What instructional practices would you say are the most beneficial to domestic and/or heritage language learners?
I: and you think that differs for heritage language learners that need for repetition
S: um I think not so much for learning vocabulary I think that they pick that up very well but I think for learning sentence uh for learning grammar I think that they do need that um just simple exercises maybe putting verbs in different tenses because a lot of people don’t know the proper way to speak um and I think that prevents them from understanding the grammar and I think repetition exerices will just have you naturally starting to speak that way so I think we could used more of that but
Reflections – Do you feel that rote memorization is a necessary component of language learning? In Will 1, Will feels his language learning experience would be enhanced by gaining an appreciation of how native speakers use language to express the world around them and, perhaps, how these conceptualizations are reflected in the syntax. Whereas, in Rebecca 6 and 7, Rebecca expresses that repetition is necessary in order to retain grammar and vocabulary. In your own teaching approach do your emphasis more on form or function? Would your approach vary if your class consisted of only heritage or domestic language learners and not both? Why or why not?
Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research
