language attitudes query

carey benom busylinguist at gmail.com
Tue Apr 23 00:42:09 UTC 2013


This also may not be precisely what you are talking about, but I teach the
Japanese linguistics component of an English-based MA program in Japanese
humanities in Japan.  All core courses are taught in English, but students
with sufficient Japanese ability take their elective courses in Japanese.

Many of our students are non-native English speakers, hoping to polish
their academic English and improve their (classical and modern) Japanese
while obtaining the MA.  Others already have mastered English and modern
Japanese and simply choose the program for the academics (though none so
far have truly mastered the reading of classical forms of Japanese).

The chance to study in English plays a large role in the decision to attend
the program for most of them - usually because they recognize the
importance of English in the world of academia, and want to continue in a
PhD program in an English-speaking country. Some are intellectually ready
to study for the MA, and have control of English, but lack the Japanese
ability to do so in a typical Japanese MA program, and plan to improve
their Japanese ability and go on to  a PhD program in Japanese.

Carey


Carey Benom / ベノム ケリー 准教授
人文科学府, IMAP 広人文学コース <http://www2.lit.kyushu-u.ac.jp/en/impjh/>
九州大学 / Kyushu University
(092) 642-4346
busylinguist at gmail.com



On Tue, Apr 23, 2013 at 5:19 AM, john <john at research.haifa.ac.il> wrote:

>
>
> This isn't exactly the same thing, but in Israel it's very clear
> that Arabic-speaking students have a
>
> strong tendency to study in
> English departments because the language of instruction is English
>
> and
> this means that they won't have to compete with native speakers of
> Hebrew in Hebrew-medium
>
> classes.
>
> John
>
> On 22.04.2013 21:34, s.t.
> bischoff wrote:
>
> > Hello all,
> >
> > I'd like to collect data on the role
> that English plays in student
> > decisions to attend universities where
> the primary language of instruction,
> > and the community, is not
> English, but where English plays an important
> > role (e.g. some courses
> may be taught in English, English textbooks may be
> > used, or the
> university promotes itself as offering degrees in English
> > along with
> the community language). I have looked at a number of different
> >
> "language attitude" surveys for ideas, but was curious if anyone has
> done
> > or seen research of this particular nature.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> Shannon
>
>
>



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