Publications are encouraged, but it takes considerable time to get an article from idea to reality. My experience has been quite varied. With my Heritage Language Journal article, I responded to a call for papers in January 2008, submitted the first draft in September of that year, received feedback in 2009 and it was published in 2010. This week, an article stemming from my pilot study last year was published. This came out of a presentation I made in August 2010, which was written up as a first draft in September 2010. I received feedback in January 2011 and immediately the opportunity to edit and have the final article published online in time for the annual gathering of German teachers February 25-27, 2011 in Oakville, Ontario. Have a look at these two articles (www.heritagelanguages.org volume 7 #2 and www.forumdeutsch.ca volume 19 #1). I can be contacted for feedback at rahdress {at} ucalgary.ca.
Update: The full citations for these articles are:
Dressler, R. (2010). “There is no space for being German”: Portraits of willing and reluctant Heritage Language Learners of German. Heritage Language Journal, 7(2), 162-182. Retrieved from www.heritagelanguages.org
Dressler, R. (2011). German-English bilingual programs: Transitioning to a dual immersion model? Forum Deutsch, 19(1), 11-22. Retrieved from http://www.forumdeutsch.ca/f/nf30catg