Quantitative Approaches to Language Attitudes in Northern Catalonia

Abstract Linguistic and cultural diversity is becoming an inherent feature of most schools in Europe. This is specially so in contexts such as the Basque Autonomous Community in Spain, where the presence of two official languages (Basque and Spanish) is complemented by the early teaching of English, which sets out as early as the age of four in the majority of schools. Nevertheless, the low foreign language command of Spanish students in general and the Basque students in particular has led to the implementation of CLIL experiences, which have been mushrooming in the last decade. Some voices have been raised though against the ever increasing presence of English due to its probable negative impact on language attitudes, especially on attitudes towards Basque. Many efforts have been made to normalize the situation of Basque at school and some scholars consider that these achievements can be jeopardized if the minority language yields too much space to the two international languages (Spain and English). In this paper the effect of CLIL programmes on attitudes towards trilingualism is examined through a holistic questionnaire completed by 277 secondary students. The results obtained demonstrate that CLIL can help to boost positive attitudes towards trilingualism at school, a matter of the utmost importance due to the ever increasing number of multilingual educational systems in Europe.

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Motivation, Language Attitudes and Globalisation

10.21832/9781853598876 ◽

2006 ◽

Cited By ~ 183

Author(s):

Zoltán Dörnyei ◽

Kata Csizér ◽

Nóra Németh

Keyword(s):

Language Attitudes

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Advancing the Counseling Profession Through Contemporary Quantitative Approaches

Journal of Counseling & Development ◽

10.1002/jcad.12363 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 99 (2) ◽

pp. 156-166

Author(s):

Andrew W. Wood ◽

Stephanie Dorais ◽

Daniel Gutierrez ◽

C. Missy Moore ◽

Michael K. Schmit

Keyword(s):

Counseling Profession ◽

Quantitative Approaches

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The Effect of Perceptions: Instructor–Student Dynamics in the Spanish Heritage Classroom

Languages ◽

10.3390/languages6010046 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

pp. 46

Author(s):

Patricia González Darriba ◽

Benjamin Kinsella ◽

Crystal Marull ◽

Nathan Campbell

Keyword(s):

Latin America ◽

Language Attitudes ◽

Learning Spaces ◽

Heritage Speakers ◽

Learning Space ◽

Classroom Dynamics ◽

Five Dimensions ◽

University Courses ◽

The Us ◽

Attitudes And Perceptions

The rising population of heritage speakers (HS) in university courses in the US has increased the need for instructors who understand the linguistic, social, and cultural profiles of their students. Recent research has discussed the need for specialized courses and their differentiation from second-language (L2) classes, as well as the intersection between HS and language attitudes. However, prior studies have not examined HS students’ language attitudes toward the sociolinguistic background of the instructors and their effect on classroom interactions. Therefore, this study explores HS students’ overall language attitudes and perceptions of their instructors’ sociolinguistic background. In a survey, HS university students (N = 92) across the US assessed four instructor profiles along five dimensions. Results showed that students rated more favorably instructors born and raised in Latin America, followed by those from Spain. Furthermore, HS favored these two profiles over HS or L2 profiles as their course instructors. However, preferences were less marked in the online context. These findings demonstrate that to design supportive learning spaces with—rather than for—HS students, programs must first acknowledge how classroom dynamics are shaped by the perspectives brought into the learning space and by the context of the learning space itself.

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An assessment of language attitudes as a mediator in the stereotypes–L2 motivation linkage

Linguistics Vanguard ◽

10.1515/lingvan-2020-0019 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 6 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Larisa Nikitina ◽

Fumitaka Furuoka

Keyword(s):

Foreign Language ◽

Language Attitudes ◽

Positive Impact ◽

Applied Linguistics ◽

Statistical Procedure ◽

Motivational Factor ◽

Mediating Role ◽

L2 Motivation ◽

Context Of Learning

AbstractApplied linguists and language educators have long acknowledged the prominent role that language attitudes play in the process of selecting and learning an additional language. The current study examines a mediating role of language attitudes in the Stereotypes–L2 motivation linkage in the context of learning a foreign language, an area which remains comparatively underexplored. It provides a detailed description of – and rationale for – applying a statistical procedure based on the Baron–Kenny method, which is rarely used in applied linguistics research. The findings indicate that stereotypes and language attitudes had a positive impact on L2 motivation when the former two variables were examined separately in two different analyses. However, when all the three variables were analysed together, language attitudes were found to remain a motivational factor while the stereotypes ceased to be such. This suggests that stereotypes had an indirect effect on L2 motivation through language attitudes. Hence, language attitudes were a mediating variable in the Stereotypes–L2 motivation linkage assessed by the Baron–Kenny method. These findings have some pedagogical implications.

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L2 learners' language attitudes and their assessment

Foreign Language Annals ◽

10.1111/flan.12498 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Tatiana Artamonova

Keyword(s):

Language Attitudes ◽

L2 Learners

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Benchmarking microbiome transformations favors experimental quantitative approaches to address compositionality and sampling depth biases

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-021-23821-6 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Verónica Lloréns-Rico ◽

Sara Vieira-Silva ◽

Pedro J. Gonçalves ◽

Gwen Falony ◽

Jeroen Raes

Keyword(s):

Microbial Communities ◽

Quantitative Methods ◽

Microbial Load ◽

Metagenomic Sequencing ◽

Sampling Depth ◽

Microbiome Research ◽

Microbiome Data ◽

The Impact ◽

Analytical Approaches ◽

Quantitative Approaches

AbstractWhile metagenomic sequencing has become the tool of preference to study host-associated microbial communities, downstream analyses and clinical interpretation of microbiome data remains challenging due to the sparsity and compositionality of sequence matrices. Here, we evaluate both computational and experimental approaches proposed to mitigate the impact of these outstanding issues. Generating fecal metagenomes drawn from simulated microbial communities, we benchmark the performance of thirteen commonly used analytical approaches in terms of diversity estimation, identification of taxon-taxon associations, and assessment of taxon-metadata correlations under the challenge of varying microbial ecosystem loads. We find quantitative approaches including experimental procedures to incorporate microbial load variation in downstream analyses to perform significantly better than computational strategies designed to mitigate data compositionality and sparsity, not only improving the identification of true positive associations, but also reducing false positive detection. When analyzing simulated scenarios of low microbial load dysbiosis as observed in inflammatory pathologies, quantitative methods correcting for sampling depth show higher precision compared to uncorrected scaling. Overall, our findings advocate for a wider adoption of experimental quantitative approaches in microbiome research, yet also suggest preferred transformations for specific cases where determination of microbial load of samples is not feasible.

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