Needs and demands for heritage language support in Australia : results from a nationwide survey

This paper reports on a survey conducted in Australia among parents raising their children with a heritage language (HL). We found strong awareness of the importance of HL maintenance (95%), but only moderate levels of engagement (37-44%) with community initiatives for HL support. There were significantly more primary school-aged children reported as enrolled in community language schools than preschool aged children, but attendance at informal initiatives, such as language social groups, was higher for pre-schoolers. Less than 20% of respondents indicated that there was enough HL support available, with significantly less support reported for pre-school aged children. However, parents of children who attended HL initiatives during preschool years reported a significantly higher HL maintenance success rate. Most parents who did not bring their children to HL initiatives stated that it was because they did not know about them. Parents of school-aged children had more positive opinions about available HL support than parents of pre-schoolers and most parents said that if more initiatives were made available they would commit to attending them on a regular basis. Consequently, we suggest a formal language extension programme at the pre-school level as the solution for improving multilingual families' experience.