Affective Factors Influencing Plurilingual Students’ Acquisition of Catalan in a Catalan–Spanish Bilingual Context

Abstract

This study explored the affective factors influencing students’ learning of Catalan across different year levels in a multilingual school community in Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain). Questionnaires were distributed to 176 students, from 12 to 17 years of age, registered in a public secondary school, the majority of whom were not born in Catalonia. This study is unique for two reasons. First, many of the students were simultaneously learning 2 official languages—Catalan and Spanish—both inside and outside the classroom, plus 1 foreign language, English. Second, the instrument used to assess the affective variables made use of scales from 2 different models, by Dörnyei (2001) and Gardner (1985). There were 4 major results. First, it was found that the students used Catalan very infrequently in comparison to Spanish even though Catalan is an official language and is the language of the school. Second, the students’ country of origin had relatively little influence on most of the affective measures. Third, attitudes and motivation decreased and language anxiety increased as year level increased. Finally, the constructs assessed by the scales in the 2 models (i.e., Dörnyei, 2001; Gardner, 1985) are largely factorially distinct, tapping different affective dimensions.

Multilingualism and Language Attitudes: Local Versus Immigrant Students' Perceptions

“…In the case of Spanish, the attitudes are very positive and there is practically no rejection among the immigrant group as a whole, a fact that also confirms the second hypothesis we proposed and the results obtained by Bernaus et al (2004) and Bernaus et al (2007) in Catalonia. Although, when we make a distinction between those who have Spanish or a different language as their mother tongue, the latter's attitudes are not so favourable, their average mark remains high (75 in a scale where 100 is the maximum) and very far from the low average marks that were obtained in the case of the minority language.…”

Attitudinal patterns of secondary education students in Catalonia. The direct and moderator effects of origin

“…Echoing Pujolar's (2001) findings, students also seemed to consider Catalan less masculine. On the other hand, Bernaus and her associates (Bernaus et al 2004;2007) chose a questionnaire -based approach and focused on the secondary education students of a public school in Barcelona where 80% of the population came from an immigrant background. These students showed a clear preference for Spanish and English over Catalan.…”

Can language attitudes be improved? A longitudinal study of immigrant students in Catalonia (Spain)

“…In order to successfully implement these educational and linguistic policies and to help immigrant students learn the two official languages of the territory, their language attitudes have to be considered (Lewis 1981;Huguet 2006;Lapresta, Chireac, Huguet, Janés, Navarro, Querol, and Sansó 2009;Strubell 2001). Immigrant students have been found to show more favourable attitudes towards Spanish and English than towards Catalan (Bernaus, Masgoret et al 2004;Bernaus et al 2007;Huguet, Janés, and Chireac 2008;Madariaga, Huguet, and Lapresta 2013).…”