1. Introduction
In recent years, second language instruction for heritage speakers (HSs) has gained increased attention, as it has become evident that they should not be defined simply as foreign language learners; rather, they represent a distinct and heterogeneous category (
Kagan and Dillon 2001). Regarding Serbian HSs, the general conclusion is that there are no educational curricula specifically designed for this group of learners. Instead, the standard Serbian national program for L1 speakers is applied, executed by language teachers primarily trained in the philological tradition, whose teaching methods are based on text analysis rather than on enhancing students’ communication skills.
Over the last decade, a significant number of heritage language (HL) learners have expressed an interest in learning Serbian online, which offers methodological advantages such as individualized and specialized classes, flexible schedules, and remote study options.
In this paper, we examine the differences in approaches to teaching grammar to HL learners compared to native speakers in Serbia. We propose facilitating the acquisition and education of Serbian HL learners by suggesting a fairly standardized school program for the Serbian diaspora, along with the appropriate classroom methods. We recommend that the language of instruction in the proposed textbooks be in the dominant language of the society. Additionally, instruction should be organized by levels in accordance with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).
Given that different methodological approaches can be applied to HL speakers and L2 learners, we utilize the following criteria: HL learners typically begin with better communication skills, as well as stronger listening and comprehension abilities, because they acquire Serbian in a naturalistic context. However, many exhibit low literacy skills and poor metalinguistic knowledge, as the majority have not received formal language instruction. Conversely, L2 learners of Serbian often outperform HL learners in grammatical and writing tasks but tend to have lower communication and pronunciation skills (in line with
Montrul 2010).
We also advocate for a more individualized approach to lectures for HL speakers, as the intensity of their motivation to learn Serbian as a heritage language varies among individuals; typically, they face pressure from their parents, unlike L2 learners, who generally initiate their studies independently.
In accordance with
Cvikić et al. (
2010), it is often necessary to implement content that appeals to the student while also covering all the key points designated for the particular teaching unit. Another example is introducing culturally themed materials to HL speakers or focusing on perfecting both alphabets (Latin and Cyrillic equally), whereas with L2 learners, the emphasis is often placed on the Latin alphabet.
4. The Plan and Program
In this section, we outline the content of the Serbian Ministry of Education’s Curriculum (
Plan and Program 2019) for learning Serbian as a foreign language, focusing on its pedagogical suggestions and potential challenges in applying them to the reality of Serbian heritage schools.
Firstly, the Plan is defined by educational standards set across three levels of proficiency—basic, intermediate, and advanced. The introduction raises the following important question: how can learning and knowing Serbian as a foreign language be applicable to children in their everyday lives? The standards describe the competencies a child should achieve, both globally and more specifically. There should be guidance for the evaluation of students, but personalized evaluation must also consider all language competencies. The global standards consist of the following three levels:
Basic level—basic information, introducing oneself, and basic grammar;
Intermediate level—the student can use phrases and hold conversations and recognizes notable figures from their culture;
Advanced level—the student actively uses the most frequent words and recognizes differences between their own culture and the culture of the language they are acquiring (
Plan and Program 2019, pp. 3–4).
Specific standards are divided into functional pragmatic (speaking, reading, writing, comprehension), linguistic (grammar and orthography), and intercultural (knowledge and comparison of cultures). These standards are explained in detail for each competency across the three proficiency levels (
Plan and Program 2019, p. 5).
Moving on to the
Plan and Program (
2019, p. 7), a problem arises because it does not take into account the heterogeneity of students learning Serbian. The curriculum is not organized by the grade level of the student but by the number of years the student has previously spent learning the language. The main guidelines that teachers should follow are only briefly described, noting the individual differences among students and suggesting that the program and methods may be adapted to meet their needs but without specific clarification. The Program is categorized from Year 1 to Year 12 of learning Serbian. In each year, there are specified outcomes, themes, and content that should be covered. The topics are generally consistent throughout the years, but they gradually become more nuanced. The norm is around 150 new words each year as the complexity of grammar increases.
Methodological and didactic instructions for applying the program can be found in a separate chapter, which provides brief guidelines on using the standard framework, including global and operational plans and an example of a prepared lesson (
Plan and Program 2019, p. 10).
The
Plan and Program (
2019, p. 10) made a valid point about the main difference between teaching Serbian as a foreign language and teaching it as a first language. When teaching Serbian as a foreign language, the primary focus is on communication and the actual use of language. On the other hand, teaching Serbian as a first language puts more emphasis on metalinguistic knowledge, such as the grammatical terms, principles, and rules about the language.
The
Plan and Program (
2019, p. 11) suggests focusing on communication skills rather than emphasizing grammatical accuracy. Instead, it encourages creating actual conversational situations and learning about the socio-cultural context. Grammar is addressed through functional grammar and the communicative method, which guides students to apply grammar rules intuitively. Learning grammar is presented as a developing spiral.
The postulates outlined serve as guidelines for various learning situations, depending on the topics or units (notably, a distinction is made between the evaluation of foreign language (FL) students and L1 students). Guidelines for developing and improving the following four language skills are also presented:
Listening and comprehension—Fairly concrete examples of exercises and tasks are provided, though they are not overly specified; for instance, suggestions to use audio materials without indicating which ones are appropriate for particular units;
Reading—The program mentions the pre-elementary stage of learning to read (for the youngest students). The focus is on adapting texts according to the level, age, interests, or goals of the students;
Writing—Dictation is highlighted as a main example, followed by suggestions for writing greeting cards for specific occasions;
The views on teaching grammar suggest that students do not need to know grammar definitions that they cannot apply. Grammar is learned both explicitly and implicitly. However, very few examples of these tasks are provided in the guidelines (
Plan and Program 2019, p. 18).
Regarding creative classroom activities, games and exercises are listed, but they are not detailed or specified for particular units. As for evaluation, it is emphasized that assessment occurs before enrolment (following the standards of the Program), as well as during the learning process and at its conclusion. Again, evaluation methods are not particularly exemplified (
Plan and Program 2019, p. 20).
We largely agree with the main principles of the Program and the guidelines for developing language skills. However, the Program lacks detail in differentiating among various groups of learners of Serbian, particularly heritage language learners (HLLs) and second language learners (L2Ls), indicating that they require a specific assessment.
5. Pedagogical Implications for Improvement
Since the Program allows students to enroll in a certain grade based on the number of years they have been studying Serbian, this approach seems more applicable in a monolingual setting and less so for heritage language speakers and learners. In this context, students of different ages may possess the same level of language competence, which is typically not the case for monolingual learners. This, along with other factors, creates discrepancies that make a group of students enrolled in the same grade often very heterogeneous, rendering it difficult to uphold a single pedagogical approach.
Therefore, we recommend creating specialized programs for the following three age groups, each consisting of three proficiency levels (basic, intermediate, advanced): children aged 7 to 12; young adults aged 12 to 18; and adults aged 18 and older. Textbooks should be developed accordingly.
We also propose a comparative and contrastive method that would involve comparing the target heritage language with the dominant language of society in grammar instruction and not just in cultural and conversational topics.
Lastly, we will provide examples of the methods that Serbian heritage learners can benefit from. Note that these approaches can be applied in both online and in-person settings, as well as in individual and group classes. The nature of individual lessons, for example, allows for a more detailed assessment of each student’s competencies and needs, as well as their personal interests. Online lessons also facilitate the use of digital teaching tools. We propose that the following three models be applied in all the aforementioned forms of Serbian heritage language learning:
To clarify the importance of the communicative model in heritage language (HL) education, we refer back to “the Proficiency movement, based on communicative approaches (also known as macro-approaches), [that] downplays explicit grammar-based instruction and advocates for the creation of an immersive environment in the classroom, where communicative tasks are carried out exclusively in the target language and any pedagogical instruction is preferably conducted in the target language” (
Kisselev et al. 2020, p. 3), from which communicative models are derived. Kisselev et al. (ibidem) further explained that these models are most effective for heritage language learners (HLLs) because they build on the learners’ existing global linguistic competencies; ideally, they also enhance cultural awareness and bilingual identity while fostering involvement with the heritage community.
Wu and Chang (
2010, p. 26) provide an overview highlighting the advantages of macro-approaches for HLLs, who often cannot rely on their metalinguistic knowledge (unlike second language learners, L2Ls) to understand complex grammatical definitions and explanations. They also present an adapted version of
Kagan and Dillon’s (
2001) distinctions between micro and macro-approaches (see
Table 1).
Following those instructions, we propose that the communicative model consists of practices such as the following:
The second model, form-focused instruction, complements the communicative model. Therefore, it should be integrated as an important method, as it draws learners’ attention to form in the context of communication (
Long 1991). Furthermore,
Kisselev et al. (
2020, p. 5) explained that this type of instruction reinforces: “(1) attention to grammatical form (noticing) and the ability to recognize and analyze form-meaning mappings, (2) conceptual understanding of grammar, and (3) metalinguistic awareness”, which can be achieved through the explicit teaching of language structure.
Applying this model in a Serbian heritage language classroom could be demonstrated, for example, by helping students notice and understand grammatical concepts such as the distinction between the accusative and locative cases when combined with verbs of (non)-movement. It can also involve prompting metalinguistic awareness in heritage language learners by comparing or contrasting the heritage language with the dominant language and other languages the learners are familiar with.
Here, we provide the following examples of focusing on form-meaning in the use of the unstressed dative form of personal pronouns in Serbian:
- –
Dative of possession in Serbian vs. English possessive:
| (1) | Lepa | ti | je | haljina. | (Serbian) |
| nice | 2ndSg.DAT | is | dress. | |
| Your dress is nice. (English) |
- –
Dative used in expressing emotions or states:
| (2) | Hladno | mi | je. | (Serbian) |
| Cold | 1stSg.DAT | is. | |
| I am cold. (English) |
In addition to possessive pronouns (moj ‘my’, tvoj ‘your’, etc.), Serbian allows the use of unstressed dative forms of personal pronouns to express possession (1). However, the same language units are also used in constructions such as (2), where the standard beneficiary is interpreted as bearing the patient or experiencer theta-role, denoting their emotions or states. Unlike in (1), this second use is possible with both clitics and the stressed forms of the personal pronouns.
On the other hand, we provide the following example of instruction explicitly focused on forms:
- –
Serbian past tense vs. Russian past tense:
| (3) | Ja | (sam) | išao | (Serbian) |
| Ya | Ø | poshёl. | (Russian) |
| I | AUX | went | |
| “I went”. |
Serbian past tense (perfekat) is constructed with an auxiliary (present tense of the verb jesam ‘to be’) and the past participle of the full verb, as shown in (3). In Russian, however, the auxiliary completely vanished from this construction (altogether with the same verb previously used as copula in nominal predicates), resulting in the simple form of past tense. Nevertheless, Serbian also displays the same, truncated construction (labeled as ‘truncated perfect’ (krnji perfekat), but it is stylistically marked and far more frequent in the colloquial and literature registers.
The aforementioned distinction between the Serbian accusative and locative cases with verbs of (non)-movement could be parallelly compared with the German accusative and dative cases and the nature of the verbs they are combined with, as follows:
| (4) | (A) | Ja | se | nalazim | u | bioskopu. | (Serbian) |
| | I | refl. | situated | in | movies-Loc. | |
| | Ich | bin | im | Kino. | | (German) |
| | I | am | in | movies-Dat | | |
| | “I am at the movies”. |
| (B) | Ja | idem | u | bioskop. | | (Serbian) |
| | I | go-1Sg | in | movies-Acc. | | |
| | Ich | gehe | ins | Kino. | | (German) |
| | I | go-1Sg | in-Acc | movies. | | |
| | “I go/am going to the movie theater”. |
As another example of form-meaning mappings, we show in (4-A), when combined with verbs that denote non-movement such as
nalaziti se ‘to be situated’, the complement of the prepositional object takes the locative form. In German, the same construction requires the dative case of the nominal complement. When it comes to verbs of movement such as
ići ‘go’ in Serbian, and
gehen ‘go’ in German (4-B), the complement bears the same, appropriate accusative case form. The difference between the two languages remains in the way cases are marked, where Serbian utilizes postnominal case suffixes, while German uses prenominal definite and indefinite articles, which could be contracted together with the preposition (cf.
im in (4-A) vs.
ins in (4-B)). Interestingly, in Serbian, the dative and locative case forms of all declinable categories are syncretic. Therefore, these similarities with the German language could potentially have a facilitating effect on the acquisition of both languages. Another form of contrasting and comparing could be included in the acquisition of the Serbian alphabet, as presented in the
Figure 2.
To emphasize the vital role of form-focused instruction, we note that heritage language (HL) speakers typically outperform second language (L2) speakers in metalinguistic tasks (
Kisselev et al. 2020). Due to frequent code-switching and lexical borrowing, they may develop strong metalinguistic awareness in both of their respective languages (
Kisselev et al. 2020).
Lastly, the integrative model (
Janjić 2018) is based on the principle of (inter)cultural referentiality. It connects different cultural elements from Serbia (tradition, customs, history, music, geography, food, science, sports, religion, art, folklore, etc.) with the culture of the dominant language or the student’s other background. This approach is beneficial for both HL and L2 learners, but it is more extensive in HL contexts. For example, when teaching the alphabet, we emphasize the Cyrillic alphabet, as the written cultural material available to students increases significantly. Additionally, texts adapted for grammar tasks could relate to Serbian historical events. Furthermore, cultural comparisons can be explored through learning idioms and their contextual usage. A student task could involve finding equivalents in their respective languages and discussing the differences. The intention is to immerse students in what they feel is already a part of their heritage.
