Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

2 Is it considered to be of value to maintain relationships with other groups?
Again from my own experience, some students keep to themselves, others mix
freely. Greek students in England, for example, usually seem to mix with other
Greeks; one of the Essex university bars is informally known as the Greek bar.
Japanese students, on the other hand, seem to mix much more with other peo-
ple, and I am often surprised that two Japanese students in the same university
class do not know each other.
According to the acculturation model, both questions could be answered ‘yes’
or ‘no’, though of course these would be questions of degree rather than absolute
differences. The different combinations of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ yield four main patterns
of acculturation, as shown in Figure 8.2: integration (Q1 ‘yes’, Q2 ‘no’), assimila-
tion (Q1 ‘no’, Q2 ‘yes’), separation (Q1 ‘yes’, Q2 ‘yes’) and marginalization (Q1
‘no’, Q2 ‘no’).
There are then four possible patterns of acculturation. Marginalization is the least
rewarding version, corresponding loosely to Lambert’s subtractive bilingualism.
Assimilation results in the eventual dying out of the first language – the so-called
melting-pot model once used in the USA. Separation results in friction-prone situ-
ations like Canada or Belgium, where the languages are spoken in physically sepa-
rate regions. Integration is a multilingual state where the languages exist alongside
each other in harmony.
Attitudes 141

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This model is mainly used for groups that have active contact within the same
country. My examples come from the use of English in England, not of English in
Japan. When there are no actual contacts between the two groups, the model is
less relevant, particularly for classroom learners who have no contact with the L2
culture except through their teacher, and whose experience of the L2 culture is
through the media or through the stereotypes in their own culture.
A crucial aspect of attitudes is what the students think about people who are L2
users or monolinguals. I asked adults and children in different countries to rate
how much they agreed with statements such as ‘It is important to be able to speak
two languages’. As we see in Figure 8.3, most groups have fairly positive attitudes
towards speaking two languages, but the British adults, who were university stu-
dents, are clearly more positive.
Individual differences in L2 users and L2 learners