Heritage language maintenance and its relationship to second language instruction

Research in languages-in-contact challenges the assumption that a heritage language is necessarily replaced by the second, dominant language within two or three generations. This assumption underlies second language instruction and U.S. language education policy, therefore, an examination is critical.;The objective of this project was to explore that Spanish heritage language maintenance is an unrecognized variable in the effects of second language education programs, specifically, as a moderator variable between initial identification of a student as LEP and the linguistic consequences of Spanish or English dominance. This project sought to identify patterns of language maintenance and to describe their relationship with second language instruction.;This study offers conceptual models representing traditional and alternative assumptions underlying the relationships between these variables. This study uses data from NELS:88 to test these two models over time. This study also constructed family case studies with language minority students, their parents and grandparents to describe patterns of language maintenance across generations.;Results indicate that for families in this study Spanish is being maintained as a first language across generations over time, resulting in the phenomenon of second generation ESL students. The type of second language instruction has little predictive power in the final language choice of the group. However, factors which do influence the final language choice include language-use as related to habit and as related to conviction. Finally, frequency of home language use may not serve as an indicator for placement into bilingual or ESL programs. This is further supported by the case studies which suggest that families maintaining the heritage language do not desire second language instruction beyond transitory ESL. Rather, families who are maintaining Spanish choose a strict separation of the linguistic domains of home and school.;The results of this study may have implications for a more rigorous form of linguistic identification of students, including second or third generation U.S.-born students, as potential LEP students and also as potential bilingual students whose English skills are at or above proficiency level. Identification could serve to assess the structure of and to inform the goals for second language instructional programs, and foreign language instruction.