Heritage language as commodity or connection: Mapping teachers' value orientations toward students' language practices

Abstract

As multilingualism is increasingly present and recognized in U.S. schools, exploring how teachers
value students’ heritage language resources has implications for classroom practice, teacher
education, and educational research. Drawing from a larger critical ethnographic case study, this close
analysis of eight teachers’ value orientations takes up principles of translanguaging theory and locates
them in the context of a month-long summer heritage language development program situated
within an English-dominant urban district. Discourse analysis of semi-structured interview data reveals
the criteria and contexts in which teachers value students’ heritage language resources. Most
prominent in the way participants (four English as a New Language teachers and four Heritage
Language teachers) described their values were the two themes of heritage language as a commodity
and heritage language as connection. Within and across interviews participants discussed how their
personal experiences and identities shaped their attitudes toward students’ heritage language
resources.