Linguistic Knowledge and Proficiency Assessment in Heritage and L2 Russian: Classroom Implications of Experimental Findings

This chapter presents an overview of the authors’ research on proficiency assessment of Russian language learners and its connection to their knowledge of information structure in Russian. First, the chapter reviews available independent assessment measures for Russian as a second and as a heritage language, and then provides an overview of a study on the development and validation of a cloze test of Russian proficiency. The authors then discuss an on-going follow-up study which shows that the written cloze test successfully predicts other aspects of learner proficiency, including oral production. The chapter then discusses recent research comparing ways in which heritage speakers and second language learners of Russian acquire the relationship between word order, information structure, and prosody. This research indicates that heritage speakers are closer to monolinguals in this domain. However, their performance is related to proficiency as measured by the cloze test discussed in the first part of the chapter. The authors discuss implications of these studies for heritage language pedagogy. The chapter emphasizes the importance of conducting linguistically informed classroom-based studies and lays out suggestions for one such study on word order and information structure in heritage Russian.