The Third HaBilNet Colloquium – Let's share some Posters!
About HaBilNet3
The third HaBilNet Colloquium took place 4-6 June, 2025, in Donostia/San Sebastián, Spain. HaBilNet Director Annick De Houwer and HaBilNet Advisory Board Member Lourdes Ortega were the conference chairs and welcomed over 70 people from around the world to discuss the colloquium's theme "Bilinguals in Context" in several plenary sessions and poster presentations. Bilingual people and settings in relation to their well-being are central to HaBilNet and its colloquia.
First of all, we would like to thank everyone for a well-rounded event! Meeting people in person, exchanging ideas, networking for the future – being together in reaching similar goals creates a feeling of not being the only one with an interest in bilingual well-being. A special thanks goes to all the contributors either as plenary speakers, discussants, mentors, or poster presenters: Thank you for sharing your insights! The plenary sessions provided food for thought and discussion, the overall setting created an atmosphere of synergy, and, last but not least, the poster sessions were engaging and allowed for networking between all participants.
Here you will find pdf copies of 18 posters that participants kindly sent to us for featuring here. Click on the titles below to see and download the pdf!
The Posters
Angie Baily (University of Bath, United Kingdom)
'If guan were an emoji': Adolescent perspectives on parental heritage language management in Ireland.
This study highlights how adolescents conceptualise parental involvement, responsibility, and care in heritage language maintenance through emojis as a medium for cross-cultural expression, identity, and agency. The emojis represent "guan", a culturally rooted Chinese parenting practice grounded in Confucian beliefs.
Violaine Béduneau (Speech and Language Therapy, Université de Rouen Normandie, France)
Harmonious Bilingualism from the parents' perspective in a French nursery school
This poster presents a study conducted in 2020-2021 that aimed to understand whether and how language awareness sessions involving immigrant parents in a French nursery school could contribute to children's Harmonious Bilingualism.
Sharmaine Chee & Kayleigh Russell (The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM, United States)
Embracing bilingualism in a Navajo-only environment is Hózhǫ́ Náhasdlı̨ı̨́ '́
We report on young children (and adults) who utilize Navajo and English to communicate in a language nest where English is purposefully avoided. However, English is making its way into the nest, suggesting that the dominance of English impacts the Navajo language acquisition process. We consider the role of harmonious bilingualism.
Juliane Costa Wätzold & Silvia Melo-Pfeifer (Fakultät für Erziehungswissenschaft, Universität Hamburg, Germany)
Constructing harmonious bilingual input safe spaces at home
This poster explores parents' and children's attitudes towards various bilingual literacy practices in 3 contexts: home, a community project, and, indirectly, school. It considers the role of these practices and contexts for the harmonious development of proficiency in both the Heritage Language (Portuguese) and the majority language (German).
Annick De Houwer & Nina Schwöbel (HaBilNet Director, Belgium, and HaBilNet Active Member, Germany)
HaBilNet – the Harmonious Bilingualism Network
HaBilNet is a philanthropic organization that promotes research on Harmonious Bilingualism. It also aims at making sure the results of that research are widely disseminated both within and outside of academia. This poster explains how we try to accomplish this mission.
Hilde De Smedt (Coordinator PIM – Partners In Multilingualism, Foyer v.z.w., Belgium)
Working evidence based in a diverse cultural and social context.
Our team tries to bridge the gap between research and practice and translate findings to families with a migration background in an often vulnerable social context. We illustrate our work in two domains: family language policy and the follow-up of multilingual language development.
Mihaela Gazioglu (Clemson Univ., SC, USA), Tuba Angay-Crowder & Jayoung Choi (Kennesaw State Univ., GA, USA)
Toward Harmonious Multilingualism: Insights from U.S. trilingual families' identities, languages, and literacy practices
Drawing on harmonious multilingualism, we explore how U.S.-based families nurture trilingualism and multiliteracies in their children with intentionality and resistance. We highlight family language and literacy practices and show how harmonious multilingualism manifests itself and is maintained in each family.
Lourdes Ortega & Annick De Houwer
Richy Hayes (University of Colorado Boulder, United States)
The contribution of semantic depth and language input to narrative macrostructure in Japanese-English bilingual children
Narrative macrostructure in children includes organizing story events, expressing character feelings, and understanding the storyline. This development is influenced by vocabulary depth and language input, factors crucial for well-being and development, particularly in bilingual settings, as outlined in the Harmonious Bilingualism framework.
Camille Humeau (Université de Nantes, France)
Bilingual education in French Polynesia: Issues and effects on the subjective well-being of students from first grade to 3th grade
This poster presents preliminary findings from a longitudinal study comparing primary school children in a 50:50 partial immersion program (French and Polynesian Language and Culture, PLC) with children in the same region schooled in French but with weekly instruction in PLC for only about 2.5 hours to see whether this makes a difference for harmonious bilingual development.
Sophie Kern, & Jean-Luc Vidalenc (Laboratory Dynamique Du Langage,
Lyon, France; Mediator, Les Zateliers du langage, France)
Growing up with more than one language
The "Plus d'une langue!" kit is a resource made to inform, train and support adults (parents, educators) who live in contact with children who are growing up with several languages. We present the theoretical background, the materials and how to use the kit.
My Nguyen (University of Houston, United States)
Secondary school Spanish language courses promote end of high school academic outcomes for heritage Spanish speakers in Miami, USA
Longitudinal data show that Spanish-speaking dual language learners in Miami who took heritage Spanish courses had higher 12th-grade scores and were more likely to graduate compared to those who did not. This highlights the role of heritage language courses in promoting academic success, cultural connection, and bilingual development.
Kaisa Pankakoski (Cardiff University, United Kingdom)
Multilingual children's perceptions in Finland and Wales
This poster presents children's perceptions of growing up multilingually. 32 children aged 4-12 living in bilingual capital city areas of Finland or Wales reported challenges related to language transmission but also pride as an underlying emotion and motivation.
Theodora Papastefanou (University Teaching Fellow, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences,
Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus)
Linguistic and home literacy predictors of reading in bilingual school children
This study investigated how vocabulary, morpho-syntax, and home literacy activities influenced reading comprehension in Greek-English bilingual children. Heritage language use at home supported not only reading but also cultural identity and socio-emotional well-being, showing the importance of linguistic and socio-cultural factors for understanding children's learning.
Alexus Ramirez (Univ. of Maryland, College Park MD, United States)
Parent attitudes toward bilingualism may differ according to contextual factors
This poster examines how contextual factors shape parental beliefs about bilingualism in the United States. While parents generally perceived bilingualism as beneficial, they held differing expectations about how they and their children should use their languages–expectations shaped by a myriad of influences. Findings highlight ways to support harmonious bilingualism.
Stefanie Rottschäfer (Technische Universität Dortmund, Germany)
"Italian is nonna language": The role of grandparents in multilingual family constellations in which parents use English as a lingua franca
This study explores intergenerational influences on language choice and maintenance in 25 multilingual families across Europe that use English as a lingua franca, focusing on how parents perceive the roles of grandparents. Findings shed light on parental strategies, tensions, and aspirations toward sustaining harmonious multilingualism across generations.
Zeina Taleb (The University of Sydney, Camperdown, Australia)
Aligning the components of family language policy to promote Harmonious Bilingualism among families with receptive bilingual children
When beliefs, practices and management strategies (the three components of Spolsky's language policy model) align, harmonious bilingualism can emerge, creating positive experiences for families who wish to maintain their heritage language and pass it on to their children.
Serli Tomita (Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan)
Sibling influence on harmonious bilingual language use
The presentation focuses on an older sibling's influence on the bilingual language use of the younger sibling in a Japanese-English bilingual family in Japan. The study aims to explore the older sibling's role in fostering harmonious bilingualism and minority language use in the home.
Anita Vaskinn (University Hospital of North-Norway, Harstad, Norway)
Intergenerational transmission of Sami languages
Indigenous language proficiency is associated with a wide range of benefits, including the development of a positive ethnic identity and better quality of life. In our study, it appears that ethnic context and societal shifts influence parental home language choices, suggesting that these factors may play a role in fostering harmonious bilingualism.
Pascale Wehbe (Dept. of Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala Univ., Sweden)
Can language attitudes in Arabic-Swedish families impact children's harmonious bilingual
development?
Interviews with Arabic-Swedish bilingual children and parents in Sweden reveal a positive view of Arabic, emphasizing cultural pride and communication benefits. Despite supportive attitudes from families and educators, political shifts in Sweden may challenge bilingual language maintenance and children's sense of belonging, and thus harmonious bilingual development.
All the Best
HaBilNet wishes all early-career participants the best for their further work either in research or outreach. May everyone further along in their career have the strength and passion to continue working on creating a more harmonious way of living in even more bilingual settings. Keep networking!
Here are some other blog articles that might be of interest:
