In This Episode
This conversation with Joy Peyton centers on the momentum building across language advocacy and education—and what happens when people choose to focus on what’s working.
Recorded following Language Advocacy Days in Washington, D.C., Joy reflects on the energy in the room: educators, students, and leaders coming together not to dwell on challenges, but to share progress, ideas, and real experiences. From stories of collaboration across schools to the growing presence of young multilingual voices, the conversation highlights a shift toward a more connected and forward-moving language community.
As the discussion unfolds, Joy shares what she’s seeing across heritage language education—stronger partnerships, increased recognition, and new innovations that are making language learning more relevant, engaging, and alive. At its core, this episode is about one thing: when people come together with shared purpose, language becomes a powerful force for connection and growth.
You’ll Hear About
This episode walks through the real momentum happening in language education right now. Joy shares how Language Advocacy Days created space for meaningful conversations centered on collaboration, not limitation—and how that mindset is shaping what comes next.
You’ll hear how young people are stepping into the conversation with confidence, bringing multilingual experiences, global perspectives, and a sense of ownership over their language journeys. Their presence isn’t just impactful—it’s essential for sustaining and growing the movement.
The conversation also explores the evolution of heritage language education, including the expanding role of community-based schools, increased collaboration with public education systems, and growing recognition from national organizations. Joy highlights innovative approaches—from student leadership and cultural programming to new pathways for teacher certification and multilingual recognition.
There’s also a look ahead: new learning models that give students more ownership, global collaboration across countries, and a broader call to recognize every contributor in the language ecosystem as an equal partner. The message is clear—language learning is becoming more dynamic, more inclusive, and more connected to real life than ever before.
⏱️ Timestamps
02:08 – Opening and Joy’s experience at Language Advocacy Days
02:57 – Stories of collaboration across schools and communities
03:47 – Shifting focus from stress to positive progress
04:08 – The impact of student presence and engagement
05:34 – Students as advocates in legislative meetings
06:25 – Growth and energy of Language Advocacy Days
06:51 – Why youth involvement sustains organizations
07:57 – Multilingual experiences and family language dynamics
09:27 – Freedom, opportunity, and language learning
09:58 – Student voices and advocacy writing
11:22 – The current state of heritage language education
13:24 – Recognition from national organizations
14:56 – Innovation in community-based language schools
17:25 – Festivals, camps, and collaborative programming
18:57 – Teacher shortages and certification pathways
20:07 – Recognizing excellence in language teaching
22:54 – Energy, expansion, and being seen/heard
24:50 – State-level initiatives supporting multilingualism
26:33 – Student-driven learning and the FILL model
30:11 – Making language learning more alive and relevant
32:50 – Resources and access to multilingual materials
35:04 – Global Heritage Language Think Tank
37:10 – Global challenges and shared solutions
39:23 – How to get involved and find resources
41:25 – A call for equal partnership in language education
43:18 – Final reflections on collaboration and moving forward
💬 Key Quotes
“People weren’t focusing on stress… they were focusing on positive things that are happening.”
“They were describing it with energy.”
“Why can’t we be equal partners in the language learning endeavor?”
“We don’t have the freedom… to ignore any collaborative partner.”
🔗 Resources Mentioned
Links to Heritage Language Resources and Activities
Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools
Sign up for our newsletter to get updates! Newsletter | Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools
The March newsletter is attached. It has an announcement about
Come to our conference October 2 and 3 at American University and online! Annual Community-Based Heritage Language Schools Conference | Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools
In What We Do, there are School Profiles, Heritage Briefs, Students Talking About the Value of their Language Proficiency, and many other Resources What We Do | Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools
Books for Students in Their Languages – Online Resources in Learners’ Mother Tongue — Literacy Education and Second Language Learning for Adults
Books can be read online, downloaded and printed, translated, and be an inspiration for writing more books
Facilitated Interdependent Language Learning (FILL) – International Education Washington
Opportunities for Teachers
There is an initiative of the Southern Area International Languages Network (SAILN), Welcome to the Southern Area International Languages Network (SAILN) – Language and Applied Research Center, the Excellence in Less Commonly Taught Languages Award (ELLA). It recognizes outstanding educators who demonstrate innovation, impact, and a deep commitment to teaching Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs) – all languages other than English, French, German, and Spanish. These languages are often taught in diverse and community-driven contexts but may not always receive broad visibility. ELLA seeks to highlight educators whose work strengthens language learning, fosters cultural understanding, and builds meaningful community engagement.
They welcome nominations for those teaching in various settings, including:
· Community-based schools and heritage language programs
· Nonprofit and cultural organizations
· K–12 schools (in-school or after-school programs)
· Higher education and adult education programs
This inaugural award is an important step in elevating the visibility and impact of LCTL instruction across educational settings.
Nomination can be done through self-nomination or other-nomination. This is the link to the website for your reference and to find more information.
Self-nomination: https://forms.gle/gkoV4FQRReQdWvtx6
Other-nomination: https://forms.gle/9VakNSeuiZuU29Qn8
2026 Virtual Heritage Language Teacher Workshop
July 6-30, 2026
Hosted via Zoom by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
This summer workshop is designed to help language teachers meet the challenges of teaching heritage language (HL) students, whether in mixed classes or in heritage-specific classes. The workshop will comprise asynchronous online assignments and synchronous meetings (by Zoom) over the course of three weeks. Specifically, each week will represent a time commitment of about 8 hours (4 hours of asynchronous online work and two 2-hour synchronous Zoom meetings). The workshop will culminate with a two-day virtual summit in the fourth week, where participants will present the materials they develop.
WORKSHOP LEADERS
- Melissa Bowles, Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Alegría Ribadeneira, Ph.D., Colorado State University, Pueblo
Find out more and APPLY! Application deadline is March 31, 2026.
HL Global Think Tank | HLE Network
Includes:
What Can We All Do?
What Can These Groups Do?
https://carla.umn.edu/institutes
Other Rescources
- JNCL-NCLIS
- Language Advocacy Days
- Global Seal of Biliteracy
- National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE)
- ACTFL
About the Guest: Joy Peyton
Joy Peyton is a nationally recognized leader in heritage language education, dedicated to supporting community-based language schools and multilingual learners. Her work focuses on building connections between communities, schools, and organizations to strengthen language learning across the United States and globally.
She plays a key role in advancing initiatives through the Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools and collaborates with international partners through efforts like the Global Heritage Language Think Tank. Her work continues to shape how language education is recognized, supported, and expanded.
More information about Joy Peyton, click here.
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Transcript
Norah Jones: (00:00.108)
You know, when you have a guest who has so much knowledge, so much enthusiasm, so much energy, wants to share, you just have to keep asking them, how can our world be a better place? And that particular person in this case is my guest, Joy Payton. Joy Payton is one of the founders and leaders of the Coalition for Community-Based Heritage Language Schools.
She has been my guest on a variety of podcasts, both soloing and also on panels, helping to describe and encourage people to engage with the role of heritage language schools, community-based heritage language schools, their positive impact on individuals, families, the community, the nation, and the world.
The growing national recognition of the power, and we often call it the superpower, of having multiple languages with which one can then interact with the world and find occupations that are both powerful, well-paying, and also helpful to the whole of the society. And also, in this particular case, Joy also speaks about the importance of
advocacy for these types of experiences, these types of language schools, community-based heritage language schools, because not always are their roles understood. They’re often invisible. And therefore, the funding for them, the encouragement of their engagement with the whole of the educational and occupational opportunities, sometimes there are gaps. So enjoy this conversation. It’s thorough and
animated, encouraging, and invitational. It’s a conversation about the future in front of us right now through community-based heritage language schools. Enjoy the conversation.
How are you doing?
Joy Peyton: (02:09.728)
I’m doing great, great, wonderful to be at LAD. I’m so happy I went. was really,
Norah Jones: (02:15.406)
What was it about the Legislative Action Days that were so great? I mean, you won an award. I’m happy about that.
Joy Peyton: (02:25.078)
yeah, that was really fun. just being with all of you and hearing and, you know, hearing about everything that we’re interested in and being able to hear people talk about it and hearing people’s own experiences. You know, the beautiful experiences that people shared in the meetings, the meetings with the Senator and legislative staff.
Norah Jones: (02:49.826)
What were some of the stories that you heard that you’re like, that was cool. I like that story. Do you have any particular ones that stood out?
Joy Peyton: (02:57.574)
Just, you know, I’m a teacher in this school and I’m working in this district and we are collaborating with each other and we’re really promoting language education and we’re working more with the state. We’re being more recognized than we were in the past. And Claudia Da Costa talked about working in a community-based school and what difference that is making for her and how she enjoys it and how she’s…
being able to collaborate with people. The collaboration, the stories about collaboration I thought were just wonderful. Because of course that’s how we move together in beautiful ways.
Norah Jones: (03:37.326)
Are you surprised to hear stories of collaboration at a time where there’s a lot of stressors on education in general and language education in particular?
Joy Peyton: (03:47.822)
So yeah, maybe. I mean, I didn’t think about it at the time, but you know, people weren’t focusing on stress. They weren’t. They weren’t focusing on stress. They weren’t focusing on lack. People in the meetings were focusing on positive things that are happening. Did you notice that?
Norah Jones: (04:07.059)
definitely, definitely.
Joy Peyton: (04:09.986)
And of course having those young people there and I got to talk to them. They were all gathered together when I went, you know, at the reception and I got to talk to them and they were telling me their language experiences.
Norah Jones: (04:22.766)
That’s great. And were you happy to see them? What do you think that they and their languages, experiences shared did for you and also for the Legislative Action Days in general?
Joy Peyton: (04:37.038)
Yeah. Well, for me, just the opportunity to talk with those young people, because I don’t work in it. I don’t work directly in a school. And so I often don’t get to connect with them. You know, I watch videos of young people talking about their language experiences, but to be and to and to have them take the time to talk to me, you know.
and to want to tell me their stories and to be laughing. I learned this language and I completely forgot it, but this is the language that I really care about. And laughing at themselves, laughing at each other, just having a really good time. I think they really enjoyed being there. That’s what I saw, that they really enjoyed it. Now, I didn’t hear them make presentations in the Senate and representative offices, and maybe they didn’t.
This was just personal connection outside of that. Did they make some presentation?
Norah Jones: (05:36.286)
It kind of depended on where they went. I know that some of the collegians that I was with definitely were speakers when we went to visit the senators and representatives in our state. And that ability to speak up and to take charge of doing that effectively and in a responsible, mature, but also energetic manner, I think was a huge part of the success.
Joy Peyton: (06:06.912)
Yes. I think, when you asked, I mean, you didn’t ask me now, but I think I’m going to go ahead and say it. What are some positive things moving forward? Do I see positive things happening moving forward? And one of them, of course, I have not been at the Language Advocacy Days on site before. I’ve been at them online and I participated in meetings, but to go to Washington, DC. But it just, it seems to be growing. It seems to be so dynamic.
And of course, bringing young people in is going to help it to move forward in very powerful ways. And not everybody is doing that.
Norah Jones: (06:42.573)
Move.
Norah Jones: (06:48.462)
What do mean by that? Not everybody is doing that.
Joy Peyton: (06:51.118)
churches, for example, what you see is, and other communities also, not only churches, but there are certain communities where the founders, the people who were young when it started are now aging. And so the community is getting smaller, less energetic, less active. And I mean, we could probably think about what different, in what different communities is that true? But you know, there are initiatives and efforts that have stopped and it’s not because they weren’t.
good, it’s because they aged out. So we really, I mean, not only for the energy and the excitement and the newness that these young people bring, and they bring new energy and new excitement and new viewpoints, you know, things that I haven’t thought about before, but they know things that I don’t know about. And also it’s going to keep the organization, it keeps the organization going.
Norah Jones: (07:44.558)
What are some of the perspectives and ideas that they shared that you went, yeah, you can tell that we’re talking about young people with fresh ideas, fresh perspectives? What were some of those that you heard?
Joy Peyton: (07:57.944)
Well, I mean, this isn’t really a fresh perspective, but just to hear from them the value of travel, the value of doing a semester or a year abroad, what that gave them. I mean, my daughters did that, and so I know the value, but I really, you know, to hear from it, hear about it from other people. The value of the language in their lives and how they’re using it, the fact that, you know, we often talk about bilinguals.
The fact that many of them know more than two languages and they know them quite well because of their heritage, their grandparents and what languages their grandparents speak. Yeah, there was a young man there and he told me that he had to learn, might’ve been Turkish because that’s the only language that his grandmother speaks. And she visits and he’s with him. And so he learned it and he speaks it. And I mean,
I’m like, okay, you know what? I gotta use Spanish with my grandkids. I gotta get on this. I mean, just that. And then, you know, a lot of them have one parent who speaks one language, another parent who speaks another language, and the parents speak their language. So they’re living in a household with three languages. It includes English, of course, sometimes, but yeah. And that’s just exciting. And they were not complaining about it or moaning about it.
describing it with energy.
Norah Jones: (09:27.788)
It seems too that what you said just a few minutes ago about it seemed like they have a lot of freedom. There’s a lot of positivity and freedom. They don’t feel constrained too much or they’ve found some open doors and windows, if I can put it another way, that sometimes I wonder if in general, if young people feel like they have those doors and windows available to them and specifically with regard to what language can do.
are those doors and windows especially open because of these multilingual opportunities?
Joy Peyton: (09:58.626)
Yeah. I mean, that would, that’s a good question. That would be, you know, another positive thing that I was going to mention. I’ll mention it now is the fact that young people are writing Julia Hasich. that, did I say her name right? H-O-S-H-E Hasich is writing a student blog for JNCL Nicholas and with a focus on funding and advocacy. But another, and she’s sent me some really interesting questions that she’s,
writing about, she’s writing about her experiences growing up in a community-based heritage language school and the role that advocacy can play in supporting these institutions. Well, the question that you just asked would be a really interesting blog post, you know? What about the really varied and rich experiences and, and do, are they experiencing open doors? You know, are they feeling like they have open doors to move through and are they feeling free? I think that would be a great.
blog post, you know, with lot of different students talking.
Norah Jones: (10:59.758)
I appreciate your pointing that out. And I think that that is a good question to ask because one can kind of interpret from the outside and sometimes interpret incorrectly. know, Joy, you’re mentioning about the heritage, your area of concentration. I won’t say expertise. You have way too many areas of expertise to say just one or two, but I’ll focus on the heritage. Since we’ve talked several times, we had the panels in the…
second season and we’ve gone on and talked about heritage ongoing. What have you been seeing with regard to how heritage language learning is now happening? What are some of the stressors on it, if any? What are some of the new things happening, if any? Where has it come? Where is it headed? What are you seeing? What are you happy about? What are you concerned about? However you want to interpret that lengthy question right there.
Joy Peyton: (11:57.774)
Well, we’re, you know, we are continuing to do our conference every year and the Heritage Language Conference focused on community-based heritage language schools, which is my primary focus of these schools. And new people are finding out about us, new people are joining us, people are coming up with new topics, people who aren’t in the community-based schools are learning about us and caring because they care about language education.
So that I think is growing. And of course you did those beautiful interviews either last year, I think, and that was very helpful because then we could hear what was positive. I’m finding stronger connections with school leaders, with leaders in pre-K through 12 public and private schools. And so that’s good. I’m finding connections with…
state departments of education because we now have coalition state representatives. Because people working in the state department of education have come up to me and said, you know what, I want to work with all the schools in my state. We can move beyond only focusing on the language, but think at the state level. And these are education leaders who want to not only promote heritage language education, and they want that, but
promote community-based schools. Also just recognition by language organizations. know, Actful now talks about heritage language education. Community-based schools are listed. JNCL Nicholas has given us so much recognition and value and that’s just very, very encouraging. And their Language Connects Foundation who
connect with us quite often. And the Office of English Language Acquisition, which of course doesn’t exist now, it was so wonderful because Montserrat Garibay really cared about multilingualism. She did a webinar on it, which I’m sure is still available. And then I said, well, you never mentioned community-based schools. And so she did a webinar just on community-based schools. She visited the schools.
Joy Peyton: (14:16.482)
So OEHLA did a lot. the positive thing is that I think that NABE is picking up because many things that the National Association for Bilingual Education, many things that I saw the Office of English Language Apposition embarking on when they were defunded and closed, I saw NABE picking them up. I think Jan Sayle-Nicholas is picking this up. I think Actful is picking it up.
So I think I’m really excited about the way that language organizations are really wanting to engage. Maybe, I don’t know, I want to just say some of the wonderful things that the community-based schools are doing that I see them doing now. Is that okay? And they’re often sharing these with public schools and the public schools are benefiting from it. So working with art, music, drama, and film.
Norah Jones: (15:03.064)
Please
Joy Peyton: (15:13.64)
in the language, pulling together all the films that they can find in that language and having a film festival, developing curriculum, instructional materials, and pleasure reading books because they didn’t have them. And they’re working so hard to engage the students with these things, engaging teenagers through many things, including giving them leadership positions. Abrace, the Portuguese school in Virginia has this initiative called Pro Jove.
They have leadership mentors. They become teachers and leaders of the young students. They have partners in a Brazilian school that they meet with, partnering and grouping. Also, another thing that’s engaging teenagers is receiving the global and state seals of illiteracy and other recognition. And this is growing all the time. And as I mentioned, we have videos on our website of students talking about how they received that seal.
the global seal and the value of that in their lives, the value of the language, the value of the school, very powerful. And I noticed that Carla is having a summer Institute in June and the focus is seals of my literacy, establishing and expanding programs in schools. So this is this whole initiative of recognition and it’s for language proficiency is growing mightily. think another, another thing that
schools are doing is engaging and supporting parents.
Norah Jones: (16:46.556)
Hmm.
Joy Peyton: (16:48.02)
of the children and helping them to become advocates for the language and the schools. Connecting and collaborating with public schools. I said that before, but repeat that, that that’s really happening. And there’s, hear about they’re holding events together. We’re having this festival and we’re doing it together. The public schools, the community-based schools, you know, focused on the language like Mother Language Day, which just happened in February, Mother Tongue Language Day.
We’re holding festivals, all these people working together and conducting summer camps. And I’m hearing about these amazing summer camps and the hundreds of kids that go to it and go to it every year. So those are some of the exciting things that I have seen that are happening. So of course, I’m hoping that we will have a continued focus on my multilingualism, understanding of the
of the powerful role that plays in people’s lives, which we talked about at Language Advocacy Days. Education, careers, powerful connections with other countries because we speak their language and we know them. We understand their culture. Another thing that we can do more of, and I’m looking forward to it, is recognizing established immigrant communities, established language communities. And Dick Brecht.
mentioned at one point that there are over 200, and he calls them established immigrant communities in the United States. Who are they? Do they have schools? Do they want to establish schools in their language? What would they like to have from us to support them so they can sustain and improve and move forward in very effective ways? So that’s something that I’m really passionate about.
Another one that people are talking about is preparing and certifying teachers. You know, we have a need for language teachers. I think that was brought up several times in the language advocacy days, both in public and private schools and in community-based schools, but definitely in public and private schools. Well, some people are saying, and Virginia, I know two states, Virginia and Washington, that are working on this now to go and identify
Norah Jones: (18:56.82)
Yes.
Joy Peyton: (19:11.352)
who’s teaching what languages in the community-based schools and create a pathway for them to become certified, licensed and certified so that they can teach in the public schools. They can maybe teach in both settings. And another thing is that Ken Cruickshank, he’s in Australia. He talked recently in this Sydney, Australia Heritage Community Languages Conference. He talked about the…
efforts that they’re doing in Australia to recognize and certify teachers. my goodness. There is so much we can learn from them. They’ve been doing this for years and holding all these workshops. can watch his podcast. have a link to it. also, yeah, finding ways for these teachers to teach in public schools, in both schools if they want to. And also, where are the pathways for young people to come into teaching?
like those people who were with us. How many of them want to become teachers and how are we going to make that an attractive thing to do? Another thing that’s happening that I just learned about in February is recognizing excellent language teachers. I learned from Ahmadiyyan Shahnaz, Ahmadiyyan Fard, who’s a coalition language representative for Farsi and Persian, that the Southern Area International Language Network is having
an Excellence in Less Commonly Taught Languages Award. And I just want to read this because this is so beautiful. They recognize outstanding educators who demonstrate innovation, impact, and deep commitment to teaching less commonly taught languages. And the term less commonly taught languages has been very limited in the past.
to mostly languages that we in our country are at war with. But they’re including, sorry, they’re including all languages. once an American Sign Language person came up to me who was my colleague and he said, how can we make American Sign Language a less commonly taught language? And I said, do something dangerous. Anyway, for this, they’re including all languages except for English, French, German, and Spanish.
Joy Peyton: (21:31.328)
And I’m sure the French, German, and Spanish people feel sad about this. They’re all other languages. And they say, these languages are often taught in diverse and community-driven contexts, but they do not always receive broad visibility, which is absolutely true. So this award seeks to highlight educators whose work strengthens language learning, fosters cultural understanding, and brings meaningful community engagement.
And so, and they’re welcoming nominations of teachers in all these contexts, community-based schools, heritage language programs, nonprofit and cultural organizations. There are teachers working there, K through 12 schools, both in-school and after-school programs, and higher education and adult programs. So they’re not only, I know, bringing this award, but they’re kind of expanding our scope, you know? So that’s exciting.
Norah Jones: (22:30.656)
Expansion, there’s several things that keep coming up as you’re talking. First of all, tremendous sense of energy. You are an energetic person. We have had many good conversations, but the energy of what is being experienced here is ramped up in a way that is, well, frankly, thrilling.
expansion is another, that sense of here’s this and now there’s this possibility and this growing possibility and this new concept. And the third thing that I was picking up over and over again is, you know, we have in our culture and in our human lives, that sense of, just want to be seen. I just want to be heard as a way of recognizing that we are human beings standing on the planet, taking up some space. And this
There’s so many ways, Joy, that you have described new ways, expanded ways, novel ways of being heard, seen, integrating language into the daily life of not only an individual, but of their community, their circle around them, and doing it in a way that’s highly energized and very freeing, which is a delight. And it has a…
Joy Peyton: (23:49.666)
Yes.
Norah Jones: (23:52.216)
has a confidence, an energized confidence level to it that’s very alive in ways I don’t know if I’ve heard so thoroughly before.
Joy Peyton: (24:02.048)
good, very good point. And yes, that’s a really good point because you know, sometimes we can get together with a group either on site or online and we can just go, my God, and we can just moan and wail. But these, these groups I’m talking about are not moaning and wailing. They’re, as you said, energized, moving forward. We’re doing this now. I want to tell you a couple more.
So I learned this at the National Council of State Supervisors of Languages Conference. I always go there and also to the district supervisors because it’s just wonderful to see these people playing their roles. It’s always connected with Actful. So I highly recommend it. Go to Actful and go to those two because they’re right before.
But in Rhode Island, I learned from Erin Papa, who was at the Language Advocacy Days too, that they now have a foundation for multilinguals that they have established in Rhode Island. Yeah, I didn’t know about that. I learned it from her.
Norah Jones: (25:04.93)
What does that mean? is the intention of that? How will that work?
Joy Peyton: (25:08.478)
I think it’s to seek to support multilingual students in their learning and in their growth. I need to look it up. I should have before I talk to you, because I imagine that they’re going to be pursuing many things, but I think they want to support multilingual students. And if it’s a foundation, they might want to support them financially, you know, in pursuing certain things. Also in Illinois, I learned this from Karen Skinner.
They’re renaming their school language code, and I’ll bet a lot of states are going to do this, to replace foreign language with multilingualism. And they’re seeking to add multilinguals to the language learning landscape, recognize that they’re multilinguals, call them multilinguals, and recognize community-based heritage language schools too. So they’re seeking to do that. That’s wonderful. And I’m sure other states…
Norah Jones: (26:01.87)
That’s fantastic.
Joy Peyton: (26:06.894)
are doing wonderful, of course they are. when I go to an assistful, I get to learn them. Another thing that’s pretty exciting is learning how to implement fill the facilitated interdependent language learning model.
Norah Jones: (26:22.478)
I had Phil in my mind, F-I-L-L, in my mind when you were talking and I’m thinking, there’s a conversation to have indeed. Tell us more about what you were bringing that up.
Joy Peyton: (26:36.11)
Tom and Ryan Allen, who’s in Delaware, a teacher in Delaware, presented at Actful. And you know, I’m not saying the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages because they don’t call themselves that anymore. They call themselves Actful. But they presented at Actful on Phil. And Tom talked about the theory of it, the model of it, the excitement of it. And Ryan talked about what he is actually doing in his classes.
He is a Spanish teacher and he teaches, I believe, two Spanish classes still, but he has a class of 23 students that I think are learning 13 languages. I might have the number wrong. 13, I think it’s 13 languages because instead it’s facilitated language learning, interdependent. So instead of the teacher saying, this is what we’re doing and this is how we’re doing it and this is the level of proficiency you’re going to reach,
In this way, the students choose their language. Now it’s better if they were, if they’re in a group and you don’t have an individual just working alone. So he’s got groups of two, three, four, five, six students in his class and they map out, this is the topic we’re going to focus on. This is the path we’re going to follow this week. This is what we’re going to do. And this is the level of proficiency that we’re going to reach. And they are very excited, very engaged. I said to them.
I wonder, I mean, I think this is so exciting. I wonder if community-based heritage language schools, what would this look like there? Because they’re focusing on one language. They’re teaching that one language. And so we started talking about, well, there are students of different ages, students of different proficiency levels, students with different interests. And so Tom and Ryan are going to present a workshop at our conference this year on how Phil can be in, it’s October.
Norah Jones: (28:30.168)
Wonder.
Joy Peyton: (28:33.714)
and third in Washington, D.C. So they’re going to present on that and that’s going to be very dynamic and interesting because I’ve never seen this before.
Norah Jones: (28:43.02)
Yeah, I think that’s a real breakthrough concept. It makes perfect sense. It’s naturally the way people are motivated and allows them to make it alive. It’s interesting. That’s another aspect, joy of all throughout is that there’s a sense here that doesn’t necessarily, I think, surprise people that are in the language education chorus, if you will. But potentially for those who are not, that the languages are very alive.
It’s not pull a book off a shelf per se. know, there’s still resources, but you don’t just pull the book off the shelf. It’s not. Again, apologies folks that are in my listening audience that think I might be talking about Latin as a dead language. Latin is very much alive in its own dear way, but it was taught so many years as a thing to read, as a thing to manipulate. And that bled into the way we have taught.
historically, modern languages. And this is a very lively living entity now. Where’s the culture? Where’s my interest? Where’s the context? Who am I speaking to? How do I make connections? What is my community doing? Who are we reaching out to? These various things that you’re describing, very much alive in a way that potentially not everybody realizes outside of the circle of language education, or sometimes even in, is happening.
And this fill in particular allows for even more specificity of learning. Play around a little bit more with this. How does this affect what you see as a person who is specifically engaged with heritage learning? Talk a little bit more about that, where you see some of the possibilities that you have described taking people in the years to come.
Joy Peyton: (30:35.424)
Yeah. yeah, one, mean, something we have to recognize is that the students in this, in the specific community based school are not choosing their language unless they choose another language and they, they do something different. But in that school, they’re not choosing it because that school teaches that language, which I think is just fine. Yeah. But this whole idea, Paul Sandrock talked about it at
the actual conference, you know, he used to be at Actful. We’re having a plenary speaker at our conference. Yong Zhao, who I met, I met through Tom Welsh. I met in a meeting with Tom Welsh and he’s, he, he’s talking about moving beyond one size fits all education. Yeah. Which I think is very interesting. You know, this is what we do. This is going to work for you and this is how you’re going to move through it.
Norah Jones: (31:21.176)
Yeah.
Joy Peyton: (31:29.902)
having, and Paul Sandrock talked about turning from teachers being in charge to teachers being facilitators. You don’t need to run that class. if I were teaching right now, I would go to a whole bunch of workshops on that because that’s not how I was brought up to teach. That’s for sure. mean, I don’t, that’s why I really want Tom to come and why I love watching him. And there is a video from Phil about
about the value of Phil and how he teaches his classes. But I think down the road, I think we’re definitely going to have more books in languages that young people, teenagers, everybody wants to read because people are thinking about that. What do people want to read? Do you know that there is a heritage language resources hub that has books in like thousands of languages?
I don’t have the link up right now.
Norah Jones: (32:29.342)
I we have had in the podcast journeys that I’ve had here in these last five seasons. have definitely talked about that and there’s a link to it in one of my episodes because that was astonishing to realize that that exists and what kind of a resource that can do for learners and for speakers of all kinds and readers of all kinds. Astonishing.
Joy Peyton: (32:54.434)
You can read the books, you can download them, you can translate them. If you like it translated into another language, you can write your own books and post them. so I think, and I also think we’re going to end up with many more dynamic curricula in different languages, dynamic lessons, because, and we’re going to end up with student developed curricula and lessons and topic focus, which is going to be a very interesting thing.
Answer your question.
Norah Jones: (33:24.438)
Yes, and there’s an aspect to it that I’m thinking too about the alphabet projects and other indigenous languages, the revitalization of indigenous language where students can pick those and then the writing of them, both in those languages which have already had or have developed alphabet type of a writing system or not an alphabet type, just a writing system. And then those that are still taking a look
where the communities are turning and saying, how can we create together a literacy component that helps to keep the language alive and have books written in this now, you know, writing system. so resources like this and energy like this, I go back to that, that sense of, there’s this sense of release in what you’re talking about today, Joy, this sense of I am
worthy of being able to learn a language. I’m worthy of knowing something and I’m willing to choose and that freedom to choose is energizing as well.
Joy Peyton: (34:35.65)
Yes, yes, the freedom to choose. then, and then because I work on it, I gain confidence that I, that I can move through it or the students gain confidence. can move through this and supporting each other, not competing with each other, supporting each other. That’s where you want to go, Nora. I have, I have this to offer. Would you like that? You know? Yeah. Now speak. Go ahead.
Norah Jones: (35:02.465)
No, no, no, you’re next, go for it.
Joy Peyton: (35:04.172)
Well, no, I have another thing to talk about if that’s okay. of supporting each other in a new way, in a new, outreaching way, we have formed, probably two years ago, the Global Heritage Language Think Tank, which I didn’t come up with that name. Gisi Canisaro came up with it. And it’s a group from, at this point, 15 countries, but we keep getting new members from new countries.
Norah Jones: (35:07.704)
Yes, bring it up.
Joy Peyton: (35:33.23)
15 countries that collaborate with each other. We meet four times a year and now we’re going to start meeting three times a year. And then the fourth time we’re going to somewhere close to Mother Tongue Language Day, we’re going to have an outreach meeting and invite people and tell them about the think tank. But I mean, it’s just so interesting and powerful to hear from each other and learn from each other.
You know, learn what other people are doing, like I told you about Australia and all the things they’re doing to develop teachers. And we share our challenges and they include schools are struggling with funding and we have that here. That’s the case in many countries. They’re often serving low income communities, so they can’t charge much tuition, but that’s where their income comes from is tuition. Teachers are receiving limited or no income for their work.
They’re volunteers. Yeah, mostly volunteers. Need for materials, curriculum lessons, pleasure reading books. This is across countries. Limited access to technology is in some countries. You guys, I see you’re doing that. No, we can’t do that. And keeping students engaged throughout their educational experience through high school into universities, into careers. This is a, goes way beyond the U.S., this challenge. And then successes, engaging teenagers.
And we get to hear how different countries are doing that. And schools in some countries are funded by the government. These community-based schools in some countries are funded by the government. And just one, I think one really interesting thing that we did is to develop, and I think you’ll like this, this global call for action in heritage language education. And it describes what is heritage language education? What are community-based schools?
Where are they? What do we know about them? What are their challenges? What are their successes? And then at the end, there are these beautiful two pages, well, they’re way longer than two pages, asking, what can we all do? And there are about nine things listed there. And I’ll just mention two. Familiarize ourselves, our family, our students, our patients, our clients, our staff, with the heritage language programs that are operating in our community. Do I know?
Norah Jones: (37:58.818)
No.
Joy Peyton: (38:00.152)
familiarize ourselves, and then support heritage language education. The teachers, the learners, the families, with the means that I have available. And I really like that it doesn’t just say support heritage language education. Well, what could I do? I could volunteer. I could donate resources. I could bring visibility. I could show appreciation. I could become a sponsor.
So those are, I mean, there are many ways and there are probably many other ways. And then there’s a long list of what can we all do. And then the next set of lists is what can these particular groups do? What can heritage language learners do? What can mainstream teachers and principals do? Journalists, local businesses, local districts, state and national government. What can all of them do? So that it’s really exciting stuff. We also wrote a…
book on excellent, what does an excellent heritage language program look like? What are the characteristics? And now we have a rubric where people can get together and think about their own school, their own program. Where are we on this? Where are we on this? We’re nowhere, we’re weak, we’re medium, we’re excellent. And what do we want to do next? And that’s a really dynamic document. But these things came out of this global group.
Norah Jones: (39:22.944)
And what about people that are just getting to know this, hear this, realize this is going on, understanding and kind of the tsunami of breakthroughs that you’re giving here today, is how do they find out more? Where do they go? Can they connect with some of these experiences, some of these outcomes, some of these places to go and ask questions and find where answers are or to contribute additional questions that could be considered? Yeah.
Joy Peyton: (39:49.192)
That’s a really good question. I mean, in most cases, you can go to a website. Phil has a website and they have a video on there. They have their connections. Well, you can come to the Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools website. Just type in Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools, it’ll come up. And we have all kinds of resources and connections and we have profiles of schools, heritage language briefs.
If I hear a person talk, like I did at Language Advocacy Days, talking about an interesting topic, like having a teacher, a teacher cafe where teachers get together and really just talk about things and help each other. I say, could you write a heritage brief about that? That’s a two page paper so that we can let everybody know about it.
But also the JNCL Nicholas website has tons of materials about things that we can all do, about why this is important, lots of really helpful materials. So I would say websites are come to our conference, October 2 and 3. Join JNCL Nicholas and learn about, you learn so much from Nora, John Bernstein, Amanda, Linda Eggnats, so much to learn. Yeah, join JNCL.
Norah Jones: (41:07.95)
Lots of options of going places to find out more information. What else? You’ve shared many, many, many initiatives and insights and resources today. What else are you like, before we go, I definitely want everybody to hear X.
Joy Peyton: (41:25.016)
Well, I said it earlier and it’s something that I actually have not been thinking about until I was at Language Advocacy Day and I was with Claudia da Costa, who’s at Abrace, the Portuguese school. And she just said to me, Joy, why can’t we get, I said this already, but this is where I’m really thinking right now. Why can’t we get community-based schools?
heritage language schools. You know, different countries call them different things, by the way. So you might be talking to somebody from another country and they have a different term for it. But why can’t we let them be equal instead of down here? And then somebody goes, you, let’s see, what might we do together? Why can’t we be equal partners in the language learning endeavor? Equal partners and be considered valuable equal.
And then strive to be valuable and equal. Strive to be excellent. Strive to make contributions. Strive to be, well, you said we all like to be known. Being known is something I care about with them. I want them to be seen. I want them to be known. And I just am overcome with gratitude to JNC Al-Nikolas for doing that, because you did that at the conference.
with the James the Latest Award. I mean, to make them visible to everybody there, that was a big thing. So that’s something that I’m really wanting to focus on now.
Norah Jones: (42:56.828)
that makes perfect sense. We all have something important to contribute and we all are collaborative partners in this. It’s a growing area where all sorts of players are all sorts of resources and we just don’t have the freedom. We don’t have the time to ignore any collaborative partner. So that was beautifully said.
Joy Peyton: (43:22.926)
And you just added something. Focus on being a collaborating partner, working with collaborating partners and pursuing collaboration. Yes, thank you. That’s how we’re gonna do it. Onward together.
Norah Jones: (43:34.776)
Thank you.
Yeah.
I’m ready. High five.
Joy Peyton: (43:42.186)
I so appreciate your partnership. You are a fabulous partner.
Norah Jones: (43:46.174)
I appreciate you, my friend, and I thank you for, you’ve prepared so beautifully to present the kinds of things that are happening, the things that are going forward, the stressors that are getting attention, the resources that we can look up. Thanks for doing all of that, sharing all of that today.
Joy Peyton: (44:07.214)
Good, I’m glad. I’m glad. Thanks for this opportunity.
Norah Jones: (44:11.426)
I hope you enjoyed this conversation with my guest, Joy Peyton. Hope that whatever the status of your home and your community, that you’ll take a look into the role and opportunities through community-based heritage language schools. Whether or not you yourself are engaged in language. Potentially, you can help them. Take a look on my website, fluency.consulting.
For more information about this episode and others with Joy Peyton, including those panels I spoke about, which were episodes 24, 60, 61, 62 and 63. And also check out the resources that Joy has provided there. And take a look at the website of the coalition, is heritagelanguageschools.org.
Go to my website, fluency.consulting one way or another, get engaged with those opportunities that come only through multilingual, multicultural opportunities in all of our societies globally. Thanks for listening and until next time.
S6E7: Onward Together: The Energy Behind Language Advocacy & Collaboration with Joy Peyton – It's About Language, with Norah Jones
- S6E7: Onward Together: The Energy Behind Language Advocacy & Collaboration with Joy Peyton
- S6E6: Power of Young Voices | Students at Language Advocacy Days
- S6E5: It’s Not Just What You Say: The Hidden Power of Language and Communication with Charlie Hanchett
- S6E4: From Library French Lessons to Global Impact with Maureen Manning.
- S6E3: Learning Language at the Speed of Being Human with James Mattiace.
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