About Us
IHLA's Beginnings
Prior to 1977, heritage language schools operated in isolation. Thanks to a grant offered by the Canadian Consultative Council on Multiculturalism, heritage language schools participated in a conference attended uniquely by and for heritage language school teachers. Once teachers in schools discovered that their challenges and rewards were similar across schools regardless of the languages they taught, they decided to continue to learn from one another and the organization was born. The tradition of learning from each other continues to this day.
What IHLA offers its Members
IHLA supports heritage language students with our annual MLD and our annual MLD Book
IHLA supports our volunteer, internationally-trained, and Canadian-trained teachers with professional development opportunities, curriculum support, the IHLA Newsletter, and career support and advice.
IHLA supports language school leaders by offering the mentorship programme, professional development and networking, advertisement, and support with developing a locally-developed curriculum,.
The IHLA Board 2023/24
* IHLA Executive Board:
Krishna Gupta (Alberta Hindi Parishad); Anupama Deshpande (Edmonton Marathi Shala); Antonella Cortese (Comitato Promotore della Lingua Italiana);Francis Wambugu (Kiswahili Learning Centre); Sylvia Pozorek (Henryk Sienkiewicz Polish School); Kuljeet Kaur (Ramgarhia Khalsa School); Lilya Sukhy (Ivan Franko School of Ukrainian Studies)
Jitka Storoschuk (Czech Heritage Language Society); Archana Gautam Kumar (Alberta Hindi Parishad);
Paylig Oltadjian (Armenian Culture and Educational Association of Edmonton)
* Members Emeritus: Josephine Pallard (Edmonton Filipino Language & Culture School of Edmonton) ; Jaspal Bansal: (Ramgarhia Khalsa School); Krystyna Dembowski (Henryk Sienkiewicz Polish School)
* Program Coordinator: Grace Alarcon-Isla (Filipino Language & Culture School of Edmonton)
* IT Coordinator: Marina Castro (Comitato Promotore della Lingua Italiana)