Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
Editor and Book Reviews Editor: John Edwards (St Francis Xavier University, Canada)
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Volume: 21 Number: 4 Page: 292–307
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The Relationship Between Ethnolinguistic Identity and English Language Achievement for Native Russian Speakers and Native Hebrew Speakers in Israel
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Bonnie Ellinger
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In the last decade Israel has witnessed the immigration of close to one million native Russian speakers. One of the implications of this influx of newcomers, in a country already dedicated to the absorption
of people from many different ethnolinguistic backgrounds, is that issues related to language and identity are receiving renewed attention. This new wave of immigrants has added large numbers of students to Israel's
six universities, thus giving new impetus to the role of identity in language achievement. The present paper discusses a study that investigated the relationship among identity, affective variables and
achievement in English as a foreign language. Participants in the study were 135 native Hebrew speakers and 53 native Russian speakers studying English as a foreign language at the advanced level at Bar
Ilan University in Israel. Variables included ethnolinguistic identity, self-confidence, instrumental and integrative orientation and emotional distance. Achievement measures consisted of teacher evaluations,
final examination grades, reading comprehension passages, written expression and a cloze passage. Results showed that ethnolinguistic identity was a greater predictor of achievement than any of the other
variables.
© Multilingual Matters 2000
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