Moroccan Students’ Attitudes Towards Local and Foreign Languages: The Role of Self-Directed and Language Policy Forces

Abstract

Ths article contributes to the hot debate on language preferences and choice at schools and society at large in Morocco from an empirical perspective. It investigates the Moroccan students’ attitudes towards the languages they use in their daily interactions and those that are widely used in the Moroccan education system and attempts to explain whether these attitudes are driven by intrinsic forces or by the language policy orientations set by decision makers. To do so, 1,477 respondents belonging to different school levels and disciplines completed a survey about their frequency of use and mastery of languages, as well as their preferences of language use in the future. Findings show that Moroccan students have positive attitudes towards all languages and would like to use foreign languages for instrumental purposes. They also show that such positive attitudes do not depend on the level of mastery of these languages, nor on their use as mediums of instruction or communication. The findings imply that attitudes towards languages in Morocco are rooted in factors beyond the official policy orientations.

The Status of English in Morocco: Lessons from Spontaneous Debates in Social Media

“…However, unlike their public peers, the students in the private sector view English as an asset in their employability together with French. Similarly, other studies have shown that the Moroccan students hold positive attitudes towards English (Sadiqi, 1988;Bouzidi, 1989;Anderson, 2013;Buckner, 2011;Et-tahiri, 2019;Bouziane, 2020a). Such attitudes should be cautiously considered.…”

“…They all show their willing to learn other languages; however, Buckner (2011) argues that the upper-class learn English to maintain their prestige while the lower-class do so to escape their low level in other languages and to seek positions as teachers of English. Importantly, the learning of foreign languages in Morocco is more determined by factors related to intrinsic motivation and social class (Buckner, 2011;Bouziane, 2020aBouziane, , 2020b than to the language policy put in place by the decision makers (Bouziane, 2020a). All these factors that contribute to the Moroccans' attitudes towards languages, and specifically towards English, are tackled in this article through their reactions to the calls of reinforcing English in the Moroccan education system.…”

“…They consider adding English will enable Morocco to improve its relations with other English-speaking countries, especially with the new interest in Africa after Morocco's renewal of diplomatic and political relations with African countries (Charai, 2016). Generally, the Moroccans' attitudes towards foreign languages are triggered by instrumental motives (Buckner, 2011;Bouziane, 2020a and2020b, inter alias).…”

ESP Instruction in Morocco: A Study of University Students’ Attitudes and Perceptions

“…In the current study, a four-point Likert scale questionnaire was used to collect data. It was constructed on the basis of previous research studies (Bouziane, 2020, Kaplan, 1993Watson, 1995) and comprised two main parts. The first section was related to the participant's demographic information, including gender, age, school, and level.…”

“…In addition to this, it is noted that studies on university students' attitudes toward learning English for specific purposes are really lacking in the Moroccan context. Most of the previous literature focused on investigating learners' attitudes toward learning English as a foreign language (Amrous, 2020;Belhiah, 2020;Ben Hammou & Kesbi, 2022;Bouziane, 2020). This is undeniably fruitful in refining the quality of ELT and optimizing students' performance outcomes.…”