EXPLORING AN ELICITED IMITATION TASK AS A MEASURE OF HERITAGE LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY

This study examines a 30-item Spanish elicited imitation task (EIT) as a measure of global language proficiency for heritage language (HL) learners of Spanish. Results from Rasch modeling suggest that, while EIT scores demonstrated excellent reliability, the ability of much of the HL sample far exce...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inStudies in second language acquisition Vol. 44; no. 4; pp. 1095 - 1123
Main Authors Solon, Megan, Park, Hae In, Dehghan-Chaleshtori, Marzieh, Carver, Carly, Long, Avizia Y.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.09.2022
Subjects
Design
Heritage language
Imitation
Knowledge
Language acquisition
Language Proficiency
Language Tests
Linguistics
Native Language
Oral Language
Researchers
Second language learning
Spanish
Spanish as a second language
Spanish language
Validity
United States > US
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Summary:This study examines a 30-item Spanish elicited imitation task (EIT) as a measure of global language proficiency for heritage language (HL) learners of Spanish. Results from Rasch modeling suggest that, while EIT scores demonstrated excellent reliability, the ability of much of the HL sample far exceeded the difficulty of the items. Differential item functioning analysis revealed that several items functioned differently for the present study’s HL sample than for the second language learners from a prior study. Additionally, although EIT scores were strongly correlated with another proficiency measure for the present HL sample (e.g., the Diploma de español como lengua extranjera or DELE), common-person equating suggested that the EIT and the DELE may measure different latent variables. Overall, the results provide evidence of the EIT’s utility as a proficiency assessment tool for research on HL learners, however, with limitations and the need for additional analyses discussed.
ISSN:0272-2631
1470-1545
DOI:10.1017/S0272263121000905