Abstract/Summary

This longitudinal study addresses the absence of research into the language-learning experiences of UK-born children whose home languages are other than English, all of whom might be identified as heritage language speakers. It contributes new knowledge regarding this under-researched group of multilingual learners, their families and their teachers. It explores from their own perspective children’s experiences of bilingual development from early childhood. Teachers' and parents' perspectives are considered alongside those of the children. Moreover, the impact on children's heritage language status is explored in relation to their engagement with early years education. In this way, a fuller, deeper understanding of the two most important sociolinguistic contexts experienced by the children; home and school. Five Polish and six Nepali heritage children participated in data collection, which began just as they started school and continued through their first year of compulsory education. Within a Narrative Inquiry framework, the study’s mixed methods design incorporated qualitative approaches, which informed the majority of data collection, and the use of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN), which contributed quantitative elements. Data analysis, using a Funds of Knowledge/Funds of Identity lens, enabled links to be made between the commonplaces of Narrative Inquiry and the children’s lived experiences of growing up in two languages. The findings of this study reveal that heritage bilinguals’ experiences of exposure to the heritage language (L1) varied in terms of both quantity and quality. Whilst parental choices around language use in the home were found to be a key indicator of children’s early development of skills in L1, the sociolinguistic domination of English over L1 was more strongly asserted as the children started full time at school. Through a re-framing of their knowledge, skills and experiences using the concepts of Funds of Knowledge and Funds of Identity as presented in this research, deficit views of child heritage language speakers in education are countered by the study’s findings. Following on from this, the study calls for a focus on EAL in Initial Teacher Education (ITE) and for further research in this area. These activities would enable the needs of minoritised pupil populations to be both better understood and served by practitioners in schools. Ultimately, such changes would contribute towards reducing the inequalities that are seen to exist for particular groups of children as they engage in education in schools in England.