title: 'Mama, am I always going to speak my beautiful languages?': Heritage language maintenance in New Zealand

authors: Connelly, Margaret

subjects: Heritage languages

abstract: This study aimed to explore heritage language maintenance in New Zealand. Specifically, language beliefs, practices and education opportunities are investigated within the domains of family, community and education.
A convenience sample was recruited by snowball recruitment. Invitations to participate were distributed through Facebook and emails to local community leaders. By use of an online, open-item questionnaire, participants from migrant communities were invited to share attitudes, practices and experiences about their family language use at home and in the community, and language education opportunities for their children. Data were gathered from 35 migrant parents of school-aged children, representing 40 languages, and analysed following a systematic thematic analysis approach.
Findings in relation to language beliefs indicate participants share positive attitudes towards their heritage language, identifying themes of identity, family cohesion, and cognitive, academic, economic and cultural benefits to multilingualism. However, although children seem to share their parents’ positive language beliefs, themes of ambivalence emerge in relation to sense of identity, and the perceived social and academic capital of their heritage language. The findings also indicate clear evidence of children’s language shift upon starting mainstream education. 
It was found that the marginalised position of heritage languages in New Zealand introduces a burden on families seeking to maintain their languages. Formal heritage language education is reported as largely unavailable. In this context, the responsibility of language maintenance falls to families and communities, who are faced with challenges such as limited funding, facilities and resources to support language acquisition and maintenance. Despite these challenges, most parents report engaging in communicative strategies to support their children’s heritage language acquisition such as conversation, literature and media.
Findings from this study suggest that language maintenance is achieved when heritage language environments exist in a variety of domains beyond the family. Enabling more successful heritage language maintenance requires a collaboration across families, communities, schools and government. Doing so yields benefits to wellbeing, identity development, academic and economic performance, and improves social cohesion.

text: 'Mama, am I always going to speak my beautiful languages?': Heritage language maintenance in New Zealand This study aimed to explore heritage language maintenance in New Zealand. Specifically, language beliefs, practices and education opportunities are investigated within the domains of family, community and education.
A convenience sample was recruited by snowball recruitment. Invitations to participate were distributed through Facebook and emails to local community leaders. By use of an online, open-item questionnaire, participants from migrant communities were invited to share attitudes, practices and experiences about their family language use at home and in the community, and language education opportunities for their children. Data were gathered from 35 migrant parents of school-aged children, representing 40 languages, and analysed following a systematic thematic analysis approach.
Findings in relation to language beliefs indicate participants share positive attitudes towards their heritage language, identifying themes of identity, family cohesion, and cognitive, academic, economic and cultural benefits to multilingualism. However, although children seem to share their parents’ positive language beliefs, themes of ambivalence emerge in relation to sense of identity, and the perceived social and academic capital of their heritage language. The findings also indicate clear evidence of children’s language shift upon starting mainstream education. 
It was found that the marginalised position of heritage languages in New Zealand introduces a burden on families seeking to maintain their languages. Formal heritage language education is reported as largely unavailable. In this context, the responsibility of language maintenance falls to families and communities, who are faced with challenges such as limited funding, facilities and resources to support language acquisition and maintenance. Despite these challenges, most parents report engaging in communicative strategies to support their children’s heritage language acquisition such as conversation, literature and media.
Findings from this study suggest that language maintenance is achieved when heritage language environments exist in a variety of domains beyond the family. Enabling more successful heritage language maintenance requires a collaboration across families, communities, schools and government. Doing so yields benefits to wellbeing, identity development, academic and economic performance, and improves social cohesion.

year: 2022

title: Investigating an open methodology for designing domain-specific language collections

authors: Fitzgerald, Alannah

subjects: corpus-based language learning

abstract: With this research and design paper, we are proposing that Open Educational Resources (OERs) and Open Access (OA) publications give increasing access to high quality online educational and research content for the development of powerful domain-specific language collections that can be further enhanced linguistically with the Flexible Language Acquisition System (FLAX, http://flax.nzdl.org). FLAX uses the Greenstone digital library system, which is a widely used open-source software that enables end users to build collections of documents and metadata directly onto the Web (Witten, Bainbridge, & Nichols, 2010). FLAX offers a powerful suite of interactive text-mining tools, using Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence designs, to enable novice collections builders to link selected language content to large pre-processed linguistic databases. An open methodology trialed at Queen Mary University of London in collaboration with the OER Research Hub at the UK Open University demonstrates how applying open corpus-based designs and technologies can enhance open educational practices among language teachers and subject academics for the preparation and delivery of courses in English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP).

text: Investigating an open methodology for designing domain-specific language collections With this research and design paper, we are proposing that Open Educational Resources (OERs) and Open Access (OA) publications give increasing access to high quality online educational and research content for the development of powerful domain-specific language collections that can be further enhanced linguistically with the Flexible Language Acquisition System (FLAX, http://flax.nzdl.org). FLAX uses the Greenstone digital library system, which is a widely used open-source software that enables end users to build collections of documents and metadata directly onto the Web (Witten, Bainbridge, & Nichols, 2010). FLAX offers a powerful suite of interactive text-mining tools, using Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence designs, to enable novice collections builders to link selected language content to large pre-processed linguistic databases. An open methodology trialed at Queen Mary University of London in collaboration with the OER Research Hub at the UK Open University demonstrates how applying open corpus-based designs and technologies can enhance open educational practices among language teachers and subject academics for the preparation and delivery of courses in English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP).

year: 2014

title: Tū Māori Ake: Seeking which is above.

authors: Maxwell, Te Kahautu

abstract: Te Waka Āwhina 2015 Seeking that which is above Kaupapa - Philosophy o Aotearoa “Tū Māori ake” E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā karangatanga, nei rā te powhiri ki a koutou katoa ‘MĀ TE MĀORI, MŌ TE MĀORI’ Te Waka Āwhina o Aotearoa National Training Hui by Māori for Māori within local government Āwhea: 2 – 4 February 2015 Ki whea: The Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, The University of Waikato, Hamilton Hau kāinga: Te Puku o te Ika.

text: Tū Māori Ake: Seeking which is above. Te Waka Āwhina 2015 Seeking that which is above Kaupapa - Philosophy o Aotearoa “Tū Māori ake” E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā karangatanga, nei rā te powhiri ki a koutou katoa ‘MĀ TE MĀORI, MŌ TE MĀORI’ Te Waka Āwhina o Aotearoa National Training Hui by Māori for Māori within local government Āwhea: 2 – 4 February 2015 Ki whea: The Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, The University of Waikato, Hamilton Hau kāinga: Te Puku o te Ika.

year: 2015-02-03