Learning Arabic in Scandinavia: Motivation, metacognition, and autonomy

Raees Calafato

doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2020.102943

Abstract

Rising levels of immigration, especially from the Middle East and North Africa, have led to significant socio-demographic changes and increasing levels of linguistic diversity in Scandinavian countries. In parallel with these developments, a growing number of students in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have started to learn Arabic at school and university. Learning Arabic presents both challenges and opportunities. For example, it furthers the goal of states to develop multilingual citizens, yet it also tasks educational institutions with designing Arabic courses that reflect the interests and aspirations of their students and provide them with the tools to make sustained progress. In order to accomplish this, it is important to first understand what motivates students to learn Arabic and the extent to which they use self-regulatory strategies to enhance their learning. This article reports on a study that explored the self-regulation and language learning motivation of university students (N=96) learning Arabic in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. The findings revealed that the Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish participants differed statistically significantly in their motivation to learn Arabic. Statistically significant gender differences were also found with respect to the participants’ self-regulation. The study provides important insights into student metacognition, autonomy, and motivation to learn non-European languages in the Scandinavian context.

Highlights

Geopolitical developments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have had a profound effect on a number of countries, especially those in Europe, where hundreds of thousands of new immigrants, many of them Arabic speakers, have sought asylum, work, and a new life
The factor loadings indicated that the items clustered based on (1) the participants’ job-related goals, (2) a more intrinsic set of reasons for learning Arabic, (3) a desire to work in the MENA region and understand Arabic culture, society, and Islam, which was labeled posture, (4) reactance, autonomous learning strategies, and metacognition
The learning of non-European languages other than English (LOTEs) will likely continue to acquire greater importance as the world shifts to a multipolar world order where proficiency in English alone will no longer be enough to secure one's future

Summary

Introduction

Geopolitical developments in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have had a profound effect on a number of countries, especially those in Europe, where hundreds of thousands of new immigrants, many of them Arabic speakers, have sought asylum, work, and a new life. Governments, and other stakeholders that seek to encourage people to become multilingual, obtaining research on their language learning motivation (LLM) is vital because it provides insights into how people plan to use the languages they learn Universities can use such information to design language courses that more accurately reflect their students’ wider educational and life goals, thereby creating synergies between their language courses and the broader range of degree programs they offer. Too, can be improved in much the same way

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