Language Attitudes and Aptitudes & their Implications for Education

"Attitude is everything". This is true for a lot of things, but how about language learning? Do our 'perceptions', 'attitudes', and 'opinions' affect our linguistic achievement? The only way to find out is by examining the correlation between learners' attitudes towards and aptitudes in those languages. And what better place to observe this phenomenon than a truly multilingual context. Equipped with state-of-the-art data-gathering techniques Hassan Bouzidi went to find out in his home country, Morocco. The findings of his fieldwork are fascinating. As far as the local varieties are concerned, "You are what you speak!". Your rendering of the most 'innocent' consonant or vowel can determine who you are, where you belong and how others perceive you. When it comes to foreign languages, students who wish to have a good command of a language need not only hold a positive attitude towards that language, but also towards the speakers of that language and their culture. Even parents' attitudinal dispositions can have a bearing on their children's achievement in a second language. The study also draws some interesting parallels with other contexts in the west and elsewhere.