Follow up study on students’ perceptions

towards foreign language learning by young

learners across Europe

MASTER’S THESIS
Student:Adriana Sevillano

Supervisor: Dr. Elsa Tragant

Date: July 2011

Master: Applied Linguistics

and Language Acquisition
in Multilingual Contexts
Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
by young learners across Europe

Index

Acknowledgements Page 2

1. Abstract Page 3

2. Literature Review Page 4

2.1. Attitudes and motivations Page 4

2.2. Learners’ perceptions and beliefs Page 8

3. Purpose of the study Page 11

4. Methodology Page 12

4. 1. Description of the participants Page 12

4. 2. Instruments and procedures Page 13

4. 3. The process of data analysis Page 14

5. Results Page 19

6. Discussion Page 27

7. Limitations of the study Page 30

8. Further research Page 30

9. Conclusions Page 31

10. References Page 32

11. Appendixes Page 35

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
by young learners across Europe

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful for the suggestions, support and guidance given by my supervisor
Dr. Elsa Tragant during the process of undertaking my masters’ thesis. My gratitude
also goes to ELLiE project members, who made their data available to me. I would also
like to thank my professors and colleagues from the masters in Applied Linguistics and
Language Acquisition in Multilingual Contexts. They have given me both inspiration
and much appreciated help. A special thank goes to my family, my friends and my
boyfriend who have encouraged me throughout the year and especially during times
when I feared I would not succeed. It is thanks to all of them that this master’s thesis
has been possible and I would like to dedicate it to them.

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
by young learners across Europe

1. Abstract

This study investigated students’ perceptions towards foreign language1 (FL) learning held
by young foreign language learners from seven different countries in Europe. The
participants (n=264) consisted of grade 4 students (ages 9-10) who were studying English,
French or Spanish (E/F/S) as a second language in a school context. In addition to the
analysis of year 4 students’ answers, a follow up comparison between responses from the
same students in year 2 and 4 was performed.

Six main results emerge from the analysis of data from year 4 students. First, young
learners tend to be motivated to learn a FL and there is a non significant tendency for girls
to show more positive motivation towards FL. Second, young students main reasons’
mentioned for liking the FL are that they learn new things, the activities and that it is fun.
Only 15% of the responses were reasons for disliking learning a second language. Third,
primary students have modest self-perceptions of their process of FL learning. Fourth,
some significant differences between countries arose regarding student’s mentioning or
not E/F/S as their favourite subject, concerning children responses’ to liking the FL, and for
student’s choices of classroom layout as well. Fifth, the majority of young learners seem to
prefer a traditional classroom in order to learn second languages. Sixth, the more common
reasons for choosing one specific layout were student engagement, sitting with classmates
or interacting and discipline and classroom climate.

As for the follow up analyses the main outcomes are: The amount of students mentioning
FL as their favourite and the number of learners who perceived themselves as better or
faster decreases with time. Concerning classroom preferences, students’ choices tend to
be stable after two years and the reasons for choosing a classroom layout are similar as
well.

Keywords: foreign language (FL), second language acquisition (SLA), second language (SL),
motivation, attitudes, preferences, beliefs, young language learners, primary school.

1. Although foreign language and second language are not exact synonyms, in this paper I will be referring to both without
distinction referring to FL learning contexts.

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
by young learners across Europe

2. Literature Review

Second language learning is a very complex phenomenon and the outcomes of the
process of learning depend too much in which conditions this learning is produced. As
Gardner (1985) mentions “language learning is a social psychological phenomenon and
it is very important to consider fully the conditions under which it takes place” (p.2).

Not only external factors play an important role on SLA, for instance the learning
methodology, the amount of exposure to the language, etc. but also internal factors
like attitudes towards de FL, the motivation to acquire it or the different perceptions
and beliefs towards the learning process. These last internal factors, those relating to
the learner, are the ones of our interest in this study.

In this section, first I will give an overview about studies on motivations and attitudes
towards language learning, and I will also review research on student’s perceptions
and beliefs in SLA. I will mainly focus on studies involving young language learners.

2.1. Attitudes and motivations

Research on attitudes and motivations towards SLA shows the tendency that young
students have very positive attitudes and are highly motivated towards the second
language learning (Burstall, 1975; Sung and Padilla, 1998; Blondin et al., 1998;
Djigunovich and Vilke, 2000). This might be partly due to the fact that primary pupils
generally perceive the FL subject as fun. The kind of activities and teachers’
methodology play a very important role in the emergence of positive attitudes and
motivations towards second language learning (Hunt, et al, 2005; Wu, 2003;
Djigunovic, 2009). Nikolov (2000) suggests that increasing early positive attitudes can
later on ensure good proficiency. This is one of the reasons why SL research should
focus in these affective variables which sometimes are left behind but which actually
play a decisive role in language learning. There are some counterexamples to the
usually assumed positive relationship between an early start in SL and the emergence
of positive attitudes, this is for instance the case of Russian teaching in Eastern

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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European countries, or Austrian pupil’s studying English (Jantscher and Landsiedler, as

cited in Nikolov, 2000).

Different authors have found positive attitudes and motivations to modern languages
among primary students. Djigunovich and Vilke (2000) and Nikolov (1999) report
positive attitude towards the FL and FL activities. Regarding attitudes towards the
native speakers Djigunovich and Vilke (2000) found that children’s attitudes in Croatia
became more positive after 3 years of instruction, when children were 9 years old.
Kennedy et al., (2000) compared attitudinal differences between elementary student’s
studying a SL and a control group who did not have SL instruction and found more
positive attitudes towards language acquisition and attitudes towards foreign people
and culture in the SL group, suggesting similarly to Djigunovich and Vilke (2000) that
exposure to the FL could lead to positive attitudes.

What are the main motivational factors for FL learning and what do children like and
dislike about it? These issues have been investigated by several authors (Nikolov, 1999;
Harris and Conway, 2002; Nikolov, 2009; Djigunovic, 2009; Cable et al., 2010). Nikolov
(1999) reports that for the children (aged 6-14) in the Pécs study the most important
motivating factors where those involving the learning context and the teacher rather
than instrumental reasons. This finding is in opposition to Nikolov (2009) where
learners (aged 12-16) showed strong instrumental motives although the method of
structured elicitation might have led the author to these results. In Djigunovich’s
(2009) study the motivations or reasons to learn a FL which emerged more often
among children (aged 6) where communication and travel.

When learners where asked about what they liked better from FL lessons the
participant’s (aged 7-11) in Cable et al. study (2010) mentioned teachers’
characteristics, teaching techniques, choral repetitions, working in pairs, songs, games
and creative activities. Nikolov (1999, 2009) shares some of these findings but also
reported videos, listening exercises and tasks involving physical movement among the
most popular activities. Similarly Harris and Conway (2002), when asking the students
what did they like about the modern language lesson, found that games and songs
were among the most favourite activities. Children also mentioned they liked learning

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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and developing communicative competence or the fact that they considered the FL to
be interesting. In the 4 studies mentioned above, the most disliked factors cited
among students were persistent repetitions, unchallenging tasks, lack of support when
making mistakes, children misbehaving in class (Cable et al. 2010), tasks related to
testing (Nikolov 1999, 2009), particular language activities or materials, and having
difficulties with the FL (Harris and Conway, 2002).

Since young learners generally have positive attitudes towards FL learning, as reported
above, willingness to continue FL instruction should be expected. This is exactly what
was found in Djigunovic and Vilke (2000) and in Cable et al. (2010). Nikolov (2009) also
investigated long term plans to continue language study among Hungarian students
and the tendency was the same.

The relationship between gender and FL attitudes has been largely investigated.
Gender differences have been obtained on attitudes and motivations towards learning
the second language, girls generally showing better attitudes and higher motivations
than boys (Burstall, 1975; Sung and Padilla, 1998; Harris and Conway, 2002). However,
Dale (as cited in Burstall 1975) found that boys in single gender schools had more
favourable attitudes toward learning French in comparison to boys in co-educational
schools, although a reverse but less marked trend was found for girls. The generally
higher levels of motivation found in most studies could also explain why girls tend to
show a higher level of achievement (Burstall, 1975). Randhawa and Korpan (1973)
found that girls (at grades 7-8) had more positive attitudes toward learning the second
language and this could explain their higher levels of achievement. According to these
authors once adjustments would be made to take into account attitudinal differences
between boys and girls, achievement differences would disappear.

How stable preferences, attitudes and motivations are as children grow older has also
been a focus of research. Djigunovich and Vilke (2000) and Nikolov (1999) report that
young learners enjoyed FL classes but there was a change in primary education

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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towards the activities they enjoyed, at the beginning being game related activities, and
after a few years of instruction, learning activities and more challenging tasks.
Similarly, Djigunovich and Vilke (2000) found that motivation was high from the early
years and it was maintained or even increased. This finding is in contradiction to many
other researches which have found the opposite pattern, motivation decreases with
age (Sung and Padilla, 1998; Cable et al. 2010).

Another factor that has been taken into consideration in studies of young learner’s
attitudes and motivation in FL learning is parents’ and teacher’s attitudes. These might
be playing a role on young learner’s attitudes and achievement (Sung and Padilla,
1998; Harris and Conway, 2002; Djigunovic, 2009).

Attitudes and motivations could vary depending on the FL studied. Even if there is not
much research on this topic Sung and Padilla (1998) have found differences in
motivation in Chinese learners vs. learners of Japanese. Csizér and Kormos (2009) also
found differences in motivation in students of German and students of English, the
latter being more motivated. This result could be due to the fact that English is a lingua
franca.

Probably the most important issue regarding motivation is its relationship with FL
success. Apparently the tendency seems to be positive (Nikolov, 1999; Harris and
Conway, 2002) though non-significant results have also been reported in research
(Burstall, 1975; Olshtain et al., as cited in Nikolov, 1999). Nevertheless it is important
to highlight that although affective factors can be playing an important role, good
attitudes and motivation are not a sufficient condition for language success as widely
reported by many studies (Nikolov, 2000; Blondin, 1998; Djigunovic, 2009) and other
factors such as aptitude may be playing a more important role (Kiss and Nikolov,
2005).

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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2.2. Learners’ perceptions and beliefs

An issue related to student’s perception is whether SL is considered easy or difficult by

young learners. This question has no clear answer yet as there are contradictory
results in research. Petillon (as cited in Blondin, 1998) found that children tended to
perceive learning a FL as difficult, although this was not related to a negative
perception towards the FL. In opposition to this perceived difficulty, Cable et al. (2010)
found that the majority of primary students considered themselves as good at
languages, suggesting that they did not feel that this subject as a difficult one. In a
similar way, Harris and Conway (2002) show that they majority of pupils agreed that
they understand most of what the teacher said in the FL class. This apparently
contradictory findings may be due to the different age of start as reported by
Taeschner (as cited in Blondin et. al 1998), being early starters the ones who consider
that FL is easier.

Regarding children’s self-concept and self-perceptions towards the SL Harris and

Conway (2002) asked children in which degree they agreed with the statement I am
better than most pupils in my class at FL. They found that the majority of participants
did not consider themselves to be better. Students showed a relatively poor self-
concept to FL. Similarly, Csizér and Kormos (2009) found that, generally, students of
German and English in Hungary had low expectations of success, although students of
German reported lower linguistic self-confidence than students of English. These data
seem to indicate that teaching method and learning conditions could influence
student’s self-perception of SL competence, as suggested by Blondin et. al (1998) and
Djigunovic, (2009). In fact, differences in L2 perceived competence and autonomy
could have an effect on student’s L2 intrinsic motivation (Wu, 2003). In addition, it has
been reported that students learning foreign languages show higher self-esteem and
confidence levels towards schooling in general than students not involved in FL
learning (Kennedy et al, 2000).

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
by young learners across Europe

Young learners’ beliefs have not been widely studied although research in this field
with older learners has increased considerably since the late 1980s after the
pioneering studies by Horwitz and Wenden (as cited in Kalaja, 2003). Klatter et al.
(2001) carried out a study to describe young pupil’s general learning conceptions and
found, on the one hand, that young learners have different beliefs about 5 aspects of
learning, and on the other hand, that 3 different learning conceptions could be
distinguished. In the following lines, I will describe 3 studies which have focused their
attention on primary student’s beliefs on FL.

Learner’s belief on SLA can be defined as the opinions and the ideas that learners have
about the task for learning a second or a foreign language (Kalaja & Ferreira, 2003).
According to the sociocultural perspective, beliefs are means to regulate learning. It is
important to mention than in the Vygotskian thinking, when learners talk about their
beliefs about language learning they are, at the same time, constructing them. Within
this perspective, Alanen (2003) performed a longitudinal study in order to gain insight
into the process of emergence of learner’s beliefs by qualitatively examining dialogues
from interviews. The data from this study was taken from 6 Finish children in the ages
of 7 to 9 years old who were studying Japanese as a foreign language. His article
highlights the social nature of beliefs’ construction by which young language learners
either internalised or appropriated significant others utterances’ about their language
learning beliefs. As students grew older they started relating their beliefs to their
language learning experiences, thus “moving away from being other-regulated in the
direction of being self-regulated” (Alanen, 2003, p. 80).

Another qualitative study about FL beliefs involving Finish students is Aro’s (2009) who
examined young learner’s beliefs about English and English language learning. The
author focused on 3 aspects of learner’s beliefs: content, voice and agency. She
analysed 15 elementary school children responses’ in semi-structured interviews
performed at three different ages, firstly at age 7 when they had not started FL
learning, secondly at age 10 (grade 3) when they started to learn English, and lastly at
age 12 (grade 5). As for the content component of her analysis, she found that over
time responses tended to be more similar, probably due to the influence exerted by

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society and by school. Regarding voices, at the beginning authoritative voices were
powerful but afterwards children’s own experiences would gain ground on their
beliefs. Finally, concerning agency similarly to Alanen’s (2003) study, results show a
change from other-regulated to self-regulation.

Kolb’s (2007) study involved German students who were asked about how languages
are learned. The participants of this study were 43 learners (aged 8-9) in their third
year of learning English as a second language. In order to elicit information from the
pupils, they were engaged in 3 different tasks developed for this purpose. The first task
consisted of ranking activities thought to be relevant in developing proficiency, the
second one was an assessment of the relevance of different learning strategies, and
the last task involved the students in completing the sentence “Learning English is
like…”.The findings suggest that primary student hold elaborate beliefs about language
learning. These beliefs were: collecting words, imitation and reproduction,
understanding language, learning through speaking and finally, acting in and through
the language. The author concludes that these beliefs could be grouped in two major
conceptions of language learning one emphasizing formal aspects of language learning,
and the other emphasizing communication. Another finding stated by Kolb (2007) is
that adults and children have similar ideas about the language learning process.

To sum up, previous research shows a tendency of positive attitudes and motivations
towards SL learning among primary students. Many aspects in relation to attitudes
and motivations have been investigated in the lasts years, for instance age of start in
FL learning, gender, motivational factors, parents and teachers attitudes towards the
FL, among others. Learner’s perceptions and beliefs towards FL learning has also been
focus of research although literature is much scarce in comparison to studies on
attitudes and motivations. All aspects related to attitudes and motivations, and those
associated with preferences and beliefs play an important role on the process
language learning among young children and thus studies on these topics are of good
value for teachers and researchers.

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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3. Purpose of the study

The aim of the present study was to examine on the one hand, attitudes and
motivations, and on the other hand, preferences and beliefs, towards FL learning
among young foreign language learners. The goal was, to explore these individual
factors from the point of view of 4th grade primary student’s in 7 different countries.
Because data from the same students when they were at 2nd grade was available to
me, a secondary goal was to conduct a comparative analysis between the same of
students two years later.

This research was part of a bigger Project (ELLiE Project) which is performing a
transnational and longitudinal study of foreign language learning among primary
school students from seven European countries. For more information about this
project, please check the web site: http://www.ellieresearch.eu/

This study was guided by 5 main research questions (RQ) with subquestions. The firsts
two RQ had a focus on attitudes and motivations and last three on self-perceptions
and beliefs.

Attitudes/Motivations

RQ1. How popular are foreign languages among young children from different
countries?

RQ.1.1. Are there any gender differences?

RQ.1.2. Are there any differences between countries?

RQ2. What reasons do students give for liking or disliking the FL?

Self-perceptions/Beliefs

RQ3. How do primary students perceive themselves as foreign language learners in

comparison to their classmates?

RQ.3.1. Are there any gender differences?

RQ.3.2. Are there any differences between countries?

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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RQ4. Which classroom conditions (among the 4 classroom layouts provided) (See
Appx. 2) are considered to be the best to learn a FL among primary students?

RQ.4.1. Are there any gender differences?

RQ.4.2. Are there any differences between countries?

RQ5. Which are the reasons given by the learners for their choices of classroom
configuration? Are there any differences between countries?

4. Methodology

4. 1. Description of the participants

The data for the current study was collected within the ELLiE project. Seven different
countries in Europe (the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and Croatia)
participated in this project in which learner’s progress have been traced for 3 years.

The participants for the present study where at grade 4 (ages 9-10). The total amount
of participants was 264 but in some variables there is some missing information that is
the reason why the n (total) is different in the following tables:

Country n percentage Gender n percentage

UK 26 9,80% female 132 50,40%
Italy 44 16,70% male 130 49,60%
Netherlands 37 14,00% Total 262 100,00%
Poland 41 15,50%
Table 2.
Spain 36 13,60%
Sweden 41 15,50%
Croatia 39 14,80%
Total 264 100,00%
Table 1.

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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In order to make comparisons between students’, when they were in grade 2 (ages 7-8)
and when they were in grade 4 (ages 9-10), the information from students at grade 2
was obtained from Buzatu’s study (2011) in which she examined the same learners two
years earlier.

4.2. Instruments and procedures

Students in year 4 were orally interviewed in the school year 2009-2010. The focal
learner motivation interview (See Appx. 1), used to elicit participant’s information,
consisted of 15 different questions about learner’s interest, use, perceptions, among
other issues, about FL learning. The interviews were carried out in the pupils’ mother
tongue. They were audio recorded and afterwards interviews were transcribed
literally, and they were translated into English by assistant researchers.

From the 15 questions from the interviews only the following ones were used for the
present study:

- 1. Which is your favourite school subject? Do you like

English/French/Spanish (E/F/S)? Why do you like E/F/S?
- 4. Compare yourself to others in the class. How good do you feel you are
at E/F/S? Better, about the same, not so good.
- 14. In which of these classroom configurations (See Appx. 2) would you
learn E/F/S best? Why?

The first issue was divided in three questions. First, the children were asked which
their favourite school subject was. If the answer included E/F/S, then the second
question (do you like E/F/S) was omitted. Next, they were asked for the reasons why
they liked or disliked E/F/S.

For the question number 14, a picture (See Appx. 2) with 4 different classroom
organizations (traditional; working in small groups; sitting altogether in a circle; less
structured layout) was shown to the children and they were asked in which one it

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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would be better to learn English. Afterwards they were asked about their reasons for
choosing that classroom arrangement.

When students were in grade 2, the same procedure was followed but the motivation
interview was a little bit different. The differences which need to be taken into account
for the questions are the following ones:

- For question 1 Which is your favourite school subject? Do you like E/F/S? Why
do you like E/F/S?, in year 2 they were only asked which their favourite subject
was.

-For question 4, Compare yourself to others in the class. How good do you feel
you are at E/F/S? Better, about the same, not so good, in year 2 the question
was Do you think that this year you learn E/F/S as fast as other children in class,
or faster, or slower?

-For question 14 In which of these classroom configurations would you learn

E/F/S best? Why?, year 2 students were asked Look at these pictures of E/F/S
classes. In which of these would you like to learn E/F/S (choose one)? Why?

In the analysis of results comparisons from year 2 and year 4 are mentioned in those
questions where there the same or a similar question was asked to students both in
year 2 and year 4.

4.3. The process of data analysis

Quantitative analyses were performed in the current study. In order to analyse closed
questions the quantitative analyses included non-parametric descriptive statistics,
cross-tabs, customs tables and chi-square and z-tests. The analyses were conducted
with SPSS statistical programme. For the open questions posed to the students (“Why
do you like E/F/S?”, and “Why do you think is best to learn E/F/ S in this classroom
configuration?”), the answers for these questions were categorized.

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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For the question “Why do you like E/F/S” the analysis consisted of creating categories
for the whole amount of responses given by the students and assigning each answer
within these categories. Once the answers had been categorized, they were counted.
Sometimes learners would give more than one answer to the question. For this reason
the total amount of answers is bigger than the total amount of students.

The categories created for the question “Why do you like E/F/S” were a total of 16.
There were 4 categories referring to reasons for disliking FL, and the other 12
categories referred to reasons for liking FL. Next I will describe the content of each
category and I will write some examples of possible answers for each one.

Some answers can be categorized in more than one category, for instance “If I travel
I’ll be able to speak” will be under the category Communicative Reasons and Under
Travelling, holidays.

1. Being hard or confusing

This category refers to any statement in which students considered FL to be
difficult, confusing or if they mentioned not understanding it. e.g. “Sometimes I
get confused”; “I find it some of it hard”; “The words are difficult”; “Sometimes
I don’t understand things”.
2. Negative classroom environment
Reasons for disliking FL which refer to a negative class environment due to
noise, disruption in the class or due to bad behaviour among students, are
included in this category. e.g. “Some people don’t concentrate and they muck
around”; “hard to concentrate because of noise”; “many pupils talk or grumble
with each other during the lesson”.
3. Being bad at FL
This category refers to reasons where students express the idea of not being
good at English or having problems with it. e.g. “I’m not that good at English”;
“I have problems with English”; “I’ve never really liked learning new languages,
I’m not very good at it”.
4. Others (negative)

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Any response explaining why students did not like FL which did not fit in the
previous categories was included here. e.g. “Because there is a lot of theory
and grammar”; “the teacher is very strict”.
5. Being fun or enjoyable
Causes for liking the FL containing ideas that FL is fun, that it is fun to learn it,
that they enjoy it, or mentioning that other things related to the FL classroom
are fun. e.g. “it’s fun”; “I enjoy myself”; “I find it amusing”; “the workbook is
fun”.
6. Activities
This category collects motives from students mentioning liking FL learning or
the FL due to the kind of activities which take place in the class. It refers very
often to playing games and singing, among others. e.g. “I like the games”; “we
listen to a lot of music, we see pictures”; “we sing, play games, do theatre
plays…”
7. Being easy
When learners pointed out that the FL was easy, or they understand it, or that
they did not have to devote much effort on it. e.g. “It’s easy”; “it was easy this
year and did not do much for the lessons”; “the assignments are easier than
last year”; “I understand everything”; “it’s not difficult”.
8. Being useful
This refers to any response focusing on the utility of the language or the future
need for it. e.g. “it’s useful”; “it’s important because it’s our FL and we will
need it in future for our school”; “English is useful if you have computer games
from other countries”.
9. Learning new things
Any time students gave an answer saying that they learn or do new things were
included under this category. e.g. “we learn new languages”; “this way you
learn new words”; “we do new things”; “because it’s new”; “we learn a lot”.
10. Being interesting
When students mentioned that they found FL interesting. e.g. “it’s interesting”;
“English is very interesting”; “we do interesting things”.

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11. Communicative reasons

This category refers to answers containing communicative reasons and
responses mentioning being able to communicate with people from other
countries. e.g. “I can speak another language”; “you can talk with people in
other countries”; “I’ll be able to communicate with everyone”.
When children mentioned speaking as one of the things they do as for instance
in “We play games, we sing, we speak” this was considered from the category
Activities.
12. Travelling or holidays
When students mentioned reasons like travelling or using FL during holidays
were included here. e.g. “I like to learn how to use it on holiday”; “I’d like to
travel to England, America…”; “Because I travel a lot”.
13. Being good at it
In this category reasons given by students mentioning that they consider
themselves to be good at the foreign language are included here. e.g. “I’m
quite good at it”; “I’m good in English”.
14. Liking the teacher
Reasons regarding liking the teacher or positive aspects from the teacher
e.g. “The teacher is nice”; “the teacher is funny”; “I like the teacher”.
15. Family and home
Reporting to use E/F/S with members of their family or using it at home.
e.g. “I’m learning English with my grandfather”; “I use it at home, sometimes
talk with my sister”
16. Others (positive)
Any response explaining why students like FL which did not fit in the previous
categories was included here. e.g. “I like to learn languages”; “I like English”

In order to find out if answers had been all well categorized, about a 10% of the
responses were taken and categorised by the first rater one more time. Intrarater
reliability index was calculated and the result was 0,90.

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For the question “Why do you think is best to learn E/F/ S in this (the one they choose)
classroom configuration?”, Buzatu’s (2011) categories were used. This allowed us to
make comparisons between students’ answers in grade 2 and 4. Similarly than in the
previous analysis the total amount of answers might be bigger than the total amount
of learners due to the fact that some children gave answers which involved more than
one category.

The categories will be listed next. Definitions and examples of these categories can be
found in appendix. 3.

1. Student engagement.

2. Discipline and classroom climate.

3. Seating arrangements

4. Board as a class resource.

5. T-S/ S-T or Bb visibility and/ or audibility.

6. S-S visibility and/ or audibility.

7. Teacher’s role.

8. Teacher availability.

9. Familiarity with classroom layout.

10. Sitting with classmates and/ or interacting.

11. Reliance on classmates’ help.

12. Play activities.

13. Other.

Similarly than in the previous question, reliability was checked. This time both
interrater and intrarater reliability were calculated being the results 0,931 for
interrater reliability and 0,875 for intrarater reliability.

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5. Results

Attitudes/Motivations

RQ1. How popular are foreign languages among young children from different
countries?

In the following section, this question will be answered and in subsections RQ.1.1 and
RQ.1.2. the issue will be addressed referring to gender and nationality differences
respectively.

When children where asked “Which is your favourite school subject?”, students who
mention a foreign language or FL plus other subject were compared with students who
did not mention a foreign language as one of their favorite subjects and differences
between these two groups of students were analyzed. A 75,6% of the sample did not
mention the FL as their favorite one, in contrast to a 24,4% who did. It should be noted
that responses to this question at grade 2 showed a higher amount of students
mentioning E/F/S as their favorite subject (31,7%). When students were specifically
asked if they like SL the scene changes completely with a 74,2% of the children
reporting liking foreign languages.

RQ.1.1. Are there any gender differences?

Regarding gender, no significant differences were found although there is a trend for
more girls (29,5%) to mention FL as favorite than boys (19.5%) (See table 20 Appx.5). In
the Year 2 data (See table 11, Appx. 4), the same trend was found (40,4% of girls
mentioning FL and 22,5% boys) and it was significant. In year 4, when students were
specifically asked if they liked FL, the tendency of more girls (78%) who report liking FL
in comparison to boys (70,4%) is maintained but the results are not significant either
(table 21,Appx. 5 ).

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RQ.1.2. Are there any differences between countries?

When children were asked to mention their favorite subjects, significant differences
have been found between countries (2 =15,706, df =6; p  .05). Italy is the country in
which children mention the FL less often (6,8%). In contrast, the UK is the country
where FL is mentioned as their favorite subject in more occasions (46,2%). In the rest
of the countries the tendency to mention FL as a favorite is around a 25% (it varied
from a 18,9% to a 29,4%). In general, these results are different from those in year 2.
In year 4 there is a tendency for most countries to mention foreign languages as
favorite less often than in year 2 (See table 12 in Appx. 4).
FL favorite (year 4)
Not mentioned Mentioned
Country n % n %
UK 14 53,80% 12 46,20%
Italy 41 93,20% 3 6,80%
Netherlands 30 81,10% 7 18,90%
Poland 31 75,60% 10 24,40%
Spain 24 70,60% 10 29,40%
Sweden 29 70,70% 12 29,30%
Croatia 28 75,70% 9 24,30%
Total 184 70,8% 76 29,20%
Table 3.

When students are specifically asked if they like FL, significant differences have also
been found (2 =25,650, df =6; p  .05) between countries. The UK (42,30%) differs
significantly from Italy (93,0%) and Spain (82,9%) being Italy and Spain the countries
were students report liking FL more often. There are also significant differences in the
same direction between the Netherlands (35%) and Italy (7,07%).

Liking FL (year 4)
No or So so Yes
Country n % n %
UK 15 57,70% 11 42,30%
Italy 3 7,07% 40 93,0%
Netherlands 13 35,0% 24 64,9%
Poland 9 22,0% 32 78,0%
Spain 6 17,1% 29 82,9%
Sweden 4 36,4% 7 63,6%
Croatia 7 26,9% 19 73,1%
Total 57 26,0% 162 74,0%
Table 4.

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RQ2. What reasons do students give for liking or disliking the FL?

A total of 253 reasons were reported by 264 children, some of them gave no answer
and others gave more than one reason. Among all the reasons reported (n=253), 15 %
of the answers were reasons for not liking FL, in contrast to an 85% for reasons for
liking FL. The reasons for liking E/F/S were learning new things, the FL activities and FL
being fun and enjoyable. The reason which appeared more often among those for not
liking the FL was that it was hard or confusing.

Why do you like or dislike E/F/S? (year 4)

Reasons n %
Being hard or confusing 20 7,91%
Others (negative) 10 3,96%
Negative classroom environment 5 1,98%
Being bad at FL 4 1,58%
Learning new things 57 22,53%
Activities 42 16,60%
Being fun or enjoyable 30 11,86%
Others (positive) 16 6,32%
Being easy 14 5,53%
Communicative reasons 13 5,14%
Travelling or holidays 10 3,95%
Being useful 8 3,16%
Being interesting 7 2,77%
Liking the teacher 7 2,77%
Family and home 6 2,37%
Being good at it 4 1,58%
Total 253 100,00%
Table 5.

Self-perceptions/Beliefs

RQ3. How do primary students perceive themselves as foreign language learners in

comparison to their classmates?

Here, this question will be addressed and in subsections RQ.3.1 and RQ.3.2, comments
on this question will be made regarding gender and nationalities.

The majority of student’s (61,80%) perceive themselves similarly to the rest of their
classmates. A percentage of 17,20% view themselves as worse language learners than

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others and 21% of the students perceive themselves as better than the others. When
comparing students at year 2 (See table 13, Appx. 4 and table 22, Appx. 5) and year 4
we see that the amount of students who perceive themselves to be worse or slower
learners than others is maintained after two years (year 2, 19,80%, and year 4 17,20%),
in contrast to the amount of learners who perceived themselves as better or faster
which decreases with time (year 2 being 30,20%, and year 4 being 21%).

RQ.3.1. Are there any gender differences?

When gender differences were analyzed for self-perception towards the second
language, no significant differences arose. A percentage of 65,2% of girls considered
themselves to learn similarly than their classmates while a slightly lower percentage of
boys (58,60%) considered so. There was a lower percentage of girls rating themselves
either worse (15,2%) or better (19,7%) than others in comparison to boys (18,80%
rating themselves as worse, and 22,70% as better). In year 2 significant differences
weren’t found either ( table 14, Appx. 4 and table 23, Appx. 5).

RQ.3.2.Are there any differences between countries?

The comparisons between countries when it comes to self-perceptions were not

significant in year 4 even though in year 2 (table 15, Appx. 4) some differences were
found.

Compare yourself to others (year 4)

Worse than About the same as Better than others
others others
Country n % n % n %
UK 7 26,9% 18 69,2% 1 3,5%
Italy 12 27,3% 22 50,0% 10 22,7%
Netherlands 5 13,5% 24 64,9% 8 21,5%
Poland 7 17,1% 25 61,0% 9 22,0%
Spain 3 8,5% 25 71,4% 7 20,0%
Sweden 3 7,5% 23 57,5% 14 35,0%
Croatia 8 20,5% 25 64,1% 6 15,4%
Table 6.

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RQ4. Which classroom conditions (among the 4 classroom layouts provided) (See
Appx. 2) are considered to be the best to learn a FL among primary students?

Next, this issue will be explained and in subsections RQ.4.1. and RQ.4.2., comparisons
between gender and countries will be described.

When children were asked to choose one classroom configuration to learn FL among 4
different layouts, the majority of students (57,3%) chose the traditional classroom.
Working in small groups and sitting altogether in a circle were chosen in 21,8% and
20,2% respectively. The least chosen option was the less structured layout (0,8%). The
percentages of classroom choice are very similar in year 2 and year 4 (see table 16,
Appx. 4 and table 24, Appx. 5).

RQ.4.1. Are there any gender differences?

When it comes to gender and classroom choice, no statistical differences have been
found. Results show that classroom configuration preferences are pretty much
maintained after two years (see table 17, Appx.4).

In which classroom would you learn best

Traditional Working in small Sitting altogether in Less structured
groups a circle layout
Gender n % n % n % n %
Female 71 53,80% 32 24,20% 29 22,0% 0 0%
Male 77 60,20% 25 19,5% 24 18,8% 2 1,6%
Table 7.

RQ.4.2.Are there any differences between countries?

Significant differences have been found between countries as regards classroom

choice (2 =55,571, df =18; p  .05). Those differences lie between the UK and the rest
of the countries. Being the UK the country where sitting altogether in a circle was
chosen more often (61,5%). In the other countries the majority of students chose the
traditional layout (percentages vary from 56,1 to 66,7). In year 2 (see table 18, Appx. 4)
significant differences were also found in the same direction.

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In which classroom would you learn best (year 4)

Traditional Working in Sitting altogether in Less structured
small groups a circle layout
Country n % n % n % n %
UK 5 19,2% 5 19,2% 16 61,5% 0 0%
Italy 26 59,1% 8 18,2% 9 20,5% 1 2,3%
Netherlands 21 58,3% 14 38,9% 1 2,8% 0 0%
Poland 26 63,4% 6 14,6% 9 22,0% 0 0%
Spain 23 65,7% 3 8,6% 9 25,7% 0 0%
Sweden 23 56,1% 14 34,1% 4 9,8% 0 0%
Croatia 25 66,7% 7 17,9% 5 12,8% 1 2,6%
Table 8.

RQ5. Which are the reasons given by the learners for their choices of classroom
configuration? Are there any differences between countries?

The reasons for choosing one specific classroom layout which appear more often are
student engagement (21,4%), sitting with classmates and/or interacting (16,7%) and
discipline and classroom climate (15,1%). In year two the same reasons where chosen
among the 3 most popular ones although the percentages varied, being, 21,78% for
discipline and classroom climate, 21,65% for student engagement and 13, 02% for
sitting with classmates and interacting (see table 19, Appx. 4).

Why would you learn E/F/S best in this classroom

configuration (the one they chose)? (year 4)
Reasons n %
Student engagement 78 21,4%
Sitting with classmates and/ or interacting 61 16,7%
Discipline and classroom climate 55 15,1%
Teacher’s role 36 9,9%
T-S/ S-T or Bb visibility and/ or audibility 33 9,04%
Other 28 7,7%
Reliance on classmates’ help 23 6,3%
Seating arrangements 18 4,9%
Board as a class resource 15 4,1%
Play activities 11 3,0%
Familiarity with classroom layout 3 0,8%
S-S visibility and/ or audibility 2 0,5%
Teacher availability 2 0,5%
Total 365 100,0%
Table 9.

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When looking for the differences between countries we see that in year 4, the most
frequently chosen category for all countries was student engagement, except for the
UK and the Netherlands in which sitting with classmates and interacting was more
often mentioned. Student engagement was highly chosen by Italy (26,67%), Poland
(23,10%), Spain (28,3%), Sweden (26,19%) and Croatia (23,21%). Sitting with
classmates and interacting was frequent in the UK (32,35%) and the Netherlands
(23,64%). If we compare year 2 (see table 19, Appx. 4) and year 4, results are quite
different although some similarities can be found, for instance in year 2 the UK
(17,31%) chose sitting with classmates more often than other categories and Spain
(35,19%) chose student engagement. Croatia (26,53%) and Sweden (25%) also chose
student engagement as one of the most common categories but also discipline and
classroom climate (Croatia, 26,53%, and Sweden, 25%) . Poland, the Netherlands and
Italy are the ones who show very different results. Polish (32,76%) and Dutch (22,86%)
students chose discipline and classroom climate in the first place, and students in Italy
(28,30&) chose sitting with classmates.

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Why would you learn E/F/S best in this classroom configuration (the one they chose)? Divided by countries (year 4)
Categories The
The UK Italy Netherla Poland Spain Sweden Croatia Total
(n=34) (n=60) nds (n=65) (n=53) (n=42) (n=56) (N=365)
Countries (n= 55)
Student Engagement
11,765% 26,667% 7,273% 23,077% 21,4%
(N=78) 28,302% 26,190% 23,214%

Discipline and
classroom climate 5,882%
21,667% 14,545% 18,462% 9,434% 11,905% 17,857% 15,1%
(N=55)
Seating
arrangements 0% 0% 4,9%
2,941% 3,636% 12,308% 2,381% 10,714%
(N=18)
Blackboard as a
class source 4,1%
2,941% 3,333% 9,091% 3,077% 3,774% 4,762% 1,786%
(N=15)
T-S/ S-T or Bb
visibility and/ or
0% 0% 9,9%
audibility 17,647 6,666% 9,091% 1,538% 1,786%
(N=17)
S-S visibility and/ or
audibility 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0,5%
5,882%
(N=2)
Teacher’s role
21,429% 9,9%
(N=52) 2,941% 15% 10,909% 15,385% 18,868% 9,524%
Teacher’s
availability 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0,5%
3,636%
(N=2)
Familiarity with
classroom layout 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0,8%
3,636% 2,381%
(N=3)
Sitting with
classmates and/ or
18,868% 16,7%
interacting 32,353% 16,667% 23,636% 9,231% 14,286% 8,929%
(N=61)
Reliance on
classmates’ help 0% 6,154% 5,660% 6,3%
5,882% 5,455% 21,429% 3,571%
(N=23)
Play activities
0% 0% 3,0%
(N=10) 3,333% 1,818% 6,154% 3,774% 3,571%
Other
7,7%
(N=28) 11,765% 6,666% 7,273% 4,615% 11,321% 7,143% 8,696%
Total
100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
(n=365)
Table 10.

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6. Discussion

Our results show that young learners seem to be motivated and to have positive
attitudes to learn a FL (74% of students reported liking FL). We state this even if we
found a low percentage of students mentioning FL as their favourite subject (24,4%).
These differences in the results depending on the way of eliciting student’s attitudes
and motivation can give us a hint of why there are some contradictory results in
research when it comes to assessing these affective factors. Similarly to our study,
positive attitudes and motivations in young learners have also been found by Burstall,
(1975), Sung and Padilla, (1998), Blondin et al., (1998), Djigunovich and Vilke, (2000),
among others. Some examples of opposite results have been found in pupils in Eastern
European countries for Russian as the FL and in Austrian students for English as a FL
(Jantscher and Landsiedler, as cited in Nikolov, 2000).

The amount of students mentioning FL as their favourite subject decreased in year 4.

This is in contradiction with Djigunovich and Vilke (2000) study, where they found that
motivation was maintained or even increased with time. However the decrease found
in our study is in line with Sung and Padilla, (1998) and Cable et al. (2010) where the
pattern that motivation decreases with age was reported. The decline found in our
results was more evident in girls. The general drop of student’s mentioning E/F/S as
their favourite subject could be due to the fact that at the beginning (in the earlier
years) FL being a new subject raises more interest in the pupils and little by little this
interest wanes. This decrease in interest and motivation is probably being experienced
by children not only with the FL but also with other school subjects.

As with the findings by Burstall, (1975), Sung and Padilla, (1998), and Harris and
Conway, (2002) a trend emerged in the present study showing that girls display more
positive attitudes and motivation towards FL than boys. The tendency was repeated
both in year 2 and in year 4, even though in year 4 it was not significant. The more
positive predisposition towards FL by girls could be due to numerous reasons. For
instance, girls are assumed to be more sociable and more willing to communicate and

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this could be why they usually like FLs more. Another reason could be the fact that girls
are believed to be better at languages than boys. An alternative explanation might be
that most of the language teachers are women and students might assume that
learning languages is a girlish subject. Many other plausible reasons could be
influencing these results.

When the answers to the questions “which is your favorite subject” and “do you like
FL” were sorted by countries surprising results were found. In the first question, the UK
students’ were the ones reporting more often that FL was their favorite, in opposition
to Italian students who mentioned it the less. But when specifically asked if they liked
FL the opposite pattern emerged, being the UK students’ the ones who tend to like the
FL less (57,7 %) and Italian students are the ones who report liking FL the most (93%).
These contradictory findings could be due to a methodological drawback, the fact that
within the ELLiE project different people interviewed the learners in each country and
maybe the process of eliciting answers varied somehow. The fact that the UK students’
like FL less could be because they already speak English, a lingua franca, and they find
less use in knowing other languages.

Young students main reasons’ for liking the FL were that they learn new things
(22,53%), the FL activities (16,60) and that learning a FL is fun (11,86). Only 15% of the
responses were reasons for disliking learning a second language and the most common
one was that they considered it hard or confusing (7,91%) but not boring. Similar
findings have been reported by Cable et al. (2010), Nikolov (1999, 2009) and Harris and
Conway (2002). In all these studies students report different kind of activities (for
instance songs, games, among others) as one of the things they like most in FL classes.
In Harris and Conway (2002) having difficulties with the FL was also mentioned by
students as reasons for not liking studying a second language.

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It also emerged from the analysis that most primary students perceive themselves as
average learners. This outcome is somehow different from some findings where low
expectations and a poor self-concept had been found by primary students learning a
foreign language (Harris and Conway, 2002) and by secondary students as well (Csizér
and Kormos, 2009). In the present study, when students in year 2 and 4 were
compared we found that the amount of learners who perceived themselves as better
or faster decreases with time. This could be related to what was mentioned above
about children losing motivation when they grow older.

The findings in this study reveal that young learners prefer traditional classrooms for
FL learning. This result suggests that they might belief that studying in a traditional
classroom layout would benefit their process of learning or language learning. This
belief might be connected to their own experiences in the classroom as reported by
Alanen (2003) and Aro (2009). Two possible explanations for the majority of pupil’s
choosing the traditional layout could be the following ones. On the one hand, students
are more familiar with traditional classroom. On the other hand, a good number of
students may be exposed to a teacher-centred style to learn the FL and the traditional
classroom may be more suitable for this way of teaching.

Some significant differences between countries arose for classroom choice. The UK
was the country with a higher proportion of students choosing sitting in circle as the
preferred classroom layout. For the rest of the countries, as mentioned above, the
traditional classroom was more popular. This is probably due to the fact that in the UK
students are more familiar with the sitting in circle layout while in the rest of the
countries traditional classroom layout is more common.

The more common reasons considered the most important for young students in order
to choose one specific layout were student engagement, sitting with classmates or
interacting and discipline and classroom climate. As for classroom preferences,
students’ choices tend to be stable. The reasons for choosing a classroom layout are
similar in both years which show that this is quite a stable factor, probably related to
students’ prior experiences in class.

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7. Limitations of the study

There are some limitations of the present study. One limitation is the fact that
although the whole amount of the sample is quite large (n=264), the total amount of
children per country is not very large consequently generalization is not possible
because the student samples are not representative of the countries under study.

Another drawback is identified in the fact of not having collected my own data. Since
different interviewers collected the data that could have led to possible variances in
the ways of getting the information and therefore this could bring undesirable
differences in students’ responses.

One more constraint is that three foreign languages were under analysis and thus
results cannot be generalized to other foreign languages and the amount of students
of French and Spanish is smaller than students of English.

In spite of the above mentioned limitations, I hope this piece of work has raised some
interesting issues and has in some way contributed in some way to research.

8. Further research

In this study the reasons for liking or disliking foreign languages were studies in year 4
(ages 9-10). It would be convenient to perform a follow up study on motivations
towards FL learning in order to know how motives change in different ages. Knowing
what drives children to learn FL in various ages could be very useful for teachers to
know how to implement their foreign language lessons and how to encourage children
to learn this subject.

I think it would also be interesting carry out a study on young language motivations’
comparing different school subjects (mathematics, sciences, etc.) in order to know
objectively if FL are popular among young learners.

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Research that aims to elaborate didactic approaches which would increase children’s
self-concept and perceptions of attainment should be encouraged in order to find out
which conditions would be beneficial for children learning a FL.

Future research that would look into the influence of the teaching setting (teaching
style, classroom layout, among others) on attitudes, motivations, preferences and
beliefs would be of good value for second language teachers.

Finally, research on student’s perceptions towards FL learning in different language

programs (bilingual schools, intensive vs. extensive learning, etc.) should be performed
in order to know the differences of the programs on affective factors.

9. Conclusions

In the present study, young student’s perceptions of FL learning have been

explored. We have seen that there are generally positive attitudes and
motivations towards E/F/S. Nevertheless, our results show that with time learners’
motivation decreases. Ways should be found to try to increase or maintain
students’ interest in FL as they grow older. Special attention should be dedicated to
boys since they report lower motivation towards FL learning.

A minority of students report not liking the FL because they find it hard or they
have problems with it. We also found that there is a minority group which feel
behind their classmates in their process of FL learning. Teachers should be sensible
to these students. In FL course some time should be dedicated to increasing
student’s self-perceptions of FL competence, for example, keeping always the
demands of the course in a level that students can handle.

Teachers should take into account what students like from the FL courses, so they
should devote more time to learning new things, doing interesting activities for the
students and all of this if possible having fun, quite an important challenge for
teachers. Finally, teachers should take into account students’ preferences as for
instance the way of sitting in the classroom.

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10.References

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11. Appendixes

Appendix 1. Focal Learner Motivation Interview

Focal Learner Motivation Interview 2010

PART I (10 minutes)

1. Which is your favorite school subject/lesson this year?

If student says E/F/S, we ask: Why?

If student doesn't say E/F/S, we ask: What about E/F/S? Why?

2. What do you like best in E/F/S lessons this year? Why?

3. What do you dislike most in E/F/S lessons this year? Why?

4. Compare yourself to others in the class. How good do you feel you are at E/F/S?
Better, about the same, not so good. How do you know?

5. This year, how do you find E/F/S: easy or difficult? In what ways?

6. This year, are your E/F/S classes similar to last year? In what ways?

7. Are your parents happy with what you are learning in E/F/S? How do you know?

8. Do your parents / brothers / sisters help you with your E/F/S? How do they help
you? How often do they help you?

9. Have you ever met someone who doesn't speak Croatian/Dutch/English/Italian/

Polish/Spanish/Swedish? Could you say something to him/her in E/F/S? Did you
understand something? How did it feel?

10. Do you ever hear E/F/S at home? For example, on the radio, TV, CD or DVD? What
do you listen to? How often?

11. Do you have books (e.g. storybooks, Fun Activity books, dictionaries, etc.) in E/F/S
at home? What kind of books? Do you ever use them? How?

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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12. Do you have access to the Internet? How much time do you spend using E/F/S on
the Internet every day? What do you do?

13 How much time do you spend on your E/F/S homework each week? How do you do
it?

PART II (5 minutes)

Legend:

1. Traditional classroom

2. Learners are doing group work

3. Learners are sitting on the floor

4. There are lots of different things happening

(The idea is to find out how learners feel about classroom atmosphere, teaching styles,
classroom activities, etc.)

In which of these would you learn E/F/S best? Why?

In which of these would you learn E/F/S worst? Why?

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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Appendix 2. Classroom configuration.

In which of these classrooms layouts would you learn E/F/S best? Why?

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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Appendix 3. Buzatu’s (2011) categories and examples of the categories from year 2.

1. Student engagement. This category illustrates beliefs that reflect compliance

with taking part in routine school activities such as following teacher’s

directions in class, being on-task, paying attention, concentrating, as for

instance: “you can follow the instruction better”, “everyone say after the

teacher”, “students are copying things from the blackboard”, “the children

learn because they are listening to what the teacher says”, “they are all doing

all the activities”, “everyone is doing what they are supposed to do”, “everyone

is working”, “they are doing all the activities”, “with two next to each other you

can pay attention to the lesson”, “it’s easier to pay attention”, “you can

concentrate better during the English lesson”, “sitting in pairs makes it easier to

learn”; here were also included children’s utterances conveying the meaning of

possessing or using the teaching material such as: “they have a book”, “they

are sitting down with the book”, “they have their books open and their pencils

next to them”, “you will surely listen to tapes”, “they do it in the book”.

2. Discipline and classroom climate. The second category comprises beliefs which

refer to a relaxed classroom atmosphere where silence, order and peace are

the key words: e.g. “more quiet and other children aren’t able to disturb you

easily”, “everyone is sitting down in the right way”, “everything is well

organized”, “because there is order children sit comfortably”, “quiet and

silence and it’s good”, “it’s peace and quiet”, “there is no mess, nobody fights”,

“everybody is sitting down nicely and calmly”, “the pupils are very well

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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behaved”, “no mess, it’s pretty”, “the pupils are very well behaved”, “feel more

comfortable”.

3. Seating arrangements. The beliefs included in this category apply to classroom

layout, to the way in which primary school pupils sit: in a row, on the floor, in

circle, in pairs, on the carpet: e.g. “perfect in a row”, “I like it when I don’t sit

next to other people”, “they are sitting on the floor”, “you can sit forever like

that, on chairs you can fall backwards”, “they are sitting in a circle”, “pairs are

preferable”, “I like having lots of people at the table”, “(you practise together)

on the mat”. Regarding the utterances about sitting in group, they are included

in category 10, because sitting in a group is viewed like working in a group.

4. Board as a class resource. The fourth category consists of beliefs reflecting the

idea that the vertical dimension is essential in classroom life, and the “board”

space is potentially significant (Wright, 2005); this category includes all answers

where “board” is mentioned: “everyone is sitting in front of the blackboard”,

“right in front of the blackboard”, “there are more English words on the

blackboard”, “teacher writes on the board”, “you can look at the board”,

“students are copying things from the blackboard”.

5. T-S/ S-T or Bb visibility and/ or audibility. Beliefs in this category refer to the

fact that the teacher can see and hear the students and vice versa, here teacher

and blackboard are taken together, for example: “the teacher is able to look

over in a better way”, “the teacher can see everyone”, “everyone can see and

hear well”, “you have a better sight at the board”, “you can see the teacher

better”, “you can listen to what the teacher says”, “all facing the teacher”.

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When pupils use the modal verb can in their answer (e.g., “they can look at the

board”, “can listen and see well”, “you can listen to what the teacher says”),

the statement has been classified under this category because, the focus seems

to be on seeing or hearing. However, statements in which there is no use of the

modal can such as “they are looking at the board” or “everybody listens” have

been classified under category 1 because the focus seems to be on paying

attention to the teacher.

6. S-S visibility and/ or audibility. The sixth category consists of beliefs concerning

the importance of visibility and audibility among student peers, expressed in

terms like “you can look at the others”, “you can see each other well”, “you can

understand everyone”, “you don’t have to shout”.

7. Teacher’s role. These beliefs are concerned with the fact that the respondents

saw the teacher as a facilitator where the teacher has the right to hold the floor

and to manage students to take turns: e.g. “the teacher tells what to do”, “the

teacher explains here”, “the teacher is teaching”, “the teacher shows them the

meaning of words or sentences”, “teacher elicits answers”; almost all the

answers related to the first picture are teacher-fronted practices: “the teacher

writes on the blackboard”, “she is pointing at the board”, “teacher shows and

writes on the board”.

8. Teacher availability. This category represents the beliefs expressing the idea

that teacher seems to be tuned in to learners’ needs and be able to offer them

help: “teacher comes to you”, “teacher helps”, “the teacher stays and helps the

students”, “the teacher can help you more (when on the floor)”.

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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9. Familiarity with classroom layout. Beliefs in this category are focused on

experience. The students assert that they have already experienced the kinds

of layouts presented in the pictures: “it is as our class”, “because it’s like here in

school, I’m used to it”, “it is common to me”, “because it’s like in our class”.

10. Sitting with classmates and/ or interacting. This category consists of beliefs

reflecting the significance of sitting together, working together, sharing

opinions. Students are aware of the fact that student-centred activities such as

pair work or group activities are designed to create an interactive learning

environment: “the layout is best to interact with each other”, “it’s easier to ask

questions when there are more children around you”, “sitting in groups, you

can think it over with your group”, “getting different people’s opinions”, “you

learn better when you sit closely together”, “(like it when in circle) and share

ideas”.

11. Reliance on classmates’ help. The beliefs in this category refer to fact that

pupils in primary school grades are not totally independent learners. Thus, in

this category are included all the statements that make reference to young

pupils’ reliance on their peers: e.g. “maybe my classmates can help me if I’m

lost”, “it’s easier to ask for help”, “you don’t understand you can ask someone

in your group”, “a friend next to you can help”.

12. Play activities. This category comprises beliefs that mainly reflect a focus on

young learners’ tendency to play. This category of beliefs includes answers

related to active play or informal activities such as listening to music or to fairy

tales, playing games, singing, drawing: “there is a radio and the children listen

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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to songs”, “they are playing games”, “they are playing a dancing-and-singing

game”, “I like fairy tales”, “they have to draw characters”, “you are allowed to

do a lot of games in that classroom.”

13. Other. Here have been included individual beliefs that are focused on

impersonal statements referring to the teaching material such as “there is a

radio”, whereas children’s utterances conveying the meaning of possession or

use of the teaching material such as: “they have a book”, “you will surely listen

to tapes” were included in student engagement category; here have been

included as well statements referring to other subject matter lessons but

foreign language lessons, e.g. “but in other lessons I prefer to sit in groups”.

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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Appendix 4. Tables with information from the data from grade 2 students, Buzatu
(2011).

FL favorite (year 2)
Not mentioned Mentioned
Gender n % n %
Female 81 59,6 % 55 40,4 %
Male 100 77,5 % 29 22,5 %
Total 181 68,3 % 84 31,7 %
Table 11.

FL favorite (year 2)
Not mentioned Mentioned
Country n % n %
UK 34 97,1 % 1 2,9 %
Italy 24 55,8 % 19 44,2 %
Netherlands 32 78,0 % 9 22,0 %
Poland 21 65,6 % 11 34,4 %
Spain 21 61,8 % 13 38,2 %
Sweden 34 79,1 % 9 20,9 %
Croatia 15 40,5 % 22 59,5 %
Table 12.

Compare yourself to others

(year 2)
Rate of learning n %
Slower than others 49 19,80 %
About the same as 124 50,00 %
others
Faster than others 75 30,20 %
Total 248 100,00%
Table 13.

Compare yourself to others (year 2)

Slower than others About the same as Faster than others
others
Gender n % n % n %
Female 29 22,70 % 67 53,30 % 32 25,00 %
Male 20 16,70 % 57 47,50 % 43 35,80 %
Table 14.

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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Compare yourself to others (year 2)

Slower than About the same as Faster than others
others others
Country n % n % n %
UK 10 30,3 % 17 51,5 % 6 18,2 %
Italy 5 11,6 % 26 60,5 % 12 27,9 %
Netherlands 5 14,3 % 13 37,1 % 17 48,6 %
Poland 11 34,4 % 10 31,3 % 11 34,4 %
Spain 7 19,4 % 22 61,1 % 7 19,4 %
Sweden 4 10,5 % 29 76.3 % 5 13,2 %
Croatia 7 22,6 % 7 22,6 % 17 54,8 %
Table 15.

In which classroom would you learn best

(year 2)
Classroom layout n %
Traditional 153 56,7 %
Working in small groups 52 19,3 %
Sitting altogether in a circle 56 20,7 %
Less structured layout 9 3,3 %
Total 270 100 %
Table 16.

In which classroom would you learn best (year 2)

Traditional Working in small Sitting altogether Less structured
groups in a circle layout
Gender n % n % n % n %
Female 79 56,4% 27 19,3% 32 22,9% 2 1,4%
Male 74 56,9% 25 19,2% 24 18,5% 7 5,4%
Table 17.

In which classroom would you learn best (year 2)

Traditional Working in Sitting altogether Less structured
small groups in a circle layout
Country n % n % n % n %
UK 9 25,7% 9 25,7% 14 40,0% 3 8,6%
Italy 24 54,5% 14 31,8% 6 13,6% 0 0%
Netherlands 30 69,8% 8 18,6% 3 7,0% 2 4,7%
Poland 20 60,6% 3 9,1% 9 27,3% 1 3,0%
Spain 20 57,1% 10 28,6% 3 8,6% 2 5,7%
Sweden 25 58,1% 4 9,3% 14 32,6% 0 0%
Croatia 25 67,6% 4 10,8% 7 18,9% 1 2,7%
Table 18.

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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Why would you learn E/F/S best in this classroom configuration (the one they chose)? Divided
by countries (year 2)
The
The UK Italy Poland Spain Sweden Croatia Total
Categories Netherlands
(n=52) (n=53) (n=58) (n=54) (n=52) (n=49) (N=388)
(n=70 )
Student
Engagement 15.38% 24.53% 12.86% 12.07% 35.19% 25.00% 26.53% 21.65%
(N=82)
Discipline and
classroom
13.46% 20.75% 22.86% 32.76% 11.11% 25.00% 26.53% 21.78%
climate
(N=85)
Seating
arrangements 17.31% 5.66% 8.57% 3.45% 1.85% 7.69% 2.04% 6.65%
(N=26)
Blackboard as
a class source 1.92% .0% 11.43% 3.45% 7.41% 7.69% 8.16% 5.72%
(N=23)
T-S/ S-T or
Bb visibility
and/ or 5.77% 3.77% 14.29% 5.17% 1.85% 5.77% .0% 5.23%
audibility
(N=22)
S-S visibility
and/ or
3.85% .0% 2.86% .0% .0% 1.92% .0% 1.23%
audibility
(N=5)
Teacher’s role
3.85% 5.66% 4.29% 12.07% 24.07% 7.69% 12.24% 9.98%
(N=38)
Teacher’s
availability 3.85% 3.77% 1.43% .0% .0% 1.92% .0% 1.57%
(N=6)
Familiarity
with
classroom .0% .0% 2.86% 8.62% .0% .0% .0% 1.64%
layout
(N=7)
Sitting with
classmates
and/ or 17.31% 28.30% 11.43% 6.90% 7.41% 9.62% 10.20% 13.02%
interacting
(N=50)
Reliance on
classmates’
1.92% .0% 2.86% .0% 3.70% 3.85% 2.04% 2.05%
help
(N=8)
Play activities
9.62% 5.66% 2.86% 15.52% 5.56% 1.92% 4.08% 6.46%
(N=25)
Other
5.77% 1.89% 1.43% 0.00% 1.85% 1.92% 8.16% 3.00%
(N=11)
Total
100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
(n=388)
Table 19.

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Follow up study on students’ perceptions towards foreign language learning 2011
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Appendix 5. Tables with information from the data from grade 4 students.

FL favorite (year 4)
Not mentioned Mentioned
Gender n % n %
Female 91 70,5 % 38 29,5 %
Male 104 80,6 % 25 19,4 %
Total 195 75,6 % 63 24,4 %
Table 20.

Liking FL (year 4)
No or So so Yes
Gender n % n %
Female 24 22,0 % 85 78,0 %
Male 32 29,6 % 76 70,4 %
Total 56 25,8 % 161 74,2 %
Table 21.

Compare yourself to others (year 4)

Compare yourself n %
to others
Worse than others 45 17,20 %
About the same as 162 61,80 %
others
Better than others 55 21,00 %
Total 262 100, %
Table 22.

Compare yourself to others (year 4)

Worse than About the same as Better than others
others others
Gender n % n % n %
Female 20 15,2% 86 65,2% 26 19,7%
Male 24 18,80% 75 58,60% 29 22,70%
Table 23.

In which classroom would you learn best (year 4)

Classroom layout n %
Traditional 150 57,3%
Working in small groups 57 21,8%
Sitting altogether in a circle 53 20,2%
Less structured layout 2 0,8%
Total 262 100%
Table 24.

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