Aladdin

Do you feel there is a distinction between domestic and heritage language learners in your Arabic class?

I: you don’t feel that there’s any kind of distinction then even though you (.) consider yourself a heritage language learner and there are domestic language learners in your classroom there are no distinctions that you can see in terms of their participation or instructional activities or

A: um like do you mean the people who have (.) you mean uh the domestic learners uh do they interact differently is that what you’re saying

I: yeah do you feel that there’s these two groups in your class I mean you can easily pick out that there are

A: I mean I think there are maybe some people who uh in the class who like have heard the words before and they’re more like willing to say them in like more confident (in them) but I think everyone is usually same page maybe people maybe little few steps ahead but not far from everyone else

I: so you feel more similar than different

A: yes

Reflections – Kat, Aladdin, and Nick all seem to agree that the heritage language learners do not have a significant advantage in language proficiency over the domestic learners. Do you find this to be the case in your classroom? Also, the students do not perceive a difference in the teacher’s instructional strategies based on the students’ backgrounds. Do you find that you adjust your strategies with respect to domestic or heritage learners? For example? Do you think your students are aware of these adaptations? If so, how do you think it makes them feel?

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