Your Language Counts (YLC) tasked 18 heritage language educators of six different languages, from three national contexts, to work towards providing a meaningful resource for HLE educators, through the implementation of a Pilot Model. From the perspective of the coordinator responsible for designing Pilot implementation, this talk reflects upon the potential of principles and perspectives explicit in the Pilot to shaping the implementation work and leading a group of teachers through a collaborative study. The teachers were enabled to engage in a reflective cyclic process to which it can be said that it went beyond their initial expectations of the project. Contextualising and framing HLE from an ecological perspective (Bronfenbrenner 1979), the Pilot Model acknowledges diasporic contexts, linguistic diversity inherent to HLE and concludes with 12 activities that value different classroom approaches, recognise critical language awareness, interculturality and sociolinguistic knowledge. Drawing on the author’s previous experience and that of other researchers using reference groups and study circles to create knowledge, a practical and emancipatory approach, inspired by principles of action research, has driven the implementation phase (Nordman 2024). Acknowledging difference and opening for conversations that sidestep binaries of right or wrong, it has been possible for the participating teachers to simultaneously develop their own knowledge and provide valuable knowledge in the assessment and development of new activities for the Heritage Language Classroom. The author will highlight how it is possible to engage with the individual local contexts and to engage with the partners and teachers to adapt a process of implementation. With a focus upon didactics that encourages teachers to reflect upon the broader context in relation to the complexities of teaching and learning, the implementation focus has been lifted from a purely instrumental view of assessing a bank of “successful” materials to be taken off the shelf, to rather interrogate activities and material within the teaching and learning endeavours of HLE.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). Ecology of Human Development. Harvard University Press. Nordman, C. (2024) När blir flerspråkighet en resurs? En aktionsforskningsstudie om pedagogiskt transspråkande i ämnesundervisning. Malmö University Press.