Heritage Spanish Proficiency in College Students: Self-Reports, Objective Knowledge, and Experiential Sources of Language Support

Purpose: Heritage language (HL) speakers, who have learned a language other than English at home during childhood, constitute the largest group of bilinguals in the United States. HL proficiency self-ratings may influence how HL-speaking college students use their HL or seek professional opportunities. We examined Spanish proficiency self-ratings against objectively measured Spanish knowledge, along with exposure to and learning from family, friends, school, and work. Method: Across 101 Spanish–English HL bilinguals, we obtained language histories from the Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire and objectively measured Spanish vocabulary. Spanish HL speakers had childhood home Spanish exposure, cultural community ties, and “adequate” or higher proficiency. Composite variables included self-reported Spanish proficiency, current exposure to and lifelong learning from family, current exposure to and lifelong learning from friends, and months spent in a school or work environment where Spanish was spoken. Proficiency self-reports were compared to objective and experiential measures continuously and across self-report categories ( perfect , excellent , very good , good , etc.). Results: Self-reported Spanish proficiency was predicted by objective vocabulary knowledge, exposure to and learning from friends and family, and immersion in Spanish-speaking school and work environments. Findings held both continuously and across distinct self-report categories, with no significant differences across adjacent self-report categories. Conclusions: Self-reports reflect objective vocabulary performance and exposure to and learning from friends, family, school, and work. Findings extend prior work with a well-defined sample of HL speakers and suggest that student HL proficiency self-reports are valuable tools but should only be interpreted broadly and supplemented with objective testing and interviews.