When bilingual education fell by the wayside in the United States, heritage language education was raised as a new fl ag for preserving the languages and cultures of minority groups. Shifting linguistic attention from bilingualism to the heritage language speakers’ multicultural context is important for the advancement of our understanding of the language ability. This paper traces the genesis of heritage language education and research, and discusses their developing course in the world. The main issues that international researchers focus on and are reviewed in this article in the area of heritage language education include: the various defi nitions about the heritage language learners, the features of heritage language acquisition, their identity inclination, and the pedagogical research. In order to further the research on overseas Chinese education and promotion, this study examines all of these concerns with an aim to draw experience from the accomplishments achieved across the world.
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