The Mother Tongue and the Foreign Language Correlation in the Primary School in Croatia

Emina Berbic Kolar,Tanja Duric

doi:10.13189/lls.2016.040101

Abstract

The paper provides an account of the research on the acquisition of English as the first foreign language and Croatian as the mother tongue among young learners in Croatia. Children become polyglot at the earliest age; they start going to school by speaking their home idiom, and then they learn standard Croatian and the foreign language. English and Croatian, belonging to different language groups, feature different linguistic features, but they still have mutual aspects that can enhance language learning. This hypothesis is examined in the research by observing English and Croatian classes and school success. There are external and internal factors that influence language acquisition, in the paper pupils' attitudes towards language learning are emphasized. The hypothesis is that pupils who are positively oriented towards language learning are more successful when acquiring the language. Research results show that acquisition of both English and Croatian at young age is more or less equally successful, while it decreases in higher grades. It has been indicated that the positive attitude toward language learning can affect successful language acquisition. Therefore it is important to constantly research ways to improve language competence and performance. The school as an important factor has a major role in it.

Highlights

Multilingualism, as an important feature of the modern society, is defined as an individual ability to use more than two languages in communication
The paper deals with the reception of English as the foreign language that is learnt in Croatian schools and Croatian as the mother tongue in lower grades of the primary school
Arithmetic means of students’ grades in Croatian and English at the end of each school year show that the success in Croatian and English gradually decreases through years, while the fall is more stressed in English, which can be seen from the success curve (Table 3 and Figure 2)

Summary

Introduction

Multilingualism, as an important feature of the modern society, is defined as an individual ability to use more than two languages in communication It starts to develop in early age, first as the vertical multilingualism, which refers to learning idioms of the mother tongue (L1). The foreign language is the language that is learnt at schools in the country where it is not official It is learnt in an unnatural context, the ones who learn it often do not have the opportunity to use it on various occasions. This kind of multilingualism perception is important in order to understand the foreign language reception process and relation between the mother tongue and the foreign language in school environment. English is most spread foreign language that is learnt in schools, and German is the second most spread in Croatian schools

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion