This article concerns pupils’ attitudes to modern foreign languages at ages 14 and 15. Findings suggest that pupils were at least as negative in their attitudes overall as in a similar previous study, despite more recent changes in curricula and teaching approaches. Further, perceptions of subject importance relate strongly to perceived usefulness for careers, modern languages are not seen as enjoyable and are viewed as difficult. Pedagogical innovations, notably target language teaching and the use of role play, have done nothing to improve pupils’ self-images as language learners, and may have done the reverse. Long-term compulsory learning of one or two languages is too long for pupils without intrinsic/integrative motivation.
As part of a project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), school students in the West of England were asked about their perceptions of the importance of modern foreign languages and about their reasons for liking and disliking them, particularly as this bore on the process of subject option choices. The results are compared with those of a similar project in the mid- 1980s. Unfortunately, the students were at least as negative in their attitudes overall as in the earlier study, despite more recent changes in curricula and teaching approaches. Specific aspects of the results and their implications are discussed with reference to possible strategies to facilitate improvement.
Stables, A., & Wikeley, F. (2007). From bad to worse? pupils’ attitudes to modern foreign languages at ages 14 and 15. The Language Learning Journal, 20 (1), pp. 27-31.