ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how new understandings of language, literacy, and identity in the late modern era have provided a richer and more personalized basis for second/foreign language learning pedagogy and, in addition, greater space for the unique situation and needs of heritage language (HL) learners to be taken into account. It reports on two studies led by researchers based in the Department of Educational Studies at Goldsmiths University of London. The first investigated the potential of arts-based creativity, involving art, dance, drama, and story, to enrich the learning of HLs (Arabic, Chinese, Panjabi, and Tamil) in mainstream and complementary 1 school settings in London. The second examined whether a more meaningful and engaging context for language learning could be generated through a student-led, critical approach to multilingual digital storytelling, drawing on the power of the internet for online sharing and communication. This project involved mainly secondary level students studying a range of languages, European and non-European, in mainstream and complementary schools in and around London as well as overseas (Algeria, Palestine, and Taiwan).
