The Effect of Teacher Training and Professional Development for Heritage Language Teachers

Teachers are often faced with the challenges of instructing students especially second language learners, heritage or non-heritage, at various levels of academic progress. With the growing awareness of the importance of teaching and learning a second language, the need to improve professional qualities in teachers has been identified. In order to maintain academic standards teachers must be armed with the knowledge of how to instruct students with different capacities for learning, they need to maintain academic requirements necessary to comply with state and national standards. Having qualified teachers will results in more successful performance and allows heritage schools to uphold their academic integrity.
Despite the overwhelming interest and real needs of effective policies for second language, little effort has been made to maintain and develop linguistic diversity at the governmental level. The absence of any consciously planned, unified, and national policy for less commonly taught languages like Persian language has hindered the development and maintenance of heritage languages. Based on my own personal experience working at Persian school, unqualified, unprepared, and untrained teachers are the most serious problem that is preventing heritage schools to obtain the realistic learning outcomes.
The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of teacher education on Persian language teaching and learning by reviewing literature existing in the fields related to teacher training and professional development. In addition, I reviewed studies that have outlined the effects of teacher preparation and development. Any teacher training or professional developments can offer teachers an insight to best practices in teaching. It will help them to better equip themselves with technology needed for 21st century classrooms.
In order to get better results I will use three different methods. I evaluate literature, will interview and conduct surveys targeting different demographics such as parents of heritage students, teachers, and principals of heritage schools. I will also interview four teachers who have had some professional training; this focus group will help evaluate the impact of teacher education and training in students’ learning.
Key words: heritage language, language learning, teacher training, professional development,