HOME OR HERITAGE LANGUAGE PROGRAM

Dear Parents,

As you may be aware, ASD has been focused on increased intentionality for Multilingualism under our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice strategic goal. As part of this work, we have been doing some light explorations of the potentials of offering a Home or Heritage Language Program at ASD. This exploration is in an infancy stage without any promise or commitment, yet we are interested in your input. Your responses will help us understand interest and draft a shape of potentials.

It is important to begin by defining some terms:  "Home Language" and "Heritage Language". 

Home language is the dominant and consistent language(s) spoken at home with the family.

Example: Omar speaks Arabic with his parents and siblings at home. Arabic is the home language.

Heritage language is a language (or languages) that your family used in the past or still values, even if you don’t speak it much or use it infrequently.
Example: Myeong speaks English with her parents and her siblings but she speaks to her grandparents in Korean. Korean is a heritage language for Myeong.

Sometimes, the home and heritage languages are the same language—but not always!

ASD recognizes that many students may not have just one home language and therefore a child could have a couple of home languages and a child may also have heritage languages. We also acknowledge that our ASD students have academic lives immersed in English and therefore may bring varying levels of English home with them.  It's important to think about your family language contexts and your language goals in responding to the survey questions.