Second Language

For foreign language teachers: What are your students’ attitudes towards learning a second language?

I work as a Spanish tutor at a college. It seems to me that a lot of Americans who take foreign language courses usually do so to fulfill a requirement rather than for the sake of learning a new language. I think that in many cases this attitude hurts the students, because since they don’t have any real desire to learn a foreign language, they don’t feel motivated to study hard and as a result they make poor grades and they don’t learn the language. What are your students’ attitudes towards learning a second language and how have their attitudes affected their performance?

I’m a HS German teacher in the US. I find that many students are just interested in fulfilling their requirement, and not really interested in the language. I think it’s our monolinguistic, unilateralist-centered society that leads to this attitude. Every year I get a few beginners who lament in class, “WHY can’t everyone just learn ENGLISH?!?!” They don’t even realize how ignorant their statement is. What I do is try and make the culture come alive for them, use lots of popular media (music, contemporary literature, film), and then the language as an avenue to access that media. This hooks many them, and then they are more interested in understanding the language and culture.