Heritage Learners versus Non-heritage Learners in Five Less Commonly Taught Languages: Conditions, Practices, and Challenges

Abstract

In the context of five less commonly taught languages (LCTLs), this article investigates learners’ perceptions of the difficulty level of the language of study, their insights on their learning experience and their classrooms’ conditions and practices, and most importantly their views on having both heritage and non-heritage learners in the same classroom. 124 university students enrolled in Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, and Russian completed a questionnaire survey. The findings reveal that non-heritage learner of the five LCTLs view the LCTL of study as difficult because of the writing system; heritage learners, however, perceive it as neither easy nor difficult. In addition, among all learners, Arabic heritage learners are the only ones who recognize that the learning challenges are the various levels of proficiency in the same classroom, and the dissimilarity between the standard variety and the dialect are. Results also show that both heritage and non-heritage learners disapprove of the learning conditions and practices of the classrooms. Surprisingly, nearly all learners from the two groups are in favor of having both groups in the same classroom. Based on the findings, the researcher suggests some pedagogical implications and recommendations to accommodate needs of both heritage and non-heritage learners and enhance teaching such combined classes of LCTLs.

Keywords

• Less Commonly Taught Languages--Learners’ perceptions-- presence of both heritage and
• LCTL
• Learners’perceptions
• presence
• heritage