How Important are the Learner's Past Experiences and Attitudes?
by Joanna Sturiano
Results/Conclusion
Studying 13 different case studies, and the change over time of the attitudes of those 13 students has allowed me to come to many generalizations, conclusions, and closing ideas. While each student profiled had a unique set of circumstances regarding her own language learning experiences and attitudes, I saw many trends that continued throughout the 13 case studies, and other relations between the survey answers given by the students altogether. It is from these correlations in answer data and survey results that I base my concluding thoughts and hypotheses; while the group I surveyed was not very large, the information I received from each student seemed in-depth enough for comparison with others despite the small number of students surveyed.
One conclusion I have reached is that despite the experiences in language learning gained during the semester when I administered this survey, the students [on the average] did not change their opinions of themselves as certain kinds of language learners. The opinion they had in the beginning of the semester, for the most part, remained the same as at the end of the semester. I believe this stems from the idea that the way these students learned their first foreign languages became their own personal pattern and standard against which they would measure all future language learning. In reviewing the completed first and second surveys, I saw a tendency not only for students' self-evaluations to stay the same or similar, but for their preferences in language learning to remain the same from the beginning of the semester to the end. From this I conclude that the experiences the students had had before this spring '99 semester were those that the student came to base her preferences against; those methods that the student preferred while learning her first language become her overall preferred methods, and the same for the methods the student liked least.
From these case studies, I conclude that a student's first experience learning a second language becomes the benchmark experience against which she will grade, compare and form opinions about all future language experiences. Therefore, the opinions formed while learning this first foreign language, and the methods preferred then, and the perceptions of second language learning in general formed while learning this first foreign language, will become those that guide and monitor any subsequent second [or third or fourth] language learning. This conclusion rests upon the data collected in the case studies collectively, which mainly shows students' preferences regarding language learning methods to remain the primarily the same over the course of the semester, and the students' attitudes toward language learning at the time of survey 2's administration to remain similar to those reported at the beginning of the semester. Also, students reported feeling mainly satisfied with their progress during the semester, and as if they had accomplished the bulk of the goals they had set out to achieve in taking the Intensive Elementary course. Some of the sources of deviation from these trends seem to arise only from a particular specific incident or disliked aspect of the course, which then changed only the student's opinions of that one part of the course, while the rest of the student's data reported remained followed the trend -- overall those students still judged their progress in this course and opinion of the course by comparing it with past experiences, but the one discrepancy, or change in opinion or attitude was due to one specific thing in this course. Overall though, students' opinions were mostly led by past experiences, and attitudes born of their first or second experiences with foreign language study.
Further evidence of this phenomenon is the data that many students reported that their favorite and/or most memorable aspect of learning foreign languages during this spring '99 semester of study were those methods and things that had been used to teach them their first foreign language. In addition, self-reported opinions of the utility of second language learning tended to correspond with the student's own attitude towards this learning. For example, the majority of students who reported that there was utility and worth in second language learning, then went on to report that their own attitudes towards language learning were positive, and vice versa.
Examining and amassing these case studies has proven the hypothesis I initially set forth for myself in establishing this project: the learner's past experiences and attitudes do matter for future language learning. As these studies have shown, past experiences and initially formed attitudes towards foreign language learning are the predominant deciding factors in the learning strategies, attitudes, motivations and preferred methods of students' future second language learning experiences.
return to introductory page ** feedback: email me
go to procedure ** go to case studies
this site last updated 5/4/99
this site is under construction!