11.07.2015 Views

Download - EnglishAgenda - British Council

Download - EnglishAgenda - British Council

Download - EnglishAgenda - British Council

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

more complex. Thus, as YLs progress with their language learning, their motivationinteracts with outcomes in different ways.Another interesting interaction was found between listening comprehension andlinguistic self-confidence. These two variables showed significant correlationsranging from r= .373 (p= .021) in Grade Two to r= .576 (p< .001) in Grade Four.The different levels of significance suggest that interactions between these twovariables change with time, increasing in intensity. Interestingly, there were nosignificant differences in linguistic self-confidence among different groups ofYLs, indicating that school level and class level influences were not decisive inthe case of this learner variable. What proved to be more relevant was havingmet a foreigner with whom the YL could use English. YLs with such experiencesdisplayed higher linguistic self-confidence. Here the association with confidencedecreased in time (Grade Two: p= .006; Grade Four: p= .016).Using the internet was significantly correlated with listening scores in GradeTwo (p= .019) but not in Grade Four (p= .251). It can be assumed that fourthgraders who did not use the internet watched TV more and built up their listeningcomprehension that way.Listening comprehension interacted with YLs telling their parents about theirEnglish classes. However, this interaction was significant only in Grade Four: thosefourth graders who discussed their English classes with parents scored higher onlistening tasks than those who did not (t=2.525, p=0.013).Socio-economic status, as measured by mother’s and father’s education level, alsointeracted with linguistic outcomes. Although correlation coefficients were notvery high, they were significant in both Grade Two and Grade Four. It is interestingto note that correlations with father’s education were higher than those withmother’s education, and that both were higher in Grade Four than in Grade Two. Itcan be assumed that with YLs’ progressing knowledge of EFL, the role of the socioeconomicstatus becomes more important. As parental education levels werenot associated with helping children with learning EFL, we assume that what is atwork here is the so-called passive role of parents (Gardner, 1985). This role impliesthat parents can influence their children’s attitudes and motivation in subtle andsometimes totally unconscious ways through their own attitudes to FLs or FLL, andwithout actively engaging in their children’s learning.Below we present graphically the described interactions of contextual andindividual variables with linguistic outcomes.178 | Early EFL Learning

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!