As part of the Progression in Primary languages project, we are exploring children’s attitudes towards language learning at Key Stage 2 (Years 3-6, ages 7-11) and how they may change over time. In this blog, we look at some preliminary findings from our children’s attitudes survey. 

How we’re measuring children’s views 

Each year, participating children learning French, German or Spanish complete a survey looking at five key areas: 

  • Their enjoyment of language lessons 
  • How useful they think the language will be for them in the future 
  • Their interest in countries and cultures in which the language is spoken 
  • Their beliefs about learning the language 
  • Their confidence in using the language 

Example questions and rating scales for the French attitudes survey:

We are also conducting focus groups with small groups of children from each year group (we’ll share those findings in a future blog post). 

Preliminary findings so far 

These are some of our preliminary findings from the attitude survey data we have collected so far. 

Generally positive attitudes in Years 3, 4 and 5 

Overall, the data from our first two years of research suggest that most children in Years 3, 4 and 5 had positive attitudes towards language learning (indicated by a score above 2.5 out of 4). In general, Year 3 children tended to express the most positive attitudes towards language learning, with slightly lower but still positive attitudes in Years 4 and 5. However, there was lots of variation between year groups and between schools. 

Our data also suggest that Year 6 children generally showed less positive attitudes towards language learning than younger year groups. 

Graph showing the 2024 attitude survey scores for Years 3, 4, 5 and 6. On our 4-point scale, scores above 2.5 indicate positive attitudes:

As can be seen in the graph above, attitudes appear to have been most positive in Year 3 and became less positive the older the children got. 

Attitudes become less positive over time 

We currently have longitudinal data from three year groups – children who were in Years 3, 4 and 5, respectively, in 2023, our first year of data collection. As you can see in the graph below, a preliminary analysis of the longitudinal data indicates that children’s attitudes towards language learning became less positive one year later. This pattern was the same across all three languages, although there was some variation, with German showing the smallest decrease, and Spanish the largest decrease in attitudes between one year and the next. 

Graph showing the change in overall attitude survey scores from one year to the next (2023-2024) for the different languages. On our 4-point scale, scores above 2.5 indicate positive attitudes:

 

When we compared individual year groups, the biggest difference in motivation was seen between when children were in Year 5 and in Year 6.  

Different aspects of children’s attitudes 

Within the survey, we also asked the students their opinions on different factors related to learning a language. Children showed the strongest positive attitudes towards the following aspects: 

  • Their enjoyment of language lessons  
  • Their interest in countries and cultures in which the language is spoken 

Children showed less positive attitudes towards the following aspects (although all scores were still generally positive): 

  • Their beliefs about learning the language 
  • How useful they think the language will be for them in the future
  • Their confidence in using the language 

Interestingly, when we compared the attitude survey scores between 2023 and 2024, we found that some of these attitudes were stable, while some changed. For example, enjoyment of language lessons, interest in countries and cultures in which the language is spoken and beliefs about language learning did not change significantly over time. This suggests that, from one year to the next, children tended to feel equally positive about how enjoyable their language lessons were, how interested they were in French/German/Spanish-speaking countries and cultures and how they felt/what they believed about language learning.  

However, their views on how useful they thought the language will be for them became slightly less positive over time, suggesting that as pupils got older, they tended to consider languages as slightly less useful (although this was still rated positively overall). Finally, children’s reported confidence using the language was relatively stable and positive across the two time points although, in some schools, this seemed to decrease slightly between 2023 and 2024. 

What’s next 

While preliminary, these initial results firstly tell us that students’ overall attitudes towards language learning were positive – which is great to see! However, both cross-sectional and longitudinal data also point to a decrease in student motivation over time, and particularly in Year 6. This pattern is in line with previous research showing a decrease in motivation over time for primary school children, both in language learning and in other subjects (e.g. Carreira, 2006; Archambault, Eccles & Vida, 2010). 

We are formulating some hypotheses as to why this decrease in motivation in our study might be the case. For example, if the MFL provision is minimised in Year 6 to favour SATs preparations, this could impact students’ enjoyment and attitudes towards language learning. However, it is difficult to pinpoint a single reason that could explain this trend – firstly, each school is different, and secondly, students’ motivation may be shaped by a variety of factors related not only to each individual student, but also to the school, family and the wider context. For this reason, we’re continuing to explore what factors might be contributing to the change in attitudes towards language learning that children report over time. The focus group interviews with students, as well as the parents’ responses to our language attitudes survey will guide us in identifying some of these factors, so stay tuned for future updates on these! 

Your thoughts 

We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences. Have you noticed similar patterns in your pupils’ attitudes towards language learning? Are these similar or different to children’s attitudes towards other subjects in primary school? Please let us know what you think by emailing us at PiPL@reading.ac.uk. 

References 

Archambault, I., Eccles, J. S., & Vida, M. N. (2010). Ability self-concepts and subjective value in literacy: Joint trajectories from grades 1 through 12. Journal of Educational Psychology, 102(4), 804–816. 

Carreira, J. M. (2006). Motivation for learning English as a foreign language in Japanese elementary schools. Japanese Association for Language Teaching Journal, 28(2), 135–158.