English and other languages : an attitude study among upper secondary school students

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to find out what upper secondary school students views are on the English language and other foreign languages. The importance of the English language, the lingua franca of our time, is evident and more and more people around the world speak English. Knowledge of languages is essential today, the European Commission has put on the member states to improve their citizens’ language skills to the year 2010 and this includes English as well as other languages spoken in the EU. Students in this survey think that it is important to know English to be able to communicate with others. Other foreign language skills are considered good but for the majority of the students not so necessary. The survey also shows that female students study more languages and at higher levels than the male students and there is also a difference in language studies between the programmes in upper secondary school.Validerat; 20101217 (root