, Overseas Chinese Bureau -- biannually) • 1997-present: Mainland (support from NOCFL since 2002 – annually since then) • February 2005: First invitational fully hosted/funded delegation of K-12 educators • July 2005: US/China Joint Conference on Teaching Chinese as a Second Language

10. The Societal Improvement Compass – Families with Chinese Children (FCC) • Significant numbers of existing programs, particularly in the eastern United States (New Jersey and Pennsylvania) • Providing language instructional service for the adoptive parents (generally not native Chinese) as well as the children • New research initiatives to enhance the quality of instruction (Chinese Teachers Guide to Adoption – ethnographic survey)

11. Conclusions • Chinese heritage language educational sector as legitimate stakeholder in the development of Chinese language educational resources • Overseas government participation as an opportunity unavailable on the purely domestic level • Potential for societal contributions (as well as empirical research results that may inform curricular and professional development) by the heritage sector that can or most likely will not be served by the education (academic) sector • Critical need for and value added through inter-sector collaboration

12. Alliance for the Advancement of Heritage Languages (AAHL) • Continuation of earlier Heritage Languages Initiative (HLI), jointly undertaken by the Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) and National Foreign Language Center (NFLC) • Currently an unfunded mandate – basic maintenance operations continuing in the form of website at CAL (www.cal.org/heritage) and heritage-list listserv • Potential Alliance roles including: Professional development, public relations/promotions, information exchange, policy development/advice, research, and coordination

13. Questions? Scott.McGinnis@belvoir.army.mil