MASTER’S THESIS
PARENTS’ ROLE TOWARDS CHILDREN’S LANGUAGE CHOICES AND THE BENEFITS OF LEARNING LANGUAGES AS A FAMILY
Maria Artigues Ribas
Master’s Degree in Teacher Training
(Specialisation/Pathway English and German) Centre for Postgraduate Studies
Academic Year 2020-21
PARENTS’ ROLE TOWARDS CHILDREN’S
LANGUAGE CHOICES AND THE BENEFITS OF LEARNING LANGUAGES AS A FAMILY
Maria Artigues Ribas
Master’s Thesis
Centre for Postgraduate Studies University of the Balearic Islands
Academic Year 2020-21
Key words:
Family, influence, language learning, study choices, …
Thesis Supervisor’s Name: Yolanda Joy Calvo
Tutor’s Name: Yolanda Joy Calvo
Abstract
The fact that parents are a key figure in a student’s academic development has been widely proven over the last years. According to that, this study has the main purpose of examining the influence that a person’s family may have on their children’s decision of studying a language-related degree or not. By doing this, it seeks to demonstrate that those parents who have been involved in the language learning process have then in many cases –whether actively or passively– encouraged their children to study or not a language-related degree.
With a view to solving this matter, a questionnaire has been sent to two different groups of parents: half of them parents of students enrolled in a degree related to languages and half of them parents of students who are not or have not studied a degree of this kind. The responses received from these two groups have then been analysed in accordance with various aspects such as parents’
formal education, language learning interest, participation in their children’s language learning processes and children’s academic training. In general terms, the results indicate that today parents are highly aware of the importance of learning languages and that, regardless of whether they like studying languages or not, they show willingness to contribute to their children’s language learning process. It is for this reason and taking into account the information collected that a didactic proposal with different activities will be included at the end of this dissertation to enhance parent’s involvement in their children’s study choices, especially regarding the learning of foreign languages.
Key words: family; influence; language learning; study choices
Table of contents
1. Introduction ... 6
2. Literature review ... 7
2.1. From the age effect to the family factor ... 8
2.2. The socio-economic factor ... 8
2.3. Family language policy ... 10
2.4. Familiar bilingualism ... 13
2.5. Children as active agents in the language learning process ... 14
2.6. The relationship between family and school ... 15
2.7. Families’ involvement in second language acquisition ... 16
2.8. Parental influence on attitudes towards language learning ... 18
3. Hypothesis and Research Questions ... 20
4. Methodology ... 22
4.1. Materials ... 22
4.1.1. Initial questionnaire ... 22
4.1.2. Final questionnaire ... 23
4.2. Participants ... 24
4.2.1. Initial questionnaire’s participants ... 24
4.2.2. Final questionnaire’s participants ... 24
5. Results ... 25
5.1. Parents’ initial questionnaire ... 25
5.2. Students’ final questionnaire ... 27
6. Discussion ... 27
6.1. Level of studies and language’s influence ... 28
6.2. The importance given to the linguistic and cultural aspect ... 29
6.3. Family language practices and beliefs: Passive and active roles ... 30
6.4. Children preferences when learning with family ... 35
7. Didactic proposal ... 36
7.1. Brief justification of the didactic proposal ... 36
7.1.1. Collaborative style ... 36
7.1.2. Communication as the key competence ... 37
7.1.3. Naturalness above all ... 37
7.1.4. The motivational component ... 38
7.1.5. Context-independent ... 38
7.1.6. Towards collective benefit ... 38
7.2. Didactic program ... 39
7.2.1. First term: Outdoor Series Days ... 40
7.2.2. Second term: Music unites people ... 40
7.2.3. Third term: Family game afternoons ... 41
7.2.4. Extra activity for parents ... 44
8. Conclusion ... 45
Works cited ... 48
Annex 1. Parents’ Initial Questionnaire ... 53
Annex 2. Students’ Final Questionnaire ... 55
Annex 3. Escape Room activity ... 56
1. Introduction
Throughout the years, familiar contexts have proved to be one of the most meaningful settings for children’s academic lives. In fact, school and family are said to be the two main educative institutions allowing children to be shaped as citizens1 (León-Sánchez, 2011, p. 3). The harsh reality, however, is that modern families are increasingly becoming wide-ranging and divergent (2011, p. 5) and this certainly affects education. Family structures have progressively moved away from traditional models and educational centres have had no choice but to quickly adapt to the new realities: dysfunctional families, divorced parents, abandoned children, social and economic inequalities, cultural and linguistic barriers and a long line of factors which end up conditioning familiar educational models –or the lack thereof–, academic facilities and, sadly but true, children’s academic lives and choices. Regarding the language learning field, it has in one way or another also suffered the consequences of this social destabilization.
It is not a secret but rather a widespread belief that children do better in school when their parents have the chance and, more importantly, show some willingness to take part in their children’s learning processes. When it comes to language, the differences between those children whose parents have had opportunities to travel abroad or to participate somehow in the language learning process and those whose parents have not, are quite noticeable. This does not mean that parents with no knowledge of or interest in foreign language acquisition will necessarily tend to overlook or neglect their children’s language learning processes. In fact, this is what this research is aimed at exploring: the extent to which parents’ choices and attitudes towards languages condition children’s acquisition of foreign languages and whether this is directly correlated or not with the readiness they showed in the past to learn languages themselves and for themselves.
With a view to exploring this, a revision of the most important discoveries related to parents’ role in children’s academic development and, more precisely, with regards to their part in children’s linguistic attitude and interest will take
1 This and the following quotes belonging to Catalan or Spanish documents have been translated into English for this dissertation.
place. The methodology followed will be presented afterwards, leading to the introduction of the results. Finally, it will not be until the end of the work that a didactic proposal with some activities will be exposed; such tasks will consider the conclusions reached. Finally, some suggestions will close the study as a starting point towards more profitable models to learn languages with family.
2. Literature review
Children’s language learning paths have been approached from many different angles, something which is quite understandable, since there are millions of factors conditioning this experience. When it comes to individualist works, age has emerged as one of the most contentious issues. Last century’s literature has been centred on age effects and their influence to stimulate or inhibit language learning processes. However, many influential factors apart from this remain to be considered, some of these being motivation, learning strategies, school’s treatment of second languages and children’s own preferences towards this knowledge area. Familiar influence, on the other hand, always prevails an important aspect that should never go unnoticed.
Parental impact on children, in fact, has been already considered from many perspectives too. The fact that parents are, together with the school environment, one of the most powerful components in any child’s life is almost indisputable. Such is the case that the role of family in children’s academic processes and results has gained special strength in recent times, having become one of the main focuses within this field of study. Most studies have been dealing with family’s situation and the effect that it may have on children’s academic paths. Concerning language learning in particular, parental figures have proved to play a role in shaping children’s academic results. For this reason, recent literature has focused on the familiar context, aiming at identifying the aspects which may cause some children’s language learning experiences to be different from others. Context has been therefore explored from a great variety of angles, including parents’ sociocultural backgrounds, economic status, level of studies, family language policies and many other
2.1. From the age effect to the family factor
The large amount of work done in this knowledge area is a clear proof that age has become a widely-studied factor in the second language acquisition field of study. Nevertheless, not all researchers share the same thoughts on this.
Whereas some studies present the age factor as a “macrovariable” (Flege, Yeni-Komshian, and Liu, 1999) in language learning, others seem to diminish its relevance by placing greater emphasis on individual differences in a more general manner or, at least, by claiming that there are indeed other influential factors at play (Montrul, 2008; Moyer, 2013; DeKeyser, 2013).
One of the most relevant contributions to this field is the emergence of the Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH), which has led to unsolved discrepancies between those defending the theory (Montrul, 2008, 2012) and those rejecting it (Moyer, 2013; Pfenninger and Singleton, 2018). Moyer (2013), on the one hand, introduces learner orientation and experience as main valuable variables. On the other hand, Pfenninger and Singleton (2018) mention age as a key aspect, but they try to go one step further. It is indeed the home context the one they choose to explore more extensively, claiming that it has been “usually neglected in age studies” (p. 210). For the purpose of filling in this knowledge gap, they analyse significant situational and family support consequences and their power over second language acquisition in educational settings. By this, they suggest that effects other than the age-related ones, with a greater emphasis on individual differences and context, shape second language acquisition and outcomes. Recent research of this kind serve to illustrate that, rather than being an isolated factor, “age effects are sensitive to contexts and situations” (p. 226).
It is for this reason that, recently, language learning has started to be examined in context, leaving behind individualistic approaches.
2.2. The socio-economic factor
Over the last century, the economic sphere has been given greater prominence.
In previous stances, the focus used to lie on the result rather than on the process. Hartas (2011), for example, decided to examine it according to its impact on aspects such as “children’s language, literacy and socio-emotional
competence” (p. 893). The two main socio-economic factors that she analysed were household income and mother’s academic training, which were actually found “to have a stronger effect on children’s language and literacy than on social-emotional competence” (p. 893). Even so, socio-economic disadvantage remained the most powerful element in shaping children’s competences in her study, since even though the quantity of time parents spent with their children engaging in learning activities was found to be almost equal among the different socio-economic groups, the results differed from one group of children to the other. This was a key aspect to determine that, sadly, the contributions by parents devoting time to study with their children are overshadowed by their low economic status, if that is the case.
Recently, however, parents’ socio-economic condition has been also addressed as an important factor. Here, parents indeed come more into play.
Schwab and Lew-Williams (2016), aware of this, chose to analyse “the extent to which family socioeconomic status relates to parents’ language input to their children and, subsequently, children’s language learning” (p. 264). Rodríguez- Pérez (2011) also explored this issue but by relating the lack of motivation and failure with the lack of incentives, especially when it comes to dysfunctional families with little economic resources and a low cultural level (p. 398).
Today, different studies keep bringing to light this sad reality. Hernández- Prados et al. (2019) claim that family’s low economic status negatively affects parents’ involvement in their children’s language learning processes (p. 85).
This means that, as if the futility of those disadvantaged families’ efforts, the lack of resources and the resulting absence of motivation were consequences not hard enough, this economic obstacle also prevents parents sometimes from helping their children with their homework, condemning them to live apart from their children’s academic lives. As Hernández-Prados et al. (2019) conclude, barriers defaulting participation continue to exist within families with fewer resources, claiming that, on the contrary, those parents with a higher level of studies show generally more active and engaged, making thus a stronger
Nevertheless, differences have also been noticed among families sharing the same or a similar economic status. Ferjan et al. (2019) examined groups of equivalent socioeconomic status who only differed from each other in the ways they taught their children: through intervention, involving parental coaching, and through control, with no parental coaching. The results showed that parental coaching worked better, at least with a view to “enriching specific aspects of parental language input and to immediately and positively impacting child language outcomes” (p. 1). This approach called for the necessity to think about family’s influence in a more practical sense, focusing on the methods and techniques that one uses at home to learn with their children, or to help them to learn, regardless of their status and social conditions.
2.3. Family language policy
One of the most recent emerged areas of research within this particular field of study is Family Language Policy (FLP), which is defined by King et al. (2008) as the “explicit and overt planning in relation to language use within the home among family members” (p. 907). Jenks (2020) goes a step further by stating more accurately that FLP “is concerned with how children acquire and use languages in spaces where the decision to employ a particular linguistic resource over another is shaped by rules established at home by primary care- givers or parents” (p. 313). This policy is also useful to determine parents’
perspectives in relation to languages and language learning, reflecting thus
“broader societal attitudes and ideologies about both language(s) and parenting” (King et al., 2008, p. 907). This global vision of family language practices contains specific approaches on how they manage language learning at home, including beliefs or ideologies, practices, efforts to modify or influence, intervention, planning or management, among others (p. 907).
Language ideologies are particularly key in the process and thus have been addressed as significant factors in both language policy and language learning (De Houwer, 1999; King, 2000). King et al. (2008) aimed at exploring the way these language ideologies “become enacted in specific language practices”, and how “[they] were formed in the first place” (p. 911). What they
mainly found was that the “family unit […] can be seen as a site in which language ideologies are both formed and enacted through caregiver-child interactions” (p. 914). This led to the need to address this issue in more detail, which resulted in some studies focused on obtaining information via qualitative data (Schwartz and Verschik, 2013).
When conducting their overall analysis about family language policy and its potential success, Schwartz and Verschik (2013) discovered that, in spite of its undeniable significance, the socio-economic background did not always lead to failure when it comes to language learning processes. In fact, they claim that
“understanding how immigrant, intermarried, indigenous bilingual and deaf community families achieve success in their family language policy despite very challenging social conditions can help us understand how we can best support others in a similar situation” (p. 1). In their study, they collect the reflections of parents, children and teachers with respect to FLP and propose and analyse some methodologies with a view to innovating in the field. As a starting point, they claim that the “family is […] an extremely important domain for studying language policy because of its critical role in forming the child’s linguistic environment” (pp. 2-3), a thought which is reflected in most pieces of literature.
Within this previously mentioned review, the scholars draw a distinction between micro and macro-perspectives when approaching multilingualism (p. 6) and revive and analyse different “models of parent-child language practices” (p.
7). In this regard, they discuss particular psychological and emotional aspects of family language policy already analysed in previous research (Wong-Fillmore, 2000; Tannenbaum, 2012), drawing special attention to the preservation of home language. They conclude that “parents’ initial decision on language maintenance or shift may be strongly related to complex emotional processes”
(Schwartz and Verschik, 2013, p. 10), which means that language practices at home are somehow linked to the emotional aspect.
Additionally, they revive significant studies such as Curdt-Christiansen’s (2013), which compares bilingual with monolingual child progress and stresses
policy is concerned, he expresses that its study “can […] reveal conflicts that family members must negotiate between the realities of social pressure, political impositions, and public education demands, […] and the desire for cultural loyalty and linguistic continuity” (Curd-Christiansen’s, 2013, p. 1). Apart from that, he refers to a great amount of studies which have recently addressed FLP and the ways in which they have done so. He describes, among others, the value given to different languages, the way parents see bilingualism from sociocultural, emotional and cognitive views (Curd-Christiansen, 2009; Fogle, 2012; King et al. 2008), and the kinds of family literacy surroundings and forms of parental contribution that are conducive to encourage bilingualism (Curdt- Christiansen, 2012). Coinciding with many other researchers, he defines language ideology as “the underlying force in family language planning and decisions on what language to practice and measures […] to influence or control family members’ language behaviours” (Curd-Christiansen, 2013, p. 2).
Schwartz and Verschik’s (2013) also put emphasis on the concept of fund of knowledge, which in FLP’s scope refers to “family and community language and cultural practices which inevitably influence child’s identity and learning patterns” (p. 17). Conteh and Riasat (2014), who addressed this issue in particular, state that “ecological and funds of knowledge perspectives on classroom learning have implications for the ways we think and talk about language, and how languages are defined” (p. 611). This is, therefore, one more perspective to take into account when analysing families’ views on language and, particularly, their power over their children’s ones, since not only can parents influence these views, but they can also change them, becoming therefore a key part in their children’s language learning processes. Such procedures, as already seen, are however conditioned by many other aspects, among which “discursive construction of place, language attitudes among particular individuals, parents’ perception of endangerment vs. stability of a certain language, space for creative language use, children’s and adolescents’
ideas about multilingualism or particular languages” (Schwartz and Verschik, 2013, p. 34) are the most relevant ones.
2.4. Familiar bilingualism
Another important perspective to take into consideration, especially in today’s globalized world, is familiar bilingualism. The number of children who nowadays grow up being in contact with two –or even more– different languages continues to rise. Nevertheless, family language policy also has its place within such bilingualism. Ruiz-Martín (2017) points out that, in such cases, family language policy includes all those “decisions and actions taken by parents who want to bring up their children in more than one language” (p. 126). According to her, however, there are different reasons for choosing one language strategy or another. In her opinion, “some parents choose a language strategy without taking a conscious or informed decision, […] maybe just taking into account the family circumstances such as their language pattern as a couple, their linguistic abilities or simply their instincts and wishes” (p. 129). Others, on the contrary,
“are very aware of the need to provide their children with extra input in the minority language in order to help them become bilingual” (p. 129). Parents are, again, a key figure here, since they need to be aware of their children’s needs and make the right choices. They must decide, among others, “how to provide both quality and quantity of language exposure […], mainly through social interaction, depending on the parents’ language proficiency and language preferences, as well as the situation of the community where they live” (p. 129).
This, of course, without forgetting about the emotional component and how language is used to establish affective bonds (Rovira-Martínez, 2014). In the same way that it works with minority or family languages, parents should be aware of both their role and power when helping their children to grow bilingual in such an important foreign language as English.
It is important to highlight that bilingualism can emerge in contexts where the families are not bilingual, even if the parents are monolingual. Although the study of Ruiz-González (2003) focuses on families where parents speak different languages (English and Spanish, in this case), her research study is worth considering when analysing the best ways to bring up bilingual children as a family choice. It is worth mentioning, for example, that when analysing
aware of the potential effects that the distinct discursive strategies may have to the bilingual development of the children (p. 165). It is about, she states, negotiating strategies of bilingual contexts (continuity and repetition on the part of the adult) (p. 165). Her study is one more sign of how family strategies can affect children’s linguistic paths, either when they are children or when they are already adolescents, meaning that there is much to be contributed on their part.
2.5. Children as active agents in the language learning process
Family language policy research, however, should not leave the other interested party aside. Children are also participants in the process, since they are usually conscious of the existing language policies at home and, more importantly, they have enough power to change them, either for the better or for the worse. This means that despite the fact that previous literature focused on stressing the importance of parents’ in the language learning process, recent authors have also highlighted the ways in which children can contribute to this same process.
This has led, for example, to investigate the success of collaborative methods in family socialization (Goodwin, 2012), or to analyse the role of children as active agents able to influence their parents’ language practices (Luykx, 2003, 2005).
Earlier works such as the one by Tuominen (1999) even claimed once that children’s attitudes and practices directly affected parental policies and that, actually, it was the children themselves the ones who socialized their parents, and not vice versa (p. 73). Luykx (2003), contrarily, pointed out that language socialization processes are a “dynamic work of mutual family influences” rather than a “one-way process” (p. 40). In a later study, she collected evidence to prove such children’s influence on adults’ language socialization (Luykx, 2005), even claiming that “the importance of the domestic sphere is regularly underrated in discussions of language planning and policy” (p. 1412).
Fogle and King (2013) also emphasized the need to take this issue into consideration, so they exemplified situations in which children “shape, negotiate and resist parents’ monolingual and bilingual language policy and planning efforts” (p. 5) in one way or another. They similarly agree that greater attention should be given to children’s role in shaping this linguistic advance, including
family language rules, strategies to resist or arrange these practices, the reaction of parents over children’s language progress and, more specifically,
“child enactment of family-external ideologies of race and language” (p. 21). All this, with a view to broadening the perspectives from which family language policies had been addressed and analysed in the past.
2.6. The relationship between family and school
Suárez et al. (2014), on the other hand, studied the association between parents and schools and how the latter should deal with this. According to them, the attempts to increase the implication of parents in schools are increasing, promoting thus their participation and their presence in school activities (p. 84).
However, they point out that this task is mainly in the hands of educators and the ways they perceive the students, either as children or adolescents or simply as students. They state that if teachers see students as children or youth, going beyond their status as learners, they will also see their family and the community surrounding them as mates or partners in the education process of such children (p. 84). This implies that all communities share interests and, therefore, must work together to achieve their goals, hence, supporting the idea that family and school should be more united.
This issue is also worth considering in relation to the degree of autonomy and responsibility that children end up acquiring and the subjects responsible for that. León-Sánchez (2011) concludes that the two potentially implicated agents, parents and school, should look for communication channels in order to facilitate this cooperation and collaboration demands. It is important, she claims, that the role of each of them be specified beforehand (p. 17). Furthermore, she states that the role of professors is key in the process, since they should be the ones that invite the families to be part of their work and, thus, maintain an open, friendly and collaborative attitude, in the same way as parents should (p. 17).
As another important aspect, she highlights that there is a need to look for spaces and moments to promote closer ties between them and favour thus moments of collaboration and cooperation between both educational institutions
(p. 17). Only by reinforcing this relationship it is possible to teach children to be autonomous and responsible in a comprehensive manner.
Flaborea et al. (2013) also looked into this issue but focusing particularly on English language acquisition. Obviously, they agree that the parents’ role is a key one which influences children’s learning processes. In accordance with language acquisition, they claim that parents can contribute while working on the mother tongue, for example, by using language, literature and orality to encourage, implicitly, the acquisition of a second language. In summary, they claim that understanding and promoting the relation between the first language (L1) and the second one (L2) can be seen as a good strategy so that parents can, easily and actively, collaborate on the language acquisition process (p. 33).
Particularly regarding the relationship between the home and the school contexts, they discovered that professors do not find any motivation on the part of families to help their children to learn English, maybe because of a lack of parents’ collaboration in helping them to do their homework (p. 40). They conclude that there are three different positions adopted by parents with regards to the relationship with school for purposes such as learning a second language; there are parents satisfied with the current link, others requesting help and strategies to be able to participate more and others who, for various reasons, prefer not to get involved in the process (p. 40). What they finally conclude is that more strategies are needed to strengthen the connection between family and school, and that this will be in the long run positive for all the parts involved in the learning process.
2.7. Families’ involvement in second language acquisition
Another significant aspect to consider and to narrow down the approach of the current study, is family engagement and their relevance in children’s language learning paths. According to Castro et al. (2014), the most successful type of family participation, particularly regarding children’s efficiency, is that which aims at academic achievement, seeks the development of key competencies and, furthermore, is characterized by parents’ high academic expectations of their children (p. 96). As another meaningful fact of their study to highlight,
families’ participation is proved to be of a higher influence as one moves up the educational ladder (p. 96), which means that Secondary Education remains an important focus of research in this area, leaving behind previous studies centred on family practices in relation to language exposure during childhood or in the first years of primary school, when children are not aware of the learning process and everything that goes with it yet.
It was Hernández-Prados et al. (2018) who specifically analysed the perception of families with regards to children’s second language acquisition process during high school. They conclude that a positive attitude towards the English language, together with parents’ good level of it, prevail in most families, leading to a greater satisfaction towards bilingualism and, therefore, to students’ better academic results (p. 23). This indicates as well that families’
involvement in the teaching-learning process is indeed necessary, meaning that the more satisfied families are with the English language learning, the higher the level their children acquire is (p. 24). Sáez-López (2017) states that even when families are unfamiliar with the language being acquired by their children, they can follow some guidelines to help them acquire the needed skills to be competent in terms of communication (p. 727).
Crespillo-Álvarez (2010) similarly addressed parents’ involvement in the English language acquisition process. He defines family as an essential agent in children’s education, claiming that the parents’ awareness of their children’s need to learn a second language is crucial, since it then conditions their own involvement in their English language learning process (p. 262). He states that parents should be conscious of the importance of English for their children’s future, but without believing they will be proficient in the language at the end of the academic year (p. 265). His research study, apart from recalling the reasons for which parents are indispensable in their children’s language processes, collects ideas on how to improve the English experience while considering both professors and parents’ actions, as well as the collaborations between them.
2.8. Parental influence on attitudes towards language learning
Regarding language behaviours, Rodríguez-Pérez’s (2012) study shows how, irrespective of socio-economic background, families’ attitudes and interests with regard to language learning are deeply connected to children’s consequent attitudes towards it, since children usually tend to reproduce and imitate parents’ estimations and values (p. 388). After analysing some professors’
opinions, she states that the familiar context influences both children’s academic results and motivation toward the teaching-learning process (p. 398).
Bartram (2006) also offers evidence “for an association between parental and pupil attitudes” (p. 211), adding moreover that not only the position adopted towards the acquisition of foreign languages but also the “parental language knowledge appears to be an important additional factor” (p. 211). His study is another proof of how parents can mould children’s thoughts of language and be influential in the degree of importance they attach to languages, given the fact that children adopt then positive or negative stances towards language learning on the basis of this. Previous studies such as Oskamp’s (1977) agree by claiming that “a child’s attitudes are largely shaped by its own experience with the world, but [that] this is usually accomplished by explicit and implicit modelling of parental attitudes” (p. 126). He sets, among other examples, parents’ stances towards foreigners and towards other countries, claiming them to be highly connected to second language acquisition’s beliefs and practices (p. 126). Young (1994), on the other hand, mentions some ways through which parents can exert, directly or indirectly, this attitudinal impact; for example:
Through discussion, by encouraging participation in foreign language exchange programmes and excursions, helping the child with homework, encouraging the child to read material written in the foreign language and by making the target language country the destination for a family holiday” (Young, 1994, p. 85).
Gardner (1973), who also addressed this issue, draws a distinction between parents’ active and passive role (p. 235) and then, in later studies, defines family as “the major intermediary between the cultural milieu and the student”
(1985, p. 109). According to him, thus, there are two possible interventions by
parents; an active one which involves them interacting with their children in the language learning process, and a passive one related to parents’ behaviours towards the second language community (p. 235). As Bartram (2006) rightly summarizes, such active role may be positive or negative. She points out that “a positive active role would involve parents monitoring their child’s progress in language learning, showing interest and encouraging/rewarding success” (p.
212), whereas a negative one “involve a range of discouraging behaviours, from openly belittling the importance of language learning to favouring other areas of learning over languages” (p. 212). The passive role, on the other hand, includes all those “parents’ attitudes to the second language community” (p. 212), which may be conditioned by other external factors. Parents with a positive passive attitude towards language learning would, for example, in most cases support their children’s social integration with speakers of the language, showing even a desire or motivation for this practice. Therefore, families with positive attitudes towards a language tend to encourage their children’s interaction with target speakers, as well as advise them to travel abroad or to meet people from all over the world. Unfortunately, not everyone has this optimistic attitude towards language learning and, as a consequence, thousands of young children are missing opportunities to learn foreign languages along the way.
This closing point of the literature review calls for the need to consider the stances adopted by parents towards languages and language learning and their potential repercussion, not only on their children’s immediate ways of acting, but also on their future thoughts about language learning itself. Schwab and Lew-Williams (2016) mentioned the need to address “how specific features of parents’ input differentially influence the emergence of early language- learning abilities” (p. 271) in children. It has already been suggested, thus, that future studies should go even one step further and analyse the correlations, no longer according to abilities and results, but related to thoughts and consequent ways of acting. There are variables in relation to stress, time management and so that should not go unnoticed when analysing this issue, so researchers should focus on exploring what aspects really “constrain parents’ opportunities
to engage in enriching, high-quality communication with their children” (p. 271), among many other factors.
Apart from that, taking into account that “language policy has traditionally focused on public and institutional contexts such as the school or the workplace, with less attention to the intimate sphere of the home and family”
(King et al., 2008, p. 909), home should be taken as a key context for future focus. It is indeed at home where most encounters between family and children take place and it is therefore a setting which should be further explored, especially considering that any change for the better or any task to improve made at school would be even more effective if it could be then carried out or adapted at home, both for the family and for the students.
Finally, as Hernández-Prados et al. (2018) suggest, there is a current need to address this issue from a familiar perspective, since only thus it is possible to detect and reveal both families’ perception and educational needs arising from the introduction of bilingualism in schools (p. 23). This implies that both parents’ and children’s views and realities should be considered as soon as possible, since only through them specific issues will be detected and, whenever possible, resolved.
3. Hypothesis and Research Questions
As already stated, this study has the main purpose of examining the influence that a person’s family may have on their children’s decision of studying a degree in relation to languages or a different one. The main motivation which has led to the examination of this issue is the belief that parents are somehow responsible for or, at least, condition students’ interests and attitudes towards language. Beforehand, the main aim is to find some proof that may confirm or deny the belief that those parents who have engaged in the language learning process may have also been closer to their children’s exposure to it and hence may have, on purpose or unintentionally, encouraged them to choose a degree focused on languages or, contrarily, discouraged them from doing so.
However, apart from conducting the research and exploring the different family situations with a view to finding out if this correlation does exist or not, the objective of this dissertation is, more in the long run, to think about ways in which those familiar connections and practices that throughout all these years have proved to be influential in children’s language learning can be strengthened or conditioned somehow to the benefit of the familiar context. By this, this dissertation seeks to develop some innovative methodologies for families in which English language learning is the one, but not the only, pretext to meet and practice. The final purpose will be to modify future family practices so that everyone, including both children and parents, can favour from the familiar context and improve their learning habits for the benefit of the whole family. Such education proposals, however, will not be discussed until the end, after the results have been properly described.
As for the hypothesis, differences between parents from one group to the other are expected. In other words, parents are believed to be more influential in language-related choices than those already mentioned. Such expectations are obviously conditioned by past studies which have already proved that familiar contexts, and especially unfavourable ones, condition children’s academic paths. Age effects, one’s socio-economic status, cultural beliefs, parents’ management of time, parents’ previous knowledge and current occupations and their behaviours towards language learning, among others, have all been explored in accordance with both children’s academic results and practices. Nevertheless, in spite of the extensive research conducted on this field of study, the specific issue of families’ behaviours and their influence on children’s language learning attitudes remains in need of further analysis. Are parents a key figure when their child chooses one career path or another? Do all these beliefs and attitudes which have been proved to condition children’s academic results also shape the attitudes of their descendants? Is a language teacher more likely to have a language-lover child? Are those parents who have never been keen on languages and who therefore have never been abroad or participated in exchange programmes more likely to have children interested in
other non-language-related concerns? With a view to answering all these uncertainties, the two main research questions to be addressed are:
• To what extent do parents sway their children’s interest in languages?
• Is parents’ role a powerful one over children’s language learning choices and, therefore, over their linguistic or non-linguistic career paths?
4. Methodology 4.1. Materials
4.1.1. Initial questionnaire2
With a view to solving the above queries, this study has collected data from both parents of students who are or have been enrolled in a language-related degree or course and parents of students who are not or have not studied a degree of this type. With the purpose of analysing the existing similarities and differences between the parents of these two groups of students in accordance with languages, a survey was created. In it, parents were first asked some questions about their academic training: their occupation, level of studies and the languages they spoke, among others. After that, they had to refer to their children’s education: essentially, their children’s age and the type of academic degree they were or had been studying. The following section was once again addressed to parents; particularly, they had to refer to their language learning interests and general behaviours towards languages. For example, one of the questions they had to answer was whether they spoke many languages or not, or if they would have liked to learn more. In the final section, the parents were assessed on their involvement in their children’s language learning processes, which was basically reduced to issues such as whether they did activities with their children or practiced languages with them or not, the types of tasks they usually did and how often these took place. Finally, they were asked whether they would like to be more involved in these language practices and, in that case, the kind of activities they would enjoy doing with their children.
2 I created this first survey for this master’s subject Investigació i Innovació Educativa. Its results were also collected then.
4.1.2. Final questionnaire
The main purpose of this survey is to get an idea of the most common priorities among families and, thus, focus on this previously-stated need to address this particular issue from a familiar perspective (Hernández-Prados, 2018). Getting two types of answers with regards to the preferred practices in reference to language learning, both from parents and from students, will make it possible to draw conclusions on how to join these two groups in the same kind of activities so they can learn and practice English together.
Thus, this final survey intends to be a tool to extract useful information and rich opinions from students to then elaborate the proposals on their basis, taking of course into account previous research as well. The questions of this research material have been formulated so that the students can reflect on how they would like to spend time with their parents in joint language learning activities, just in the same way parents were asked in the first survey. Although the students being asked have no relationship at all with the parents evaluated beforehand, both answers will be useful for the final purposes, since the more diverse opinions, the better. Thus, the students, who will be introduced in the next section, were first asked about what they preferred to do in the English lessons: book activities, games, tasks in groups, listening to music in English, etc. Then, they were asked about their parents’ level of English. They basically had to say if they parents’ level was higher or lower than theirs. Then, they had to indicate who helped them the most to do school activities at home, if it was their mother, their father or other family members. After that, they had to state if they attended private English lessons. The next section was devoted to know what their parents’ attitudes towards languages were: if they gave little or much importance to languages and if they show themselves opened to learn more languages or to increase their language level. Finally, they were asked whether they would like to learn English with their family or not and how they would prefer to do so: If they would like to do it through games, through dynamic activities, in groups, individually, at school, at home or in other places.
4.2. Participants
4.2.1. Initial questionnaire’s participants
Concerning the first survey’s respondents, half of them were parents of students enrolled in a master’s degree in Teacher Training for Secondary School; more precisely, of the English and German speciality in the University of the Balearic Islands. All of them were therefore parents of children who had specialized in languages and who were thus either English or German linguists or translators.
The other half, on the contrary, were parents of students enrolled in other branches of knowledge, including science, humanities, primary school teaching, administration, arts, and others having nothing to do with languages. Apart from that, the average age of the participants was between 50 and 59 years old, with the exception of some who were in their 40s and only one who was between sixty and seventy years old. The children of the interviewees, in most cases two siblings or three, had an average age of 18 to 15 years old, although a large number of them were 25 to 30 years old and a few of them 30 to 40. Only one of them was underage (16). The fact that the participants’ age range was limited from forty to seventy years also led, thus, to comparisons between students – children of those parents– with similar ages. Given the homogeneity of the groups participating in the initial research, the main characteristic which differentiated ones from the others was essentially language-focused. Finally, there were no distinctions on the basis of gender.
4.2.2. Final questionnaire’s participants
The second survey mentioned was addressed not to adults, but to students. In particular, it was sent to two groups of first year obligatory secondary education (1st of ESO) students. The reason for this choice is basically that, as Castro et al. (2014) previously stated, advancement through the educational ladder diversifies the methods and the effects of family involvement in school (p. 95).
Thus, it is obvious that if the importance is more noticeable in primary education it is even more so in secondary school, which means that 1st of ESO is the best group to consider in this study. First of all, because they are in an academic year in which they are already able to choose and give their opinions on this
matter and, secondly, because there is still time, both for them and their family, to change their home language learning habits and build an environment conducive to appropriate and continuing education from which all the family can linguistically benefit. As for the group’s characteristics, the interviewees were all students in the Majorcan high school IES Felanitx. The majority of them were 12 years old, some of them were 13 and just a few were one or two years older. As for the gender, there were a few more boys than girls, but the similarities in the answers did not lead to gender distinctions here either.
5. Results
5.1. Parents’ initial questionnaire
As the first point of the results to be highlighted, interestingly, most of the parents who eventually participated in this study were female (78.3%) versus a scarce number of fathers (21.7%). Given that gender was not a specific condition for the survey, this data reinforces findings from numerous previous studies which prove that the maternal figure tend to be, in one way or another, the one who gets most involved in language learning processes of this kind (Flaborea et al., 2013; Hernández-Prados, 2018).
As for the children’s language knowledge, most of them stated that, regardless of their degree’s choice, they started learning foreign languages when they were between 1 and 5 years old. As for their formal education, the two groups of students were balanced, so some parents have at least one children who studied a language-related degree and some of them have no children studying or having studied such field. However, most of the parents claimed that their children attended language private lessons. As another interesting point, the majority affirmed that their children attended those lessons because they insisted on them doing so; others claimed that they decided to do so in their own accord, whereas only a few answered that it was at school where they were recommended to do so.
Concerning parents’ occupation and academic backgrounds, they all were from diverse labour sectors. Particularly in regards to the level of studies,
Secondary Education, others degree studies, others to be school graduates and others to have no formal education at all. In relation to languages, most of them pointed out that they spoke at least two, while others spoke only one and only five of them spoke four. The parents’ average level of English, independently of their children’s academic training choice, was quite low. Nevertheless, and as an important fact, most agreed they would have liked to learn more languages when they were younger. Moreover, although many admitted being very interested in language learning, the majority did not do so. However, all of them shared the opinion –important for this study– that it was very important for them that they children learn English and other languages at school, as well as to become familiar with other cultures. Additionally, they mainly agreed they regularly tried to encourage their children when learning languages, admitting that, in their opinion, parents are quite influential in children’s interest in language learning. Finally, regardless of children’s academic choice, most parents claimed that they sometimes tried to learn languages with them. The answers included comments such as3:
(P1): “I started attending English private lessons to set an example for them” or (P2): “We played children’s games in English in order to learn the colours, numbers or the most useful words”.
Lastly and also serving as a significant point for this study, nearly all the parents agreed that they would like to be more involved in their children’s language learning processes and they suggested some ways in which they could do so.
Among the activities proposed, we find important contributions such as:
(P3): “I would like to learn in a playful way, through workshops… to break traditional lessons’ routine”.
(P4): “I prefer to learn by playing games, watching films and listening to songs”.
(P5): “I would like to learn by travelling together”.
(P6): “I would like to learn English and thus be able to speak it to them”.
(P7): “I would like to be able to help them with their activities”.
3 All comments by the participants have been translated from Catalan or Spanish into English.
As can be inferred from some of the comments above, games, films, songs and workshops prevailed as preferred activities.
5.2. Students’ final questionnaire
As far as the students’ survey is concerned, findings likewise call for the need to think about methodologies through which learn English with the family. First of all, it is important to highlight that most students marked playing individual or team games, listening to English music and practising with Internet worksheets as their preferred activities to do in the English lessons. In second place, the results indicate that parents are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of learning languages and even of having a higher level than their children. At least, that is what it is suggested, since half of the parents’ participants are said to have a higher level of English than their children. Furthermore, agreeing with previous studies (Flaborea et al., 2013), mothers are the ones who most support their children with their English homework, followed by a slightly lower percentage of parents. Brothers and sisters were claimed to help sometimes.
Curiously, on the other hand, most participants denied attending private English lessons. This decision, however, may well have been affected by the pandemic.
Even so, this study’s best success indicators appear afterwards, when 97% of the participants agree that their family gives much importance to English and 84.8% of them state that they see their parents opened to learn more languages or to acquire an even higher language level. The culmination of this study’s best hopes comes at the end of the questionnaire, when 84.8% of the participants claim they would like to learn English with their family and choose the ways in which they would like to do so. Family trips abroad and activities in which families listen to music in English, watch English series or films, learn at home or play team games together are highlighted as the most preferred tasks.
6. Discussion
Taking first the results of the initial questionnaire into account, it can be firmly stated that parents’ interest in languages does not always have to positively or negatively affect their children’s language concern and attitudes. As a matter of
learning, parents give much importance to their children’s language learning process, both by encouraging them to learn languages and by showing their willingness to cooperate more with them when doing so. This means that what usually conditions students’ choice to study a language-related degree is not their parents’ attitude towards their language learning processes but their behaviour towards their children’s own processes. Thus, although most parents admitted not being enthusiastically predisposed to study languages, they appeared to be opened to do so if it were the benefit of their children what was at stake. Not only does this reinforce previous statements raising awareness about parents’ role in children’s academic attitudes and, thus, in their academic results (Gardner, 1973), but it also indicates, first, that there is a need to increase the amount of time parents spend with children in joint learning activities and, secondly, that parents are deep down aware that this will be beneficial for their children, at least in the long run.
6.1. Level of studies and language’s influence
Concurring with previous studies such as Rodríguez-Pérez’s (2012), parents’
general high level of studies (mainly Bachillerato and university degrees) coincides with a tendency to influence their children for the better, for example by suggesting that they go to private language lessons. This contrasts with other realities which show how children whose parents have a lower level of studies and usually do not devote much time with them, tend to get older being freely indifferent to any external world and sometimes claim convinced that in order to get a job in their place they do not need to speak English (2012, p.
396). There is no such coincidence, however, when it comes to language level, since no clear relationship has been found between parents with high language level and children enrolled in a language-related degree. This fact contradicts the theory that “parents may, of course, be quicker to encourage their children if they themselves have a background in language learning” (Bartram, 2006, p.
213). Actually, there is an overall low English level, no significant level in any other language and little interest in languages and this, surprisingly, does not change parents’ positive views towards languages nor the importance they give to their children’s language learning paths. As Bartram (2006) herself explains,
“even though it seems logical to assume that parents who do have some foreign language knowledge and interest will in some way positively influence their children’s attitudes, this may not always be the case” (p. 214). As a matter of fact, previous literature shows how the contrary is indeed possible: parents who have no knowledge of the language can sometimes be the ones with more positive attitudes towards it (Cain and Pietro, 1997).
6.2. The importance given to the linguistic and cultural aspect
Furthermore, as seen in the results, parents are increasingly becoming conscious of how important it is for their children to learn languages and so they want to make an effort to learn and practise them among family despite it not being one of their own priorities as individual learners. This is consistent with other theories stating that parents, regardless of social origin, believe that learning a new language gives their children opportunities in the future, and that it is necessary to have this kind of linguistic tools, either for work or academic studies (Flaborea et al., 2013, p. 34).
The same seems to happen with culture, which they agree is essential to learn at school. This differs from Flaborea at al.’s (2013) findings, which show that most parents do not link the learning process to the social condition of languages, and they believe instead that a language can be learnt independently or that there is no need to take into account cultural aspects to learn it (p. 34). Participants in this study do link this social state to languages, which can be quite significant since, as Rodríguez-Pérez (2012) says, personal and familiar interest in the knowledge of new cultures tend to generate motivation in children (p. 398).
This last point reminds us of the previous mentioned notions of socialization and funds of knowledge. Participants in this initial research seem to be aware that languages, far from working in isolation, depend on their environment. Such assumption may well have conditioned their children’s choices, since this process has been broadly claimed as one of the most meaningful in children’s lives, “both family and community [being] the initial
ecology” (Schwartz and Verschik, 2013, p. 3). Today students, either enrolled in a language-related degree or not, are therefore lucky enough to have parents who give the socialization process the value it deserves. At least, this is what this survey’s results suggest.
6.3. Family language practices and beliefs: Passive and active roles
Regarding Gardner’s (1973) distinction of parents’ active and passive roles, the results suggest that differences exist between these two items, which leads to the need to discuss them separately.
On the one hand, there is a lot to say about parents’ passive roles, which appear to be the most significant ones in this study. When focusing on passive roles, we refer to all those beliefs and attitudes that parents adopt, in this case, towards languages and language learning, either for themselves and for the others. It goes without saying that, in this study, parents have a positive passive role towards language acquisition. This can be seen, for example, in the importance they give to their children’s language knowledge, or through the fact that they approve and even try to propose ways in which they can interact with it, showing thus a good attitude towards language development. These findings are, at the very least, encouraging, since although it may seem that the active role is indeed the important one, the passive one helps to a great extent.
According to Bartram (2006), parents’ influence can range from “the role model potential of positive or negative behaviours and the communication of educational regrets, to the ways in which [they] help to construct their children’s understandings of language importance and status” (p. 211). This aspect, she concludes, is particularly significant to children, since “it may be a key factor in [their] more positive or negative attitudes” (p. 211). Actually, she revives some examples of children connecting “parental experience/behaviours with their own language attitudes” (p. 220) in her study, something which, although does not fit with this study’s parents’ experiences, it adds to the suspicion that their behaviours may have influenced their children’s. This also coincides with Oskamp’s (1977) perspective in relation to parental attitudes.
This leads to reconsider Gardner’s (1973) previous claim that this aspect can also condition students’ academic results. The truth is that, although this
cannot be justified through all the participants in the study, since nearly half of the children are not enrolled in language-related degrees and nothing is known about their linguistic knowledge, it can be inferred from the answers of the other half of children. When one starts a language-related degree it is because, somehow, they are good at languages. Thus, in such cases, this may well have been partially due to their parents’ attitudes towards the language learning process. In accordance with the author just mentioned, “students’ orientations grow out of family-wide orientation” (p. 239), which means that “the degree of skill which the student attains in a second language will be dependent upon the attitudinal atmosphere in the home” (p. 239). This of course may not always be the case, but the truth is that, for now, parental behaviours have proved to influence somehow the whole language process.
When addressing parents’ language ideologies, other factors should be considered. Given that the majority of beliefs one has tend to be conditioned by their environment, it is undeniable that “a range of household and community factors are likely to influence both parents’ language input and children’s subsequent language development” (Schwab and Lew-Williams, 2016, p. 270).
Such environmental conditions, additionally, tend to be present in parental ideas of what is right and what is wrong, meaning that language ideologies “are inextricably connected with other aspects of parenthood, including culture- specific notions of what makes a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ parent, mother, or father” (King, et al., 2008, p. 913). This view, which should not go unnoticed, gives way to the need to approach families’ language attitudes in connection with their conditions surrounding them, which may be decisive.
Finally, it is also worth mentioning that all those parents’ ideologies may not only have the power to influence children’s academic attitudes, but they may also have power to shape their own. In short, what a parent aims at achieving in relation to their children is always somehow connected with all their beliefs and expectations of their own abilities as parents as well. This adds to King et al.’s (2008), claim that “parents’ attitudes towards language learning and bilingualism also come into play in influencing their interactional strategies” (p. 912). In other
languages are not an exception. On the contrary, language thoughts condition future language actions. This, moreover, raises the issue of “the degree to which parents see themselves as capable of and responsible for shaping their children’s language” (p. 912). Considering that this study’s participants were mostly beginners in the English language and not proficient in any, it is provable that this may have somehow prevented them from getting as much involved in their children’s language learning processes as they seem to want. It may be for this reason, therefore, that although they claim they have the desire to get more involved in children’s language acquisition, they have not done so yet.
Young (1994), in addition to everything discussed above, relates these attitudes with the factor of motivation and also to literature, stating that
“supportive, encouraging parents who value FLL4 and communicate this to their children may initiate the motivational process by indicating a route leading to the attainment of esteem via FLL” (p. 48). The parents’ positive attitudes collected in the survey, therefore, may have also been key somehow in their children’s motivation to study a language-related degree, if it is the case.
To conclude with this first stage of parents’ roles, it is important not to leave aside the power that these shared ideologies which, as seen, tend to pass down through families may have, resulting in both family togetherness and shared purposes. As Pfenninger and Singleton (2019) claim, “when parents intensely encourage and support school learning of an additional language, the child must have a similar sense of this learning meeting family goals and of its being integrated into family life” (p. 225). In short, if both parents and children are so aware of the importance of learning a second language, what begins being an individual aim ends up becoming a family one, making its importance increase even more.
Moving now on towards parents’ active role, some aspects must be also considered, especially for including them in the final didactic proposal. As said before, the active roles involve all those actions by parents which constitute a practical involvement in their children’s language learning process; thus, these are not what they think but what they do. If the parents interviewed show a clear
4 Foreign Languages and Literature (FLL).
