Teaching hungarian in the US hungarian weekend schools: heritage or foreign language approach?

Abstract

Abstract. Hungarian language learners outside the country are divided in two groups: those who (re)learn it as their heritage language, and those who learn it as a foreign language. American Hungarian communities are seen as part of the former group, while in practice, they are in the middle. Hungarian weekend schools are key factors in maintaining ethnic identity and passing down knowledge of the language. These are informal self-sponsored institutions. In the weekend school of New Brunswick, NJ, children from all-around New York City are taught mostly by local volunteers with little professional training. The received teaching method is frontal and CLILL-based. Language is only taught through subjects like history, geography and literature, using textbooks published in Hungary for children in Hungary. Seeing the increasing ineffectiveness of this approach, volunteers from Hungary recently experimented with foreign language teaching materials, however they were ineffective, as intended for different audiences and require more contact hours, than are available. Instead of the two extremes, I suggest the creation of personalized teaching materials relying on a multicompetence approach that will enhance children’s metalinguistic awareness and self-monitoring skills, through tasks involving cross-linguistic comparison and awareness of language forms that bode well with literature, while geography and history are prone for enhancing learning strategies. The aim is giving children the multilingual skillset they would have acquired in a stronger multilingual environment.