What are Learner Attitudes towards language learning?

1. Learner Attitudes,
Perceptions, and Beliefs in
Language Learning
Pamela M. Wesely
University of Iowa
2012
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2. INTRODUCTION
• This article is concerned with recent research (the last
10 years in EFL contexts) in the area of learner
attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs about language
learning and about themselves as language learners.
• This area is highly challenging for the researchers in that
these attributes are unobservable.
• What researchers do is to ask learners what they think.
• These attributes are important since they give us ideas
about how languages are learned and taught.
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3. FOUNDATIONS AND
DEFINITIONS
• The groundwork for this area started in 1970s and 1980s.
• During this period, scholars largely worked on creating
and validating instruments for future research.
• The Foreign Language Attitude Scale (FLAS) (Bartley,
1970)
• The Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) (Gardner,
1985)
• The Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS)
(Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986)
• The Beliefs and Attitudes Language Learning Inventory
(BALLI) (Horwitz, 1988)
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4. FOUNDATIONS AND
DEFINITIONS
• High-profile qualitative research and survey research
dominated the field in 1990s and this dominance has
come to the present day.a
• The survey research has taken a lot of critiques since
then.
4

5. “Participants sometimes
report what is expected,
rather than their true
beliefs.”
The Inherent Danger
about Survey Research
• “I think French people are good people”
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It seems as a
measure of
attitudes

6. Definitions of Learner Attitudes
• Attitudes toward the learning situation (often
encompassing the instructor as well as the instructional
techniques (Gardner, 2005).
• Attitudes toward the target community (Yashima,
2009).
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International Posture:
How learners see themselves
connected to international community
and readiness to interact with people
from different cultures.

7. Definitions of Learner Perceptions
• Perceptions of learners themselves
How students understand and make sense of themselves
and their own learning.
• Perceptions of learning situations
How students experience and understand aspects of the
classroom, like instructor behaviors.
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Many research focus on one at a time but start making by
assuming that two types of perceptions are interrelated.

8. Definitions of Learner Beliefs
• Learner beliefs have included what learners think about
themselves, about the learning situation, and about the
target community.
• In the literature, learner beliefs are more pervasive than
the others since they focus on specific experiences.
• Often related to the notion of self-efficacy and language
learning self-concept.
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How learners generally think
about themselves as a language
learner.

9. And two other concepts…
• Motivation and Anxiety is found to be in a causal relationship
with attitudes, beliefs and perceptions…
• Motivation is highly connected to affective characteristics of
learners, thus directing learners’ behaviors. It can be a main
constract in this research area.
• Anxiety is largely defined as situation-specific anxiety as “a
distinct complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings, and
behaviors related to classroom language learning arising from
the uniqueness of the language learning processes.”
• As a result, this research field has been hindered by unclear
definitions.
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10. Trait or Learner Orientation –
Describing Learner Attitudes,
Perceptions, and Beliefs
• Describing student perceptions is mostly on specific
aspects of the language classrooms in the research area.
• L1 usage
• The use of technology
• The native vs. nonnative instructor
• But these research remained descriptive and did not lead a
coherent body of findings about student perceptions in the
end. Each contributed to a single topic.
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11. Trait or Learner Orientation –
Describing Learner Attitudes,
Perceptions, and Beliefs
• A set of research in 2000s has focused on tracing the
relationshio between learner and instructor perceptions
about target language use, learners’ self-expressive
speech, effective FL teaching, accents in the target
language and teaching strategies.
• They concluded that instructor and learner perceptions did
not match.
• Interestingly, similar research conducted in Georgia and
Eurasia concluded that instructors and learners were similar
in their beliefs about language learning.
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12. Trait or Learner Orientation –
Connecting Learner Attitudes,
Perceptions, and Beliefs with Outcomes
• How those concepts can be related to an array of
outcomes.
• Learners looking at themselves as language learners.
• Learners looking at the process of language learning.
• Learners looking at the target community.
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13. Learners looking at themselves
as a language learner
• Such attribute is associated with outcomes like enjoyment
and achievement on proficiency and grades.
• Some studies correlated learner perception of themselves
as a language learner with FL anxiety and motivation.
• To conduct research, researchers primarily focus on self-
assessment and self-efficacy in the first place.
• In general, more positive attitudes, beliefs and
perceptions result in more positive outcomes.
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14. Learners looking at the process
of language learning
• Some studies linked perceptions of certain instructional
techniques with choice of learning strategies,
corrective feedback, perceptions of instructors with
their motivation and anxiety.
• Still, further research is needed.
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15. Learners looking at the
target community
• Some studies concluded that the students’ attitudes
toward the target community have been seen as
contributing to either their “integrative motivation” or
their “international posture” then in turn influenced
motivation in general, which led to achievement.
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16. Understanding of language
education and the experience of
the language learner
• These kinds of correlational studies connecting these
attributes to outcomes are of great importance for the
research field as they offer clarity for understading the
learner.
• However, the important critique about correlational
relationships is that variables can be unmeasurable so
certain results cannot be drawn.
• For example, self efficacy produces high proficiency.
• Thus, scholars need to explore more when the expected
relations are not found.
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17. Adressing Learner Characteristics
with Their Attitudes, Perceptions,
and Beliefs
• How learner characteristics can be connected with attitudes,
perceptions and beliefs.
• Most studies examined a group of people with a specific
characteristic (heritage learners) in the same context
(male/female, L1/L2).
• Most research was qualitative and thus, interpretative in
nature.
• Many studies on heritage learners showed that their beliefs
about what was valuable in language learning related to their
own identity.
• Additionally, heritage learners and their attitudes towards
classroom activities had a relation
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18. Adressing Learner Characteristics
with Their Attitudes, Perceptions,
and Beliefs
• The differences between female and male were seen as a
important topic to pursue.
• Recently, the topic have become just a variable in the research.
• Till now, many studies concluded that girls have more possive
attitudes towards foreign languages.
• Underrepresented populations are mainly ignored in the
research area (one exception is the study of african americans).
• Afro-americans have low enrollments to language courses
although they have positive attitudes. The reason was found
out to be low motivation resulting from encouragement.
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19. Adressing Learner Characteristics
with Their Attitudes, Perceptions,
and Beliefs
• Researchers examining heritage learners should consider
the complexity of individual backgrounds.
• Expanding the knowledge in this topic is imperative.
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20. The State or Environmental Level
• …learner beliefs about foreign language learning are
at least as diverse as the languages, levels, and
institutions in which the learners are studying and
that teachers and researchers cannot assume that
beliefs identified in one group of learners are
representative of the beliefs of learners of different
languages, at different levels, or at different kinds of
institutions. (Rifkin, 2000, p. 407)
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Beliefs cannot be
independent from
contexts

21. Comparing Learner Attitudes,
Perceptions, and Beliefs Across
Different Environments
• Such topic requires a comparative framework.
• Most research have been done in two major ways; different
languages and different classes of the same languages.
• Comparing different languages compared rare constant results.
• The most comprehensive study came from Horwitz in 1999.
She found out that Japanese learners were different in their
beliefs from any other U.S FL learners.
• They estimated a longer time needed to learn a language.
• Lower evaluation of their own abilities as a language learner
• Appreciated vocabulary and grammar more.
• Have strong beliefs about finding a job, after learning a language.
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22. Comparing Learner Attitudes,
Perceptions, and Beliefs Across
Different Environments
• Also, learning a commonly taught language and less
commonly taught language shows differences in research.
• The difference in learner attitudes, beliefs and perceptions was
found to be resulting from their background knowledge.
• When comes to students in the same classroom, students in
early levels have less positive attitudes to language students
when compared to advanced learners.
• Upper level students expected less directive instructor and
more engagement with material.
• This area still needs further research and making research in
EFL context will be vital since most research is coming from
North America.
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23. Examining How FL Programs Affect
Learner Attitudes, Perceptions, and
Beliefs
• How one FL program of study affects the attitudes, perceptions
and beliefs of learners in that program.
• Some longitudinal research concluded that elementary
experiences with language learning influenced their positive
and negative attitudes later in life.
• A set of study focused on specific teaching practices and
concluded again that learners and instructors differed in their
beliefs.
• Dewey (2004)’s experimental designed showed that when
instructors shared their beliefs with the students about a
technique, students tend to think the same after completing the
course.
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24. Examining How FL Programs Affect
Learner Attitudes, Perceptions, and
Beliefs
• Tutoring sessions
• Inquiry-based programs on culture
• Project-based learning
have been found to enhance learner attitudes and self-
efficacy.
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25. Examining How FL Programs Affect
Learner Attitudes, Perceptions, and
Beliefs
• Programs for heritage learners are found to be beneficial
for attitudinal factors.
• Otcu (2010) investigated a turkish school in USA and
concluded that learning Turkish in a heritage study helped
students create a Turkish cultural identity.
• Programs for foreign language in Elementary school
correlated with long-term attitudinal benefits.
• Students attending to such schools showed more positive
attitudes about school, learning, language, culture.
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26. Examining How FL Programs Affect
Learner Attitudes, Perceptions, and
Beliefs
• Study abroad experiences automatically resulted in
transformative learning for all learners and correlated with
intercultural competence.
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Contact with target
community
increases motivation
and reduces anxiety

27. A Note on Dual-
Orientation Studies
• When categorizing the studies, the challenge is what to do
with studies that adress both the learner and the
environment.
• For some studies, they can be categorized as having
dynamic/complex orientation, but still investegated both.
• However, the dynamic//complexity orientation offers
promising way.
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28. The Dynamic/Complexity
Orientation
• This orientation started to prevail the literature in 1990s.
• In reaction to Gardner’s concepts of instrumental and
integrative motivation, Norton (2000) explained that there is a
complex relationship between power, identity and language
learning.
• Following studies named learners as complex social beings.
• Other scholars then came up with such claims as beliefs about
SLA should be investigated interactively, beliefs and actions
are interconnected.
• Thus, most research later became interpretive in nature.
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29. One example for
dynamic/complexity orientation
• Liskin-Gasparro (1998);
• Tha data coming from a FL program
• Students defined the immersion model as the best way to
learn a language.
• Yet, their belief was that more formal grammar and
vocabulary was the only wau to achieve true accuracy and
fluency in a language
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30. The Dynamic/Complexity
Orientation
• Adopting a dynamic/complexity orientation in looking at
learner attitudes, perceptions and beliefs carries risks.
• Causes in instructor action are important aspects of
research on the topic.
• Such orientation should be accessible to the scholars.
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31. Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety-
Horwitz & Horwitz and Cope, 1986 31
When teachers
call on me, my
mind goes blank.
I can’t learn a
foreign language
no matter how
hard I try.

32. Having a mental block
against learning a language
• Some people may be good learners, highly motivated in
other situations and even have a liking for people
speaking the target language.
• Many people find foreign language learning, especially
in classroom, stressful.
• But what prevents them from achieving their goals?
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33. • Scholars in the field are already aware that anxiety is the
major obstacle.
• Accordingly, several approaches came out to cope with
learner anxiety.
• Suggestopedia
• Community Language Learning
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34. The Aim of This Paper
• In the revelant liturature, no paper has defined foreign
language anxiety adequately and specific effects on the
learning process.
• This paper tries to fill this gap by identifying foreign
language anxiety as a conceptually distinct variable.
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35. Effects of Anxiety on
Language Learning
• Language learning itself is a
profoundly unsettling psychological
proposition beucase it directly
threatens an individual’s self-
concept and worldview.
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36. Anxiety vs. Proficiency
• Recently, researchers conducted different types of
research about anxiety but the results were mixed.
• They mostly compare students’ self-reports of anxiety
with their language proficiency, obtained from a discrete
skills tasks or a global measure such as final score.
• To some scholars, such a procedure is not clearcut. It is
still premature.
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37. Specific Effects of Anxiety
• Studies seeking more specific effects of anxiety on language
learning have been more revealing.
• For example, it was found that ESL learners with high
anxiety attempted different types of grammatical
constructions than those with less anxiety level.
• ESL learners with more anxiety attempted to convey more
concrete message than the others.
• The last finding shows that anxiety effects communication
strategies.
• ESL learners with anxiety also tend to write shorter
compositions.
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38. Clinical Experience
• Leaners experience apprehension, worry and dread.
• They have difficulty concentrating, become forgetful,
swear and palpitations.
• Exhibiting avoidance behaviour such as missing class and
postponing homework.
• They have difficulty in discriminating the sounds and
target structures of the language. One student reported
hearing only a buzz while his teacher was speaking.
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39. Counsellors find that
anxiety centers on …
• Two basic tasks of language learning:
• Listening
• Speaking
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40. • Difficulty in speaking in the class is probably the most
frequent concern of language students.
40
I feel very
comfortable while
giving a prepared
speech but I freeze
in a role play
situation.

41. Test-Anxious Students
• Stemming from fear of failure
• Such students put too much demand on themvelves and
perceive that anything less than a perfect test performance
is a failure.
• Oral tests have the potential of provoking both test and
oral communication anxiety in susceptible sudents.
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42. Fear of Negative
Evaluation
• Defined as apprehension about others’ evaluations,
avoidance of evaluative situations and the expenctation
that others would evauluate oneself negatively.
• Foreign languages require constant evaluation by the only
fluent speaker in the class, who is the teacher.
• Therefore, students may be acutely sensitive to the
evaluations of their peers.
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43. So far…
• We see three kinds of anxiety related to learning a
language; test anxiety, communication anxiety and fear
of negative evaluation.
• However, foreign language anxiety is not simply the
combination of these three. Rather, it is a distinct
complex of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings and
behaviors related to classroom language learning
arising from the uniqueness of the language learning
process.
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44. A matter of True Self and
More Limited Self for Adults
• Adults generally define themselves as reasonably
intelligent, socially-adept individuals, sensitive to
different socio-cultural backgrounds.
• Making oneself understand is hard while using a foreign
language, since communication attempts will be
evaluated as to uncertain socio-cultural standards.
• Therefore, it calls for risk-taking for adults.
• This challenge an adult’s self-concept as a competent
communication and leads fear or even panic.
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45. Identifying Foreign
Language Anxiety
• During the summer of 1983, students in beginning language classess
at the University of Texas were invited to a Support Group for
Foreign Language Learning. Out of 225, 78 were taken.
• Group meetings consisted of student discussion of concerns and
difficulties in language learning, didactic presentations on effective
language learning strategies and anxiety management exercises.
• Students reported difficulties such as freezing in the class, standing
outside the door of the classroom trying to get some courage to enter,
going blank prior to the test etc.
• Tenseness, trembling, perspiring, palpitations and sleep disturbance.
• These reports helped to develop Foreign Language Anxiety Scale
(FLCAS)
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46. FLCAS
• Internal reliability, alpha coeffient, 0.93
• Test-retest reliability over 8 weeks r = .83
• Construct validation study almost proved that language
anxiety is related to other type of anxiety but it is
distinguishable.
• Pilot testing showed that items are the reflective of
communication anxiety, test anxiety and fear of negative
evaluation.
• Students’ self-report and the FLCAS results were
consistent.
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47. FLCAS 47

48. 48

49. The results
• It is obvious that foreign language anxiety is experienced
by many students, at least to some aspects of foreign
language learning.
• Also, the sampling of the study indicates that anxious
students are very common in the classrooms (at least in
beginning classes on the university level.)
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50. Pedagogical Implications
• Before attributing poor student performance to lack of
ability, inadequate background or poor motivation,
teachers should think about the behaviours discussed in
this paper.
• Teachers should try to make environment less stressful.
• Spefic techniques can be used:
• Relaxation exercises
• Advice on effective learning strategies
• Behavioral contracting
• Journal keeping.
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You do not have
enough time to deal
with each student?

51. When identified, Anxious
students can consult to
learning specialists.
• Systematic desensitization has been found to be
effective for anxious learners.
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52. Systematic
Desensitization 52

53. 53

54. Conclusion
• The rise of foreign language requirements puts
increased emphasis on spontaneous speking in the
language classrooms.
• The development of communicative competence seems
difficult for anxious students.
• Not totally, but at least to an extent, teachers can be
supportive for these students.
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