Community-based heritage language school teachers’ pedagogical language practices as teacher investment

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Competing ideologies that influence heritage language education generate tensions in pedagogical practices in heritage language classrooms. Teachers’ perspectives on instructional language can provide insights into how they negotiate these ideologies to make sense of their own use of instructional language. To understand minority-language teachers’ perspectives, this qualitative study analyzed interviews with 21 teachers from community-based Korean-heritage language schools across the United States. Findings suggested that teachers’ pedagogical language choices were intended to serve the mission of Korean immigrant community schools by enhancing the next generation’s heritage language learning. Most teachers intentionally maintained Korean-only instruction to provide rich opportunities for students to use the heritage language in their classrooms, despite the ongoing influx of English into classroom interactions. However, teachers also reported strategies to incorporate English into their instruction to support students’ engagement in heritage language learning by addressing cognitive, affective, and communicative needs. Teachers’ pedagogical language choices reflected their investment in students’ heritage language teaching and learning while demonstrating their professional agency in addressing students’ immediate needs. This interplay between teacher beliefs and language choices encourages teacher educators to reflect on how they negotiate language ideologies and how their pedagogical decisions regarding language use may affect their students.