Heritage students can be classified by their cultural connection to the language. “Considering this aspect, heritage language identity involves not only heritage language knowledge and fluency, but also some level of affiliation with a connection to the heritage culture” [1]. Defining the term, heritage speaker, very broadly can be anyone who has an ethnic, cultural or connection with the language regardless of language abilities [4]. Consider your student's cultural backgrounds and connection to the language because of that. Understanding the students’ cultural background provides insight into their relationship with the language and your class. “It is used, however, to refer both to those who have some proficiency in a community or ancestral language and to those who merely desire to learn one, including those who speak only English, but who want to learn an additional language of a parent, grandparent, ancestor, or other members of their community” [2]. Heritage learning students might have a strong cultural connection but limited proficiency in the language, meaning their main desire is to continue to build their connection. Knowing your student's relationship to their culture would assumingly help teachers develop aspects of language that students are most motivated towards.

Heritage speakers can also be defined based on their proficiency in the heritage language. Initially when thinking of heritage speakers, they are identified as bilinguals who learned the heritage language as their first language during childhood but began to dominate in a different language throughout adulthood [2]. In the case of the United States, these students would have begun learning the language through their heritage culture being preserved by families or community members but began to dominate in English through schooling and social interactions [2]. What is important for teachers to consider is the complex socio-linguistic aspects impacting this student. Multilingual students are aware of the different societal linguistic attitudes causing them to assign value to different languages or provide more prestige to the language that they perceived to have higher value [1]. With these students, it is important for teachers to provide value and respect to their languages by encouraging speaking, storytelling, and sharing with others their linguistic knowledge. For teachers, the complex conception of 'native speaker' is not that of the traditional definition when considering the diverse linguistic population of the United States [4]. 

Language and identity are extremely intertwined, as educators we must approach language as a medium of identity, especially with heritage students. Identity is defined as a person's understanding of their relationships to the world and the sense of belonging in certain social categories like gender, ethnicity, nationality, cultural heritage, etc. [1]. A student's relationship with their culture and language proficiency helps to develop their personal identity, but it can also cause confusion. “By positioning themselves as insiders or outsiders in relation to heritage and mainstream cultures, heritage language speakers engage in the process of constant becoming and negotiation of their fluid multilayered heritage language identities” [1]. Providing the labels of heritage learner and/or heritage speaker are important towards understanding students' status and the language [1].