An Ohio University professor will speak to a specific student group Thursday — one that grow up in a household that speaks a language other than English.
Emilia Alonso Marks, a Spanish professor and the associate director for research of the OU Institute for the Empirical Study of Language, will speak at 4:10 p.m. in Baker University Center, Room 242 about the challenges and solutions to heritage language learning.
The event is being held by the College of Arts and Sciences to recognize those who have been promoted to full professor.
Marks said she has never spoken before the university and is excited about her speech.
The event will also feature a live video stream on the Internet.
“It is nice that the live stream will help reach more people, including my family,” Marks said. “I have family in Spain, and they will all be able to watch.”
At the lecture series, Marks will describe heritage language students and discuss the challenges they and their professors face, in addition to programs geared toward these students at OU.
“Heritage language learners are students who are bilingual; they speak a language at home that isn’t the language of a typical community,” Marks said. “They are schooled in one language, but speak another language at home that they don’t have an academic background in.”
It can be difficult to accommodate heritage language learners, Marks said.
"Heritage language learners speak fluently and have a vast vocabulary for home and family in their home language," Marks said in an email. "However, since they have not been schooled in this language, when they take a Spanish as a foreign language class, they have difficulties spelling and writing in the appropriate academic register."
Marks said she hopes to increase awareness about OU’s heritage language learners.
“I am seeing more students from Hispanic descents, which is wonderful,” Marks said. “I hope to bring awareness about the reality of heritage language learning — we know what it is and who they are, but we are not aware of some of the difficulties that these students may encounter when learning languages.”
bc822010@ohiou.edu
Editor's note: This article was updated to say that this event is being hosted by the College of Arts and Sciences to recognize those promoted to full professor, rather than being part of the Department of Modern Languages' New Professor Series.
