Heritage Languages: Alliance News Flash

February 2009

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IN THIS ISSUE
				Program Profiles

				Heritage Voices

				Heritage Language FAQs

				Conference Update – Spanish in the United States

				Collaborate with the Alliance

				Share the Alliance News Flash




*Conference Update: Resources for Teaching Spanish to Hispanic Bilingual Students in the United States* Members of the Alliance Steering Committee will present at the 2009 Spanish in the United States & Spanish in Contact with Other Languages Conference February 19 – 21, 2009 The Biltmore Hotel/The David William Hotel Coral Gables Miami, Florida, USA Learn more.

Online Collection of National Heritage Language Program Profiles

The Online Collection of National Heritage Language Program Profiles allows heritage language programs in community-based, K–12, and university settings to form a network to exchange ideas and resources with one another.

Learn more about the online collection.
Submit a heritage language program profile.

Program Profile: Pacific Arabic Resources

The Alliance collects profiles of heritage language programs. This month we feature Pacific Arabic Resources, a heritage language program dedicated to the advancement of Afro-Asiatic languages in the Bay area of California by providing language immersion courses for adults and high school students. The program teaches languages and dialects in Amharic (a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia by the Amhara), Tamazight (Berber languages), and Arabic (modern, Levantine, Egyptian, Tunisian, Moroccan, Gulf, and Iraqi).

View the program profile.

Introducing the Heritage Voices Collection

The Alliance will periodically feature information from our new Heritage Voices Collection, an online series that will highlight programs and languages of interest to the heritage language community. We’re pleased to feature the first two entries in this new series. Our first Heritage Voices: Programs feature is Escuela Bolivia, and our first Heritage Voices: Languages feature is Tagalog. We hope you enjoy this series. For more information, visit our Web site.

Heritage Voices: Languages
Tagalog
Tagalog is the first language highlighted in our Heritage Voices series. Written by Valerie Malabonga, a Tagalog speaker who maintains close ties to the Phillppines, Valerie provides interesting information about the language and describes why it is important to her and her family to maintain their cultural identity.

Read Heritage Voices: Tagalog.

Heritage Voices: Programs
Escuela Bolivia
The first program highlighted as part of our new Heritage Voices series is Escuela Bolivia in Arlington, Virginia. Escuela Bolivia seeks to develop the Spanish language and cultural knowledge of Spanish-speaking students in Virginia through a number of different opportunities.

Read Heritage Voices: Escuela Bolivia.

Heritage Language FAQs

The Alliance is developing an expanding library of answers to frequently asked questions on heritage language issues. We will highlight a question periodically in the Alliance News Flash.

What is a Language Loss?
In this seventh FAQ in the expanding series, Erin Haynes describes the different types of language loss that can occur, the reasons for language loss (e.g. oppression, lack of opportunity to use the language), the devastating results of language loss, and programs and communities that have been successful in reversing language loss such as Hebrew, Catalan, and Maori.

Read the FAQ: What is Language Loss?

View our complete FAQ series.
Download a free PDF of the first volume of Frequently Asked Questions developed by the Alliance.

Collaborate with the Alliance

The Alliance for the Advancement of Heritage Languages is seeking to develop community among professionals working in heritage language education and research by providing information and resources of interest. Bookmark the Alliance Web site to stay up-to-date on the latest information.

The Alliance News Flash is a quarterly online newsletter created for professionals working in the area of heritage language education, to create connections and to give updates on new developments and recent resources in the field. If you have suggestions for articles for the Alliance News Flash, for Alliance activities, and other ideas to create community, please email the Alliance at heritage@cal.org.

Share the Alliance News Flash

Encourage friends and colleagues to sign up to receive the Alliance News Flash by sharing the link to our Join Our List form

To unsubscribe, send an email to heritage@cal.org.