Date of Award

6-2006

Document Type

Doctoral Thesis

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Business, Humanities, & Social Sciences

First Advisor

Dr. Muiris Ó Laoire

Abstract

This study investigates Leaving Certificate students’ attitudes to and motivation in the learning of Irish and German in 25-selected second level schools, of which five are Irish-medium schools, in Munster and Leinster. A historical overview of the two languages is presented to contextualise the study, as well as to provide a broad framework for the subsequent literature review, in which government policies towards the teaching and learning of Irish and German are examined. A twelve-scale questionnaire, consisting of 228 items, is employed as a data collection instrument to measure language attitudes and motivation. A modified version of the international quantitative measuring scale instrument known as The Attitude Motivation Test Battery is employed. A qualitative research instrument is also used to corroborate the quantitative data. The purpose of this comparative study is to ascertain if there are significant differences in students’ attitudes towards the learning of the two languages. While the findings in this study indicated that students were more positive towards Irish than they were towards German, they were not, however, very positive towards the actual learning of Irish itself. On the other hand, they were instrumentally motivated to learn German for utilitarian reasons, i.e. to pass examinations and to acquire jobs. Irishmedium respondents were more instrumentally motivated to learn Irish than they were to learn German. In addition, they were also more positive towards language learning than English-medium informants while girls were more positive than boys. Higher Level learners had more positive attitudes towards language learning than Ordinary Level learners. Finally, the findings also demonstrated that additional exposure in the form of student exchanges to Germany and attendance at Irish language courses in the Gaeltacht impacts positively on language learning. No significant difference in attitudes towards Irish was found between Irish-medium students and Higher Level students from English-medium schools who attended Irish language courses in the Gaeltacht.

Access Level

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Coverage

July 2024

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