Attitudes of Chinese Immigrant Parents to the Heritage Language Maintenance Have Positively Affected Their Children’s Chinese Learning in the United States

Abstract

This study explores the relationship between Chinese parents' language background and their children's performance of learning Chinese language in the United States. Since an increasing number of Chinese immigrant families brought their children to the Chinese language school, bilingual education in those kinds of families has raised specific notice recently. In this study, data collection included surveys, audio-taped interviews, observations, and students' Chinese language test scores. Those participants were divided into two groups, the students took the children's self-satisfaction questionnaire, and the parents took the demographic survey separately. Besides, the content of audio-taped interviews was transcribed as statistical variances to find and identify patterns of the results.
 Those three research questions need to be answered in this study: 1. What are the attitudes and actions of those Chinese immigrant parents who do have regard to their Children's Chinese language and literacy learning? 2. Why do some parents feel challenged to maintain Chinese in the home and face the intense pressure of English usage outside society? 3. Is there any connection between Chinese heritage language proficiency and self-efficacy in learning? After the study, the results showed a positive relationship between Chinese heritage language proficiency and students' self-esteem. Parents who were most insistent on using Chinese in the home were most successful in maintaining their children's Chinese, and they also got a better score on the Chinese language tests.