Aspects Influencing The Perception Of Another Foreign Language In Lower Secondary School Pupils

Abstract

There are a lot of general aspects impacting the sphere of foreign language teaching, there are also numerous references to them. However, the sphere of perception of foreign languages is rather neglected. Perception is thoroughly studied by psychology; there are numerous studies of visual and tactile perception. But the research in perception of heard information given in a foreign language is insufficient. Such a kind of research deals with a subjectively tinged and interdisciplinary phenomenon. The text presents so far gained results of our research which focuses on ways in which various foreign languages are perceived by learners aged 12-14. The aspects which have direct or indirect impacts on perception of foreign languages are listed. These aspects are inextricably linked with the sphere of foreign language teaching. If an individual perceives a foreign language negatively, s/he cannot be expected to have a positive attitude to learning it. The first factors perceived by an individual hearing a foreign language are usually the speech melody, intonation and rhythm. The contents of the heard text are focused on in a later phase since certain linguistic knowledge of the grammar system of the target language is needed. So far we have not revealed all the factors impacting the perception of different languages. However, we believe that the presented results of our research will be fruitful and will help to fill in the existing gaps in this research sphere.