RESEARCH AMONG LEARNERS OF CHINESE AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE. Michael E. Everson and Helen H. Shen (Eds.). University of Hawai’i at Mānoa: National Foreign Language Resource Center, 2010. Pp. 180.

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 172-172
Author(s):  
Fei Fei
2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia Martin ◽  
Elvira Swender ◽  
Mildred Rivera-Martinez

The article discusses the preliminary findings of a joint National Heritage Language Resource Center (NHLRC)/American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) project conducted in 2010-11, Exploring Linguistic Profiles of Heritage Speakers of Spanish and Russian, that used the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2012 –Speaking (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, 2012b) to assess and analyze the oral proficiency of heritage speakers. The discussion of these findings follows a general discussion of what a rating based on an official ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) actually does and does not tell us about speakers, including heritage or native speakers, who fall into various ACTFL rating ranges. The joint NHLRC/ACTFL research project analyzed which features typically characteristic of heritage speakers of Spanish and Russian prevent them from receiving higher ratings on an official ACTFL OPI, and these findings are the focus of this article. Finally, some general recommendations related to instructional implications of these findings are discussed.


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