Psycholinguistic Research Topic:

1
Psycholinguistic ResearchTopic Why do we
study foreign
languages?group 301
2
Project Portfolio

• Subject applied Linguistics, theory of
  intercultural communication, psycholinguistics
• Language level advanced
• Participants third year students of the Faculty
  of Foreign Languages
• Age 20-22
• Number of participants 10
• Way of work in- and outclass work
• Time of project work 6 weeks.

3
Project Group

• Osintseva T.N.- organization, management
• Zhyvych O., Ovechkina J.- creating
  questionnaires, presentation
• Kuznestova D., Klimenko A.- investigating
  non-linguistic students group, Internet
  resources
• Bakina J., Chertovikova D.- investigating
  linguistic students group
• Scherbakova I., Choroschych N.- investigating
  engineers group
• Polityko J.- analyzing and comparing the results,
  Microsoft Power Point presentation.

4
Educational Objectives

• Development of project skills, of using a foreign
  language for the purpose of getting
  sociolinguistic data (concerning the goals of
  foreign language learning)
• Development of the ability to conduct linguistic
  projects using the mother tongue (as well as a
  foreign language)
• Fostering the ability to think and process data
  logically and critically, the ability to be
  broad-minded and unprejudiced
• Broadening of the linguistic (professional)
  horizons, awareness in the problem of foreign
  language learning in different age and
  professional groups
• Developing the capacity for empiric
  investigations.

5
Pedagogical Objectives

• Developing linguistic competence (studying
  specific lexical units when preparing the
  project)
• Developing cultural competence (studying the
  results of similar investigations conducted
  abroad)
• Developing methodological competence (skills of
  obtaining and processing sociolinguistic
  information).

6
Project Goals

• comparing the goals of a second language learning
  concerning different age groups
• singling out the most popular second language
  in this country and abroad and the reasons for
  its popularity
• defining the main factors of motivation for
  language learning on an international scale.

7
Project Work

• Organization stage- stating the problem of
  research, its objectives, individual activity
  planning, defining the stages and the dates of
  conducting the project
• Research stage- working upon the contents of the
  project, creating questionnaires and conducting a
  sociolinguistic research, comparing its results
  to those of similar investigations made abroad
• Testing the project- assessing the results of the
  research, presenting the results, selecting
  material for the conference
• Analyzing the Results of the project
• The Feedback Stage- presentation of the project
  results at the city teachers conference

8
Project Objectives

• creating questionnaires to get the
  sociolinguistic information we are interested in
• conducting the above-mentioned psycholinguistic
  research in different groups criteria
  linguistic competence (generally monolingual or
  bilingual, professional identification, age
  group)
• processing the data (analytical and statistical
  methods)
• singling out the motivation and objectives of
  foreign language learning in Russia
• comparing the motivation and goals of a second
  language learning in this country and abroad
  (analyzing similar international research data).

9
Our Motivation

• Aspects of English Language Teaching, credit
  work
• Acuteness of the topic nowadays, increased
  interest in the problem of foreign language
  learning in the modern society
• Presentation of the project at the city teachers
  conference
• Instrumental motivation (unusual investigation
  form, getting valuable linguistic information)
• Mass media response ( the Internet).

10
Informational and Technical Sources

• Internet recourses
• The USPU library
• The British Council Library
• Scientific archives of the conductors and
  participants of the project.

11
The Research Instrument

• Question 1. 3 choices for each item.
• -The most beautiful language
• -The ugliest language
• -The most difficult
• -The easiest language
• -The richest language
• -The poorest language
• Question 2. This language is (3 associations for
  each language).
• -English -Russian
  -Italian
• -German -French
  -Spanish

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The Research Instrument

• Question 3. This language is suitable for (3
  opportunities for each language).
• -English
• -Russian
• -German
• -French
• -Italian
• 
  -Spanish

13
Russias Favourites

• Group Students of non-linguistic faculties of
  universities
• Age 18-22

NB! 100 of students suppose that the RICHEST
language is Russian!!!
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Reasons for Language Study

• English practical reasons travelling,
  business, international communication, world-wide
  popularity
• Russian (!) developing rhetorical skills
• German travelling, Philosophy study
• French romance letters, taking part in creative
  activities abroad
• Italian studying musical terms
• Spanish travelling, romance.

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Russias Favourites-2

• Group Students of linguistic faculties of
  universities
• Age 18-22

NB! Russian is thought to be the richest language
by 88 of respondents (Arabic, English- 6 of
votes).
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Reasons for Language Study

• English needs of business communication,
  international communication, language of
  politics
• Russian developing literary skills, reading,
  communication with native people
• German scientific research, military matters,
  business communication
• French romance letters, art, everyday life
• Italian romance, art (music, singing)
• Spanish romance (passion), singing, quarrels(!).
  

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Russias Favourites-3

• Group Industrial workers and engineers
• Age 25-30.

NB! Russian is again acknowledged as THE RICHEST
language by the absolute majority.
18
Russias Favourites-4

• Group industrial workers and engineers
• Age 30-40.

NB! Russian is thought to be the richest language
by the absolute majority of respondents (only 5
voted for Japanese).
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Reason for Language Study

• English international communication, computer
• work, business
• Russian everyday communication, literary
• skills, for EVERYTHING
• German commands and curses (!), business,
• handling technique
• French romance, travelling, music
• Italian music (songs and opera), travelling,
• curses
• Spanish carnivals, music, travelling, watching
• corrida.

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And Non-Favourites

• The most difficult language is
• Linguistic Students German and Japanese (23,5).
• Non-Linguistic Students Japanese (31).
• Engineers (up to 30) Russian (38)
• Engineers (over 30) Russian (56).

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The UGLIEST Language

• Linguistic Students German (23,5).
• Non-Linguistic Students German (50).
• Engineers (up to 30) German (49).
• Engineers (over 30) German (67,5).
• NB! The less language-oriented people are, the
  stronger the traditional prejudices operate

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Conclusions

• In all professional and language groups the
  desire to learn English prevails
• This desire is, however, not always dictated by
  personal preferences (e.g., many people declare
  French to be the most beautiful and romantic
  language)
• The popularity of English is accounted for by its
  use as a world Lingua Franca
• For younger people professional or practical
  interest in language learning prevails
• For older people internal motivation is more
  important (language for entertainment).

23

LANGUAGES OF EUROPE
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Europe Favourites

• English is the language most widely spoken in the
  EU (47 of people for only 16 its the mother
  tongue)
• Apart from English, the rank order of languages
  more or less follows the order of inhabitants

Language The Mother Tongue for... A Second Language for...
German 24 8
French 16 12
Italian 16 2
Spanish 11 4
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Reasons for Language Study

• Half of Europe is already multilingual,
  intercultural and international communication
  have increased
• Linguistic study is mainly confined to three
  languages (English, French and German)- the three
  most useful languages to know
• English is the first foreign language in
  education in all EU Member States (89
  non-anglophone pupils)
• The most popular language the students choose is
  Spanish (it is said to become a secondary
  language of the United Sates)

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Half of Europe is already Multilingual

• 45 of European citizens can take part in a
  conversation in a language other than their
  mother tongue
• There are large variations between the Member
  States...
• In Luxembourg, nearly everyone speaks another
  language well enough to hold  a conversation
• This is also true for more than 8 in 10 people
  living in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden.
• People in the UK, Ireland and Portugal are least
  likely to speak another language, with less than
  a third of these population saying they can do
  this.
• Apart from their mother tongue, around 3 in 4
  people in the Netherlands, Denmark (77) and
  Sweden (75) can speak English well enough to
  take part in a conversation
• Other countries where many people know German are
  the Netherlands (59) and Denmark (49). 

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The place of languages in the educational
systems 

• Latest figures indicate that the teaching of
  languages in primary school is growing in Europe
  in Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium-Flanders,
  Greece, Spain, Austria, Finland and Sweden, more
  than 33 of primary pupils are learning a foreign
  language.
• The teaching of languages in compulsory education
  in more widespread than before In Denmark,
  Greece, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal,
  and the United Kingdom, teaching of  a foreign
  language is obligatory for a longer period than
  it was ten years ago.
• In Ireland, Italy and Greece, only one foreign
  language is generally taught elsewhere, two or
  three languages are studied, or can be studied.
• Between the ages 12 and 18, the total number of
  hours devoted to language learning varies from 6
  hours per week in Portugal to 1 - 3 hours per
  week in Belgium (Wallonia), in Greece, in Ireland
  and in Italy.

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Proportion speaking a foreign language well
enough to take part in a conversation 
Socio-demographic group

77
Students
72
Educated 20
69
Managers
65
Aged 15-24
57
Employees
55
Aged 25-39
50
Self-employed
47
Men
45
Average for EU 15
44
Educated to age 16-19
43
Aged 40-54
43
Women 
41
Manual Workers
40
Unemployed
31
House persons
28
Aged 55
26
Retired 
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English Language PollsWhich language
is the most difficult? Chinese 34.02
(1576) It depends 18.26 (846) English 17.35
(804) Russian 9.76 (452) Czech 4.60
(213) Urdu 4.12 (191) Spanish 2.14
(99) No language is harder than another 9.76
(452)Total votes 4633
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 COMMENTS

• italianbrother - 26th December 2003 0149 It
  depends on the student itself, though Chinese, or
  Japanese, or Arabic, would seem to me quite
  difficult to learn, however, for another student
  Latin, or Italian, or French might be as
  difficult as the latter languages are to me.
• Xanch - 19th February 2004 0552 it's supposed
  that the most difficult languages are the latin
  ones cause those has more expressions and are the
  most "exact" languages (also German) .
• Mark - 3rd March 2004 0018 English is one of
  the easiest most common languages on the planet.
  At the time of writing this comment, I've been
  studying English for one year and half.

31
COMMENTS

• Kamil_Rak - 5th May 2004 0215 I say the most
  difficult language is Polish because of its
  grammar, pronunciation and so many, many, many,
  other things and rules. Barok! I learn Chinese
  and Japanese, also. It is very easy.
•  
• tdol - 8th May 2004 0133 I'm trying to learn
  Japanese and it is very difficult coming from
  English.

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COMMENTS

• queenmaabd - 25th October 2004 2357 I believe
  all languages as equally difficult (or easy!). We
  all master most grammatical language hurdles by
  the age of five, no matter what language we are
  learning!
• Marek - 25th January 2005 1647 I presume that
  for me the most difficult language to learn would
  be Chinese, though it has simple grammar rules,
  but thinking is quite different than in
  Indo-european tongues.

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COMMENTS

• Tom trig - 28th March 2005 1741 That all
  depends on your native language. For a Japanese
  person, Mandarin Chinese is a lot easier than
  English.
• anna - 5th July 2005 2057 Have you ever heard
  anything about Armenian language, both Western
  and Eastern? It is extremely difficult!!!!!!
• gustoenglish - 27th July 2005 1814 It depends
  on the native language of course, but if there
  are a myriad of rule exceptions, it makes
  learning a language very difficult. Japanese is a
  bear!.  

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Final Conclusions

• In non-linguistic groups the desire to learn a
  foreign language is defined by personal
  preferences (I like the way the language
  sounds). In linguistic groups of students the
  interest is professional, as well as practical.
• People actually learn English in the majority
  of cases, as it is the most taught, useful and
  required foreign language nowadays. The lack of
  motivation is sometimes accounted for by
  traditional convictions as to the beauty of the
  Russian language (esp. in elderly groups).
• In Europe motivation for language learning is
  dictated by practical needs travelling, real
  communication (small distances).
• In Russia motivation for language learning is
  enhanced by professional needs (teaching,
  computer work generally). Older people are
  interested in language learning mainly for
  entertainment.