I wanted to post a question that I had about the definition of heritage learners of a language; it was one that I asked for Wednesday's class, but we didn't get to discuss it. A couple people have already answered this, but I was wondering what the rest of you thought.
One of the basic requirements of being classified as a heritage learner is that the student must have some kind of personal connection with the language in question. Usually this means a cultural or ethnic background of which the language is a part. What about people who do not have the ethnic characteristics generally associated with the language, and also grew up as monolingual speakers of another language? Could these people be considered heritage speakers if people from the community in which they grew up (friends, classmates, etc.), spoke the language in question? Do any of you SHL TAs have students like this in your classes?
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I believe Carreira talks about this issue and how having any type of connection to the language is legitimate. There are many people in the community who may not be ethnically tied to the language, but have those familial and friendship ties. I believe this makes them heritage language learners. And yes, we do get students like this in our program :)
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