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Spanish, English, or both?: A quantitative comparison between the motivation in Modern Languages Class and English Class in Swedish upper secondary schools.
University West, Department of Social and Behavioural Studies, Division for Educational Science and Languages.
2019 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (professional degree), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

Throughout the European Union, it is mandatory to study two foreign languages. In Sweden, in addition to English, one of the most popular alternatives is Spanish. In recent years however, an increasing number of students are turning away from the modern languages class to study more English or Swedish.

This is a comparative study that sets out to evaluate differences between the motivation in English and Spanish acquisition.

A group of 103 students completed a questionnaire about motivation in the two subjects and their data was compiled into scales that were analyzed using t-tests.

The results proved similar to previous findings in the field, where learners are more motivated to learn English than they are to learn Spanish. Furthermore, when divided by gender, results showed that girls faced more anxiety in the classroom but saw greater possibilities of using the language in authentic situations than their male counterparts, contributing to a higher motivation among female learners.

As theorized based on the findings of other researchers in the field, English scores could stem from the language's high status in Sweden and a lack in faith of authentic use of Spanish.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2019. , p. 40
Keywords [en]
Motivation, Gender, Modern Languages, 1+2 initiative, qualitative research
National Category
Educational Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hv:diva-13929Local ID: EXE601OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hv-13929DiVA, id: diva2:1321858
Subject / course
English
Educational program
Teacher Traning Programme
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2019-06-10 Created: 2019-06-10 Last updated: 2019-06-10Bibliographically approved

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