From Swiss to Cheddar: Changing the Approach to Hungarian Heritage Language

Abstract

There are an estimated 1.411 million individuals of Hungarian heritage who reside and 25 to 30 Hungarian community schools that operate in the United States. The lecture examines the case of Hungarian Heritage Language students who either attended a community school or have registered to study in university courses. Within the field of language education research, this group of students was long underrepresented. Today, however, it can be said that the efforts of local communities, the many teacher training programs, and the teaching materials created by professional language educators have made strides in supporting those young adults who choose to study their HL.

Even for laypeople it is quite obvious that heritage learners are far more proficient orally compared to their written abilities. Their noticeable knowledge gap in writing skills often distracts educators from developing other areas.

Given that their attitude toward language education is what determines the educational tools used by the volunteer educators, I have examined the question of what language competencies the participants in our training sessions held in 2012 and 2018, which is defined as requiring development. My data clearly signals that weekend school instructors display a growing level of consciousness as teachers.

The lecture focuses on the areas that deserve attention in this special educational situation: developing teachers’ and students’ language awareness, viewing L1 from the outside and correcting errors with an interlanguage approach.

Author Biography

Dr. Maróti, Orsolya (Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest, Hungarian as a Foreign Language Department; Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary, Department for Hungarian Studies and International Relations in Education)

Start Date

19-11-2021 10:40 AM

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Nov 19th, 10:40 AM

From Swiss to Cheddar: Changing the Approach to Hungarian Heritage Language

There are an estimated 1.411 million individuals of Hungarian heritage who reside and 25 to 30 Hungarian community schools that operate in the United States. The lecture examines the case of Hungarian Heritage Language students who either attended a community school or have registered to study in university courses. Within the field of language education research, this group of students was long underrepresented. Today, however, it can be said that the efforts of local communities, the many teacher training programs, and the teaching materials created by professional language educators have made strides in supporting those young adults who choose to study their HL.

Even for laypeople it is quite obvious that heritage learners are far more proficient orally compared to their written abilities. Their noticeable knowledge gap in writing skills often distracts educators from developing other areas.

Given that their attitude toward language education is what determines the educational tools used by the volunteer educators, I have examined the question of what language competencies the participants in our training sessions held in 2012 and 2018, which is defined as requiring development. My data clearly signals that weekend school instructors display a growing level of consciousness as teachers.

The lecture focuses on the areas that deserve attention in this special educational situation: developing teachers’ and students’ language awareness, viewing L1 from the outside and correcting errors with an interlanguage approach.