Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

14 Part 1: Language and Ideology
responsible for success in a variety of instructional settings. In this model,
positive attitudes, including, notably, positive attitudes toward what happens
in L2 classrooms, are theorized as infl uential factors contributing to
effort, which can produce success in L2 learning; such success can, in turn,
increase positive attitudes, including favorable attitudes toward the L2
classroom, suggesting a reciprocal relationship between these two classes
of variables.
Contemporary attitude researchers, including Dörnyei, have noted the
importance not only of attitudes toward the L2 community and its speakers
but also attitudes toward the language course itself, noting that it takes
a long period of time to acquire a new language and that students’ attitudes
toward the instruction they receive affect willingness to persist in
the sometimes tedious efforts needed to do so. Such investigators are often
explicitly committed to identifying the nature and degree of the relationship
between language attitudes and another construct crucial to learning,
motivation. Attention to student motivation could perhaps be viewed as
extraneous to consideration of language ideologies; however, the practical
pressures of most educational settings demand that educators recognize
factors affecting learners’ dispositions toward language learning and take
action to create and sustain positive instructional experiences. Seen in this
light, a clearer understanding of the potential motivational effects resulting
from the language ideologies of students, and teachers, and other
important educational agents is directly germane to this discussion.
The importance of relationships between conditions surrounding
instruction and students’ motivation to learn language has been confi rmed
in several recent large-scale studies conducted with L2 students at different
levels. One documented an association between Hungarian university
students’ positive disposition toward English and dissatisfaction with traditional
teacher-centered instruction; this disjunction was interpreted to
produce demotivation contributing to student ambivalence (Kormos et al.,
2008). A second, done with secondary, tertiary and adult language students
in Hungary, showed that high school students were attracted to
English by the access to English cultural products that they perceived,
whereas the older groups’ interest was predicted only by potential instrumental
uses of the L2 (Kormos & Czisér, 2008). A third recent study in this
general paradigm examined multiple classrooms using a highly standardized
curriculum for English instruction in South Korean junior high
schools and was designed with more explicit attention to the effect of
classroom experiences on students’ attitudes. Researchers (Guilloteaux &
Dörnyei, 2008) included systematic classroom observation as well as assessment
of students’ attitudes and reactions to teachers’ various motivational
practices during classroom instruction. These included using tangible
tasks, giving neutral feedback, using creativity and fantasy in lessons and
personalizing instruction, among others. Findings showed that teachers