Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

142
Question 1
Question 2
Is it considered to be of value to maintain
cultural identity and characteristics?
‘YES’
‘NO’
INTEGRATION
ASSIMILATION
SEPARATION
MARGINALIZATION
Is it considered to be
of value to maintain
relationships with
other groups?
‘YES’
‘NO’
Figure 8.2 The acculturation model
0
1
2
3
4
5
British children
British adults
Belgian children
Polish children
Strongly
disagree
Strongly
agree
Figure 8.3 Responses to ‘It is important to be able to speak two languages’
The same groups were asked about monolingualism. Their answers to the ques-
tion ‘I will always feel more myself in my first language than in my second’ are
shown in Figure 8.4.
The British children feel less comfortable in the second language than the oth-
ers; they feel more threatened by the new language.

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In this case, rather few of the people feel that learning a second language means
forfeiting the first language, a topic developed in the context of language teaching
goals in Chapter 11.
Attitudes and language teaching
One crucial point coming out of this is how teaching reinforces unfavourable images
of L2 users. Virtually all the L2 users represented in coursebooks, for example, are
either students who are in the process of learning the second language or ignorant
foreigners using tourist services. Students never see successful L2 users in action and
so have no role model to emulate other than the native speaker, which they will very
rarely match. The famous people whose photos proliferate in coursebooks tend to be
people who are not known as anything other than monolinguals, such as George
Clooney, Catherine Zeta Jones and J.K. Rowling, though a few sportspeople who give
interviews in English are sometimes mentioned, such as Martina Hingis (Changes,
Richards, 1998). Successful L2 users such as Gandhi, Einstein, Picasso, Marie Curie
and Samuel Beckett, all taken from François Grosjean’s list of bilinguals (1982: 285),
are never mentioned. It cannot do the students any harm to show them that the
world is full of successful L2 users; indeed, as de Swaan (2001) argues, they are neces-
sary for its functioning. We see later that the goals of language teaching include
changing people’s attitudes towards other cultures and using second languages effec-
tively. These are hardly advanced by showing students either students like them-
selves or people who are unable to use more than one language.
Attitudes 143
0
1
2
3
4
5
British children
British adults
Belgian children
Polish children
Strongly
disagree
Strongly
agree
Figure 8.4 Responses to ‘I will always feel more myself in my first language than in another
language’
0
1
2
3
4
5
British children
British adults
Belgian children
Polish children
Strongly
disagree
Strongly
agree
Figure 8.5 Responses to ‘People who go to live in a new country should give up their own 
language’

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