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Community-Based Heritage Language Schools Conference

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2025 Community-Based Heritage Language Schools Conference Better Together

This conference brings together everyone who is interested in learning about, collaborating with, and advocating for community-based HL schools. Participants typically include directors and administrators of community-based HL schools, teachers, members of the language communities, representatives of public schools, researchers in the field of HL education, and leaders of national language organizations.

2025 In-person and Virtual Options

Friday, October 3, 2025 - 1:00 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. EDT
Saturday, October 4, 2025 - 9:45 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. EDT

This conference aims to:

  1. Build partnerships among and across community-based heritage language schools and determine arenas for future action
  2. Help schools create, strengthen, and build their school structures and activities
  3. Make clear the importance of community-based heritage language schools in the language learning landscape and in the lives of language communities in the United States
  4. Develop information about community-based heritage language schools through a national survey of schools
  5. Share and make available resources that will be helpful to schools

Conference Schedule

Important Links

 

Friday, October 3

(Eastern Time)
12:00 to 1:00 p.m. - Participant Check-in
1:00 to 1:30 p.m. – Conference Opening

Saturday, October 4

(Eastern Time)
9:45 to 10:00 a.m. - Participant Check-in

Plenary Speakers:

 

Dr. Jin Sook Lee, Professor of Education, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara

  • Bridging Resources and Relationships: Strengthening Community-Based Schools through University-Community Partnerships
Tom Welch, NCSSFL's Neural Network
  • Every Learner, Every Language: How is this even possible?

Workshops for Teachers and Administrators 

  • Partnering with Families to Support Heritage Language and Cultural Development
  • Building and Using Languages Through Oral History Projects, Drama, and Film 
  • How the New NHLRC Online Professional Development Course Addresses Community-Based Heritage Language Schools’ Needs
  • Personalizing Progress with a FILL approach in Community-Based Schools
  • Identifying, Designing, and Implementing Critical Tasks to Foster Critical Language Awareness in Community-Based Settings 
  • Student-Centered AI Applications for Home and Classroom Integration

Panels and Networking Sessions

  • How CBHL Schools Strive to Prepare Students to Receive Certificates for Their HL Proficiency
  • What Schools Are Doing
  • Motivating and Engaging High School Students 
  • Instructional Approaches that Arabic Schools Are Using 
  • Academic Approaches That Schools Are Developing  
  • Using LMS in Community-Based Heritage Language Schools 

Registration is now open for the 2025 Community-Based Heritage Language Schools Conference. Register Here!

The following languages have been represented at the conference in previous years. The National Coalition of Community-Based Language Schools has language representatives for each of these languages who are closely engaged with practitioners working in community-based heritage language programs in their language community and are interested in making connections with other language groups. Language respresentatives serve as liaisons, creating connections between their language community and the work of the Coalition. Check out the Coalition website to learn more about the language representatives and their responsibilities.

Languages represented include:

  • Albanian
  • American Sign Language
  • Amharic (Ethiopia)
  • Arabic
  • Bulgarian
  • Chinese
  • Czech
  • Dari
  • Estonian
  • Farsi

  • Filipino

  • Finnish

  • French
  • German
  • Greek
  • Hindi   
  • Hungarian
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Lithuanian
  • Lokanu
  • Marathi
  • Osage Nation
  • Pashto
  • Persian
  • Polish
  • Portuguese
  • Quechua
  • Romanian
  • Russian
  • Serbian
  • Slovak
  • Spanish
  • Tagalog
  • Tamil
  • Thai
  • Turkish
  • Ukranian
  • Urdu
  • Uyghur
  • Vietnamese

The 2025 Community-Based Heritage Language Schools Conference is hosted as a collaboration between the American University Institute for Innovation in Education and the Coalition for Community-Based Heritage Language Schools.

If you are interested in sponsoring the conference, please contact Danielle Sodani: dgsodani@american.edu.

 

2024 Plenary Address

Community and HL Schools Transforming Education

1:01:47

Ken Cruickshank, Ph.D., University of Sydney, Australia

 

Registration

It's not too late to register for the 2025 conference! Register here.

2024 Conference Resources

Please find the 2024:

Please note if you do not see a video listed, the recording is not available. 

Conference Planning Team

Coalition for Community-Based Heritage Language Schools

Masako Douglas, PhD, Professor of Japanese, California State University, Long Beach; Curriculum Advisor, Orange Coast Gakuen Japanese Language School

Ana Lucia Lico, Co-Founder and Board Member, Brazilian Association for Culture and Education (ABRACE)

Renate Ludanyi, PhD, President, German Language School Conference, United States

Tommy Lu, EdD, Department Chair of Information Technologies, Delaware Technical Community College; Advisor, Washington Metropolitan Association of Chinese Schools (WMACS)

Marta McCabe, PhD, President, Czech and Slovak School of North Carolina; Global Learning Consultant, Duke University

Joy Kreeft Peyton, PhD, Conference Chair, Senior Fellow, Center for Applied Linguistics

American University

Mark Forsberg, Program Coordinator, Community-Based Heritage Language Schools Conference

Prakriti Nepal, Research Assistant, Institute of Innovation in Education, American University, School of Education

Danielle Gervais Sodani, PhD, Director, Institute of Innovation in Education, American University, School of Education