'It keeps our children close to our culture': York St John University marks three years of teaching heritage languages to next generation

"They would love for their children to be able to speak with their parents - the children’s grandparents,” explains Dr Indu Meddegama, a senior lecturer in applied linguistics at York St John University. “It’s about bringing different generations of families together, which is really important.”

Indu is the director and co-founder of a Community Language School (CLS) at the university, which was set up three years ago to offer free language classes to families in York and the surrounding areas.

To date, around 100 children aged between six and 13 have taken up classes, learning Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian and Spanish.

To mark its third anniversary, the CLS was granted special permission by the publishers of The Gruffalo to stage a multilingual reading of the famous children’s book, written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. The tale was presented by children in a mix of languages.

“Julia Donaldson is a masterful writer, and her stories have been translated into many languages so we couldn’t think of a better way to showcase language learning at the school,” says Indu.

"With direction and guidance from our postgraduate student and performing arts practitioner, Emily Howarth, the children brought this story to life in a truly multilingual and multicultural way.”

Nine-year-old Emilia Cowham, who lives in York, was among the children who brought the exploits of the Gruffalo, mouse, fox, owl and snake to life. She has been attending the CLS to learn Italian since last autumn.

Emilia is dual heritage, with a British father and Italian mother. Her mum Adriana Castelli was keen for her daughter to learn and understand more Italian and to become more confident in using the language, particularly during the family’s regular trips to Italy.

“While Emilia proudly considers herself Italian, the dominant language and culture in her life is British,” Adriana explains.

“Being the only nearby family member to share Italian history, traditions, and heritage, the CLS community has significantly broadened her knowledge and appreciation of Italian culture and values.

"It feels like an extended family, offering interactive and fun ways for her to connect with her mother tongue and heritage.”

The CLS was set up to help protect heritage languages among migrant families – languages that are learnt or spoken in the home but that children often struggle to fully develop because they use a different language in other situations in their life.

“The rationale was what the research has been telling us for many decades now,” says Indu, who came to Yorkshire 18 years ago from Sri Lanka.

“When families move to overseas contexts, those multilingual migrant families often struggle to pass on or maintain their heritage languages amongst the younger generations mainly because those younger generations are now hearing a language like English if they move to England for example.

"This is the case for people all over the world….Whatever is the dominant or host language tends to be embraced by the younger generations because they hear that in mainstream education.

"Unfortunately there’s limited funding, resources and training opportunities for school educators to be able to prompt multilingual practices in the classroom and that has been the case for many years now.”

Indu's own doctoral research explored heritage language maintenance. She found in some substantially large migrant communities, parents were taking on the role of language volunteers, setting up community groups to teach the next generation.

“The parents despite not having any training in teaching were doing their best to teach the children of the community their heritage culture - not just the language but the arts, the music, the traditions...I had this knowledge of what parents were doing really brilliantly and thought what else can we do to add to this provision?”

It sparked the idea for the CLS, which is led both by Indu and Dr Maja Skender-Lizatovic and runs from the York St John Communities Centre.

These days, as well as catering for the language learning needs of children from migrant and multilingual families, the school also opens its classes to those who currently solely use English.

Teaching is done by multilingual volunteers under the guidance of the school leaders, who hope to enhance children's oral fluency in the languages they are learning as well as develop their confidence in using languages other than English.

It’s about instilling a love for languages – and heritage cultures where relevant – and the CLS also supports the professional development of the volunteers and conducts research that explores and informs language policies and practises.

Asun Rodriguez’s daughters, Mencia and Vega, have been attending the CLS since it first opened, and are learning to speak Spanish. “For me, the more languages you can speak, the more opportunities you will have,” says Asun.

Mencia, 13, and Vega, 10, are both feeling more confident and comfortable in their Spanish. "The CLS helps us keep our daughters close to our culture,” Asun says. “Thanks to the school, they feel their mother tongue is a gift that adds to their personalities and makes them unique.”

- To find out more, search York St John Community Language School.