Language choice

The rationale for looking at factors influencing language choice is that it might be the first constraint disadvantaged children face during their foreign language education. In each school under scrutiny, English or German classes were introduced in grade 4 (at the age of ten) which is the year of mandatory start prescribed by the

National Core Curriculum (2007). Children in these schools had no possibility to start foreign language (FL) education earlier, which contradicts trends in average Hungarian primary schools. Morvai, Öveges and Ottó (2009) investigated foreign language teaching in grades 1-3 and found that in 56% of grade 1, 62% of grade 2 and 80% of grade 3 classes, children were already learning a FL in regular (not bilingual) primary schools. In one of the schools in our research sample, there used to be extracurricular FL classes (‘szakkör’) before grade 4, which was suspended because of the overload of language teachers. Vágó (2007) mentions that 10% of primary schools (typically in small villages) are not able to start foreign language teaching in the compulsory grade 4 because of the shortage of language teachers, this problem, however, was not observed in the schools involved in the present study.

Theoretically, children in the sample were free to choose between English or German at the end of grade 3 except for two schools, where only one language (English in School S3 and German in School S5) was instructed. They began learning the language in two lessons a week, in subsequent yeas in two or three lessons.

Approximately half of the teachers and children participating in the present study were involved in English and half of them in German education, whereas national statistics indicates the dominance of English. Census data show that in the school year 2007/2008 376.098 children were learning English in Hungarian primary schools and 185.624 children were learning German, which shows that the number of learners of English was almost the double of learners of German (Statistical Yearbook of Education, 2009/2010).

The comprehensive research study by Csapó (2001) which investigated the factors influencing the language learning and language knowledge in Grade 6, 8 and 10 in Hungary also considered parental background in terms of language choice. The

results indicate the mother’s educational level correlates with language choice, the children of more educated mothers tend to learn English.

The English language is supposed to be much more attractive for children than German. After the transformation of post-Communist Hungary, English and German were almost equally prominent languages at schools. In recent years, the ability to speak English as the world’s lingua franca has been associated with so many advantages in various fields of life that parents and children have demanded the provision of English instead of German at schools (Dörnyei, Csizér and Németh (2006). This situation has posed serious difficulties to both the head teachers and the teachers of German in the school under scrutiny, therefore important steps had to be taken to attract and recruit learners of German as “it’s not possible for everyone to learn English, because the teacher of German needs classes, too” [S4HT].

In schools, it is the task of the teachers of German to convince parents to send their children to German classes. They came up with several acceptable rationales to recruit children. They stated that in this region German was still the lingua franca of business and tourism:

We have tried using various methods to get enough children to form a German-learning group. At parent-teacher meetings the parents should be told about the advantages German has over English. Such as the fact that there are numerous German firms nearby, and also German tourists.

[S1TG1]

The reasons for choosing German included linguistic arguments:

It is much easier to learn English after learning German. [S1TG2]

Disadvantaged students, especially children with special needs have problems even with the Hungarian language. Writing is easier in German, so it is easier to teach these kids German. [S2TG1]

It is easier to learn the spelling of these words, to read them out, because the difference between the spelling and the pronunciation of words is not as big as in English, for instance, where spelling rules are different.

[S4TG2]

They also tried to portray the positive side of smaller groups in terms of classroom management:

German-learning groups are smaller, therefore the number of activities per student will certainly be greater. [S4TG2]

This assumed advantage was not really accurate as German groups were composed of children coming from several parallel classes, consequently, the German groups were not considerably smaller. However, the grouping of children caused further behaviour problems and influenced group atmosphere negatively as classroom observations asserted.

As teachers knew that several families were of low economic status, they also brought forward financial arguments:

We even tell them commonplaces like a German textbook is cheaper than an English one. [S2TG2]

The emotional relationship between the teacher and the children may also affect language choice:

To these children it is important who the language teacher is, if they know that I’ll be their form master then more students will choose to learn German. [S4TG2]

In spite of all the efforts of teachers of German, the trend that socially disadvantaged children tend to learn German rather than English, has become prevalent.

It was also confirmed by a large-scale research study by Nikolov (2011). Teachers of German seemed to be totally aware of it as one of them summarized:

The tendency is that the more talented children choose English, and only few choose German. In the case of children who don’t return the sheet, which means that the parents don’t indicate their choice of language, it is the school principal’s job to form groups of equal size and to decide what language these children will learn. So, it is those who do not indicate their language preference who create the bulk of the German group.

[S6TG1]

Previous studies have concentrated mainly on how trends in language choice have affected children, however, these findings indicate that these trends seriously influence language teachers, too. Employment uncertainty may contribute to the lack of interest of teachers of German as they may not invest time, energy or money into in-service trainings, in addition, they gradually become more and more demotivated. One of the teachers of German summed up her frustration as follows:

I have to fight for my students every year, it’s becoming less and less certain if I can get enough classes, hopefully I’ll survive until I retire.

[S1TG2]

Focus group interviews with children revealed that their language choice was influenced by family members: sisters (N=4), brothers (N=2), friends (N=2), father (N=1) or mother (N=1), and two children mentioned that the teacher of German convinced them to learn German. Six children would have liked to learn English instead of German and two children wished to study German instead of English. Two learners of German wanted to stop studying German at the end of their primary studies and start learning English in secondary school.

Interestingly, the vast majority of children (27 out of 38) would have liked to learn a second foreign language at primary school, even if meant extra lessons. They following languages were listed: English, French, Spanish, Italian, and Romany. Eight children denied this possibility, they were all in Grades 7 or 8.

Limitations of language choice seem to affect both teachers and children. It exerts a powerful negative effect especially on children’s motivation, which will be described in Section 4.4.