What Heritage Students’ Success Tells Us:

Rethinking the Role of Learning Motivation

Xie Yan

University of Massachusetts

It has been largely, if not always, agreed that integrative motivation is more likely to lead to success in foreign language learning than instrumental motivation. This survey of 49 university students learning Chinese at the beginning level at a North American university investigates the aspects of learning motivations and learning achievement of heritage and non-heritage students. The results show that the heritage students are more instrumentally motivated than the non-heritage students. But comparing the learning achievements of the two groups, the research finds that heritage students are more successful in speaking, reading, writing and listening. Based on the heritage students’ early involvement in Chinese and their more extensive exposure to the language during the learning process than their non-heritage peers, the paper concludes that the starting age of learning and amount of exposure to Chinese language play an important role in the heritage students’ success. It also concludes that pedagogy and curriculum in Chinese teaching must address learners’ needs by considering their motivations corresponding to their ethnic identity.