At the Third International Conference on Heritage/Community Languages at UCLA, Karen Llagas, Cynthia Aban and I presented our paper “More than Tourists: Using Critical Pedagogy to Teach Filipino Heritage Learners. Karen Llagas served as lead presenter; she wrote the final paper based on the notes given to her by Cynthia Aban and myself. It was also Karen Llagas who made the final PowerPoint presentation, from the photos and slides she had and the photos contributed by Cynthia Aban and myself.
Before and after the presentation, our group of Filipino teachers from UC Berkeley were able to attend several panels such as: Tracking and Assessing Literacy; Using Content-Based Instructional Approaches in Teaching Heritage Languages; Variability and Change in Bilingual Language Acquisition; and Heritage Language Education: Addressing “Matters of Concern.” We were also present during all the plenary sessions.
The conference benefits our teaching at UC Berkeley because of the following: first, we learned more about strategies employed by other heritage language teachers; second, we were able to be “inspired” by the research being done on language acquisition; third, we were able to connect with other Filipino language teachers and instructors in other languages. I was especially happy to get updated with the new research of my classmates at the heritage language workshop a few years back.
Hopefully, my colleagues Cynthia Aban and Karen Llagas can also have the opportunity to attend the summer workshop of the National Heritage Language Center, and that we can do a joint research project on heritage language acquisition.