Spanish heritage language learners vs. L2 learners: What CAF reveals about written proficiency

Abstract

ENRecently, great interest has emerged in identifying the learning needs of heritage language (HL) learners. In comparing HL and second language (L2) learners, research suggests that L2 learners outperform HL learners when examining writing abilities (Montrul, 2010;Potowski, 2013). However, complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) have been overlooked when examining HL learners' writing proficiency, and it could provide a better picture of their writing skills in a spontaneous untimed assignment. To address this issue, 28 L2 learners and 18 HL learners completed an untimed written production task on a non-academic subject and their written proficiency was assessed through CAF measures (Norris & Ortega, 2009). Results showed HL learners significantly outperformed L2 learners on two complexity measures: accuracy and fluency. A possible explanation for these findings could be the type of task used (more spontaneous, less-controlled), which taps into a more implicit type of knowledge, favoring HL learners (Bowles, 2011). Key words: HERITAGE LANGUAGE LEARNERS, WRITING, CAF.ES En los últimos años ha habido un mayor esfuerzo para identificar las necesidades de los aprendientes de una lengua de herencia (LH). Los resultados de estudios comparativos indican que los aprendientes de una L2 superan a los aprendientes de una LH en pruebas de habilidades de escritura (Montrul, 2010;Potowski, 2013). Sin embargo, a la hora de analizar la producción escrita en la HL, la complejidad, la precisión y la fluidez (CAF por sus siglas en inglés) han sido ignoradas, a pesar de que podrían ofrecer una descripción más precisa de las habilidades de escritura en la HL en tareas espontáneas no cronometradas. Con el objetivo de aportar esta perspectiva, 28 aprendientes de L2 y 18 aprendientes de LH completaron una tarea de producción escrita en ámbito no académico y no cronometrada, y sus habilidades de escritura fueron evaluadas según los parámetros CAF (Norris & Ortega, 2009). Los resultados muestran que los aprendientes de HL superaron a los de L2 en dos parámetros, complejidad y fluidez. Una posible explicación de estos resultados puede estar relacionada con el tipo de tarea (más espontánea y menos controlada), que requiere un conocimiento más implícito y favorecería así a los aprendientes de HL (Bowles, 2011 IT I bisogni di apprendimento di apprendenti una lingua ereditaria (HL) sono recentemente diventati oggetto di un crescente interesse.Nelle ricerche che hanno confrontato apprendenti di una HL e di una lingua seconda (L2), il secondo tipo di apprendenti consegue risultati migliori del primo nell'abilità di scrittura (Montrul, 2010;Potowski, 2013). Tuttavia, nell'esame della capacità di scrittura nella lingua ereditaria, complessità, precisione e fluidità (CAF nell'abbreviazione inglese) sono spesso sottovalutate, mentre potrebbero fornire un quadro più accurato delle loro abilità di scrittura in compiti spontanei non a tempo. A tal fine, 28 apprendenti L2 e 18 apprendenti HL hanno svolto un compito di produzione scritta non a...

The Study of Heritage Language Development From a Bilingualism and Social Justice Perspective

“…Xiao-Desai and Wong (2017) analyzed classroom blogs written by 266 HL students of Mandarin across four levels of the curriculum and found that their use of epistemic expressions, which are important in signaling writing stance (e.g., kěnéng, maybe; wǒ juéde, I feel or I think), increased rapidly in frequency of use at the initial levels and later remained stable in frequency but expanded greatly in diversity at the advanced levels. An advantage in writing was found by Camus and Adrada-Rafael (2015) for HL over FL students of Spanish on an untimed essay about the societal impact of smart phones. The essays written by HL students contained more subordination, fewer errors, and were longer overall than the essays written by FL students.…”

Heritage language learners’ written texts across pair types and interaction mode

“…Most likely, this finding is due to the fact that the HL participants were just overall more proficient in Spanish than the L2 learners. However, Spicer-Escalante (2007) did not measure participants' proficiency, and Camus and Adrada (2015) only reported on HL participants' self-ratings of their proficiency level in Spanish and did not report on L2 participants' self-ratings nor did they include an objective measurement of proficiency. Even though participants in both studies were recruited from the same courses, it has been established in HL-L2 task-based studies that HL learners tend to be more proficient than their L2 peers when they are recruited from the same courses (Henshaw, 2015;Kim, Lee & Kim, 2018;Torres & Cung, 2019).…”

Diagnostic of the current situation with native English-speaking students in EFL classes

“…They are people that for one reason or the other have decided to take up a foreign language and who may or may not have formally enrolled in the educational system. Camus and Adrada-Rafael (2015), compare the writing abilities between heritage language speakers and L2 students. They suggest that proficient L2 learners possess conscious and mechanical knowledge of a language like rules, writing system, and a deep understanding of controlled and artificial contexts where the language can be used.…”