Advancing Greek Heritage Language Education in Canada (eBook)

Themistoklis Aravossitas is a Lecturer in Modern Greek at the University of Toronto and York University. His work focuses on heritage language education, community-engaged research, and the educational experiences of diaspora communities in Canada. He serves as the principal investigator of The Hellenic Relay, a nationwide action study examining the conditions that shape intergenerational Greek language transmission and the needs of students, families, and educators. He is also the developer of greeklanguage.ca, a national digital resource supporting teachers, learners, and community organizations. His publications and editorial work explore heritage language schooling, teacher development, community education, and diaspora studies. His work brings together research, policy, and practice to inform curriculum design, community-university partnerships, and long-term planning for heritage language education in Canada and internationally. Dr. Marianthi Oikonomakou is an Associate Professor in the Department of Primary Education at the University of the Aegean. She holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Athens and a master's degree in General and Applied Linguistics from Université René Descartes-Paris V, France. Her postdoctoral research (University of the Aegean, 2019) examines the development of language skills in Greek primary education. She teaches Linguistics at undergraduate and postgraduate levels at the University of the Aegean and the Hellenic Open University, and she has extensive experience teaching Greek as a second, foreign, and heritage language in diverse educational contexts. She has authored a range of scholarly publications, including Greek school textbooks and contributions to the Greek Language Curriculum (2022) for primary education, and is actively involved in teacher professional development initiatives in collaboration with the Greek Institute of Educational Policy. Her work has been published in international and leading Greek peer-reviewed journals. Her research interests include Greek linguistics, language education, literacies in educational settings, critical literacy, and curriculum studies.