About the Center

The National Heritage Language Resource Center, at the University of California, Los Angeles, is a federally funded language resource center whose mission is to develop effective pedagogical approaches to teaching heritage language learners, both by creating a research base and by pursuing curriculum design, materials development, and teacher education.

Mission

One in five people in the U.S. use a language other than English at home. These languages, known as heritage languages, are the focus of the National Heritage Language Resource Center (NHLRC), a U.S. Title VI federally funded Language Resource Center. At the heart of our mission is celebrating the importance of heritage languages as well as their development and inter-generational transmission.

Too often, speakers of heritage languages feel insecure or even ashamed of their heritage language. These deficit feelings, combined with societal pressures to use the dominant language, can contribute to speakers abandoning their home language.

In contrast, the NHLRC recognizes that there are often differences between heritage and other speakers of the same language, but the center assesses these differences in positive terms and views them as the basis for further development. This development can take many forms, among them the acquisition of literacy skills in the heritage language and the incorporation of the structure and vocabulary of formal registers of the language.

At NHLRC we believe that:

• Heritage language speakers are bilinguals – often with two native languages – but native bilinguals are not two monolinguals in one. Mastery and use of their languages is different from that of monolinguals.
• Heritage language use does not interfere with learning the dominant societal language. In fact, bilingualism has been shown to have lifelong cognitive, social, emotional, and academic benefits.
• The unique ways heritage speakers innovate with their home language (including what is sometimes called code switching or mixing) are indicative of their sophisticated knowledge of both language systems – not a sign of lack of knowledge.
• The linguistic and cultural knowledge of bilinguals should be valued, celebrated, and recognized as a national, social, and economic resource.

Our central mission is to promote heritage languages – to encourage their use and transmission from one generation to the next. We do this in three ways:

1. Through outreach to families and communities – because heritage bilingualism starts at home.
2. By conducting research into the linguistic profiles and pedagogical needs of heritage language speakers.
3. By translating this new knowledge into practical professional development for language teachers so that they are best equipped to support heritage languages in the classroom.