How do I satisfy the general education language requirement?: university students' attitudes toward language study

Abstract: This study aims to identify the two principal reasons why college students choose a certain language to satisfy a general education second language requirement by polling 172 students enrolled in first-year language courses in 13 languages at a large Northeastern research university. Students answered a questionnaire and chose the two main reasons from 10 choices articulated in sentimental, value, instrumental, and communicative dimensions. Cross-tabulations by SPSS showed significant statistical relationships between the attitudinal factors and the language studied. Spanish students strongly favored an instrumental orientation for both first and second choices. Danish, Dutch, French, Arabic, Russian, and German students also indicated instrumental preferences, but their second choices fell into other domains. Portuguese, Italian, Hebrew, Japanese, and Korean students favored communication factors, while Chinese students selected sentimental and communication reasons for their first and second choices, respectively. Key words: beliefs, general education language requirement, language attitudes, second language learning Introduction One of the most cited definitions of attitude is Allport's (1950): ''An attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual's response to all objects and situations with which it is related'' (p. 13). Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) summarized the controversy regarding attitude measurement and offered a description of the concept: ''Most investigators would probably agree that attitude can be described as a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object'' (p. 6). In spite of the difficulties in measuring attitudes, investigators have found relationships between attitudes and another unconscious type of behavior: language. Cooper and Fishman (1977), Gardner (1985), Hofman (1977), Lambert and Gardner (1972), Masgoret and Gardner (2003), Mejias and Anderson (1988), and Mejias, Anderson Mejias, and Carlson (2003) and many other investigators listed below in the literature review have developed methodologies for evaluating the role attitudes play in language learning or maintenance. While all these studies posed different research questions, all concluded that attitudes toward language have influenced a variety of outcomes such as achievement of proficiency in a second language (L2), the continued study and use of the colonial master's language in a newly independent nation, the use of a nonnative foreign language for means of wider communication, and the survival of a heritage language by immigrants' descendants in a country with a dominant national language. The present study took place at the University at Albany, State University of New York (UAlbany), a large, public, research university located at the state's capital city, during the academic year 2007-2008. Approximately 13,000 undergraduates and 5,000 graduate students make up the student body, who hail fromall 62 counties of the state as well as 100 nations. The university is located in a community with strong ethnic and historical ties to the Dutch, the first European colonizers of the region.However, the area also is the home to descendants of Irish, Italian, Jewish, Armenian, and Greek immigrants, and in recent years, Spanish has become the second most spoken language in the county (Modern Language Association, 2008). At the time of this study, the general education requirement for foreign languages at the university required passing the second semester of the first-year college- level sequence. However, students who scored at least an 85% on the New York State High School Regents' Examination in a language other than English were exempt from this requirement. Individuals who performed poorly on this exam and those who did not take it had to complete a firstyear language course at the university. …