Exploring Heritage Language Anxiety: A Study of Chinese Heritage Language Learners

Abstract

The rapidly increasing population of heritage students within the recent expansion of Chinese language education leads us to explore anxiety levels specific to Chinese heritage language (CHL) learners. This study examines the anxiety profiles of 87 CHL learners, enrolled in separated heritage-track courses at two U. S. universities, from a larger sample of 192 Chinese language students. The results indicate that of the four language skill-based activities, writing provokes the most anxiety in CHL learners, and students' avoidance behavior was found to be strongest in the three subcomponents of writing anxiety. At the same time, correlations with the other three skill-based anxieties were the weakest, revealing the complex construct of CHL writing anxiety. Factor analysis and regression procedures indicate that a large portion of CHL writing anxiety is explained not only by factors of the second language writing process but also by factors associated with the learners' heritage identity. Finally, suggestions for a Heritage Language Anxiety Scale and pedagogical implications for CHL writing instruction are provided.

Foreign Language Anxiety and Foreign Language Performance: A Meta‐Analysis

“…Finally, in reviewing the studies surveyed in the current meta‐analysis, I noticed that both listening anxiety and reading anxiety have attracted more attention as compared to writing anxiety. While writing in a FL can be anxiety‐provoking for some learners (Xiao & Wong, ), I was able to identify just one study that reported a correlation between FL writing anxiety and writing performance (Cheng et al., ). This can be due to the fact that many beginning and intermediate FL learners are incapable of writing long texts in the target FL.…”

“…In the late 1990s, a number of FL anxiety scales were developed to measure the language‐skill‐specific anxiety commonly found in FL writing (FLRAS, e.g., Cheng et al., ), reading (FLRAS, e.g., Saito et al., ), and listening (FLLAS, e.g., Elkhafaifi, ; Kim, ). These skill‐specific anxiety scales have been found to measure constructs that are not only different from the general FL classroom anxiety (Cheng et al., ; Elkhafaifi, ; Saito et al., ) but also distinguishable from each other (Pae, ; Xiao & Wong, ), suggesting that FL anxiety can arise from various FL learning contexts.…”

Multiple Regression in L2 Research: A Methodological Synthesis and Guide to Interpreting R2 Values

“…Many other factors can and should be taken into consideration when interpreting the results of a MR. (7)Researchers can use well‐run MR studies as examples to improve future applications of MR. Specifically, we refer readers to Xiao and Wong () and Hessel (), both in our sample, which can be considered to be exemplary with regard to both checking the statistical assumptions and reporting practices. (8)SEM, a family of statistical techniques used to investigate the relationship among different variables, can be used as an extension of MR. MR, as the heart of SEM, should only be used when the researchers are investigating the relationship among different measured variables (e.g., personality scores). Therefore, for examining the correlation among latent variables (constructs such as motivation and anxiety) or the correlation between latent variables and observed ones, L2 researchers are recommended to utilize SEM.…”

Heritage language education in the United States: A national survey of college‐level Chinese language programs

“…The Chinese community often call these non‐Mandarin varieties dialects of Chinese, or fangyan . Therefore, CHL learners actually can be further divided into subgroups based on their distinctive home language (Luo, ; Xiao & Wong, ). However, it is a common practice for U.S. institutions at the college level to group all CHL learners into the same track and teach Mandarin as the HL, which exacerbates the problem of heterogeneity in college‐level CHL classrooms.…”