Background 2: Languages that the respondents taught

 

 

The background section of the questionnaire contained the following question for the respondents who were language teachers:

 

If you teach or have taught a language please complete the list below

(mark all that apply)

 

That was followed by a long drop-down list of languages from which to choose.

 

Below we will describe the background of our respondents in terms of the languages they taught. The first table shows how many respondents, overall, taught different languages. That is followed by three tables that report, region by region, the frequencies and percentages of our respondents who were engaged in teaching the three most commonly taught languages: English, German and French.

 

Table BG-2a:  The languages taught by the respondents in the survey

 

- European respondents only; all regions of Europe combined; n = 833

 

 

 

Number of respondents who taught the language …

Language taught

as a foreign language

as a second language

as mother tongue

English

620

104

76

 

 

 

 

German

131

11

9

French

124

16

11

 

 

 

 

Swedish

43

49

33

Russian

43

4

5

Spanish

38

5

12

Finnish

25

32

42

 

 

 

 

Italian

13

3

6

Greek

9

5

15

Dutch

6

8

14

Estonian

4

6

12

Slovene

3

2

17

Romanian

3

1

14

Norwegian

2

1

14

 

 

 

 

Other European language

4

7

5

Hungarian

2

2

9

Polish

1

0

10

Turkish

3

2

5

Bulgarian

2

0

7

Latvian

2

2

4

Catalan

2

2

2

Other non-European language

4

1

1

 

 

 

Table BG-2b: The number teachers in the survey who taught English

 

(FL = foreign language; L2 = second language; L1 = first language)

(note that because the same respondent could teach the language as a foreign and second language, or in other combinations, the total percentages may add up to more than 100%)

 

Region of Europe

 

 

 

English as FL

English as L2

English as L1

English total

TOTAL # of teachers from the region

Northern Europe

Count

165

27

14

206

267

 

%

62%

10%

5%

(77%)

 

Baltic region

Count

46

2

 

48

54

 

%

85%

4%

 

(89%)

 

Western Europe

Count

94

41

35

170

154

 

%

61%

27%

23%

(Over 100%)

 

Central Europe

Count

51

3

7

61

63

 

%

81%

5%

11%

(97%)

 

South-Eastern Europe

Count

121

13

5

139

132

 

%

92%

10%

4%

(Over 100%)

 

Eastern Europe

Count

108

11

3

122

114

 

%

95%

10%

3%

(Over 100%)

 

Southern Europe

Count

35

7

12

54

49

 

%

71%

14%

24%

(Over 100%)

 

TOTAL number

Count

620

104

76

800

833

% of total number of teachers (833)

%

74%

12%

9%

(96%)

 

 

 

Table BG-2c: The number teachers in the survey who taught German

 

(FL = foreign language; L2 = second language; L1 = first language)

(note that because the same respondent could teach the language as a foreign and second language, or in other combinations, the total percentages may add up to more than 100%)

 

 

Region of Europe

 

 

 

German as FL

German as L2

German as L1

German total

TOTAL # of teachers from the region

Northern Europe

Count

79

 

1

80

267

 

%

30%

 

< 1%

 

100%

Baltic region

Count

6

 

 

6

54

 

%

11%

 

 

11%

100%

Western Europe

Count

29

2

2

33

154

 

%

19%

1%

1%

21%

100%

Central Europe

Count

1

3

6

10

63

 

%

2%

5%

10%

16%

100%

South-Eastern Europe

Count

11

3

 

14

132

 

%

8%

2%

 

11%

100%

Eastern Europe

Count

3

3

 

6

114

 

%

3%

3%

 

5%

100%

Southern Europe

Count

2

 

 

2

49

 

%

4%

 

 

4%

90.7%

TOTAL number

Count

131

11

9

151

833

% of total number of teachers (833)

%

16%

1%

1%

18%

 

 

 

Table BG2-d: The number teachers in the survey who taught French

 

(FL = foreign language; L2 = second language; L1 = first language)

(note that because the same respondent could teach the language as a foreign and second language, or in other combinations, the total percentages may add up to more than 100%)

 

 

Region of Europe

 

 

 

French as FL

French as L2

French as L1

French total

TOTAL # of teachers from the region

Northern Europe

Count

52

6

3

61

267

 

%

19%

2%

1%

23%

100%

Baltic region

Count

1

 

 

1

54

 

%

2%

 

 

2%

100%

Western Europe

Count

43

4

5

52

154

 

%

28%

3%

3%

34%

100%

Central Europe

Count

8

4

3

15

63

 

%

13%

6%

5%

24%

100%

South-Eastern Europe

Count

5

1

 

6

132

 

%

4%

< 1%

 

5%

100%

Eastern Europe

Count

9

1

 

10

114

 

%

8%

< 1%

 

9%

100%

Southern Europe

Count

6

 

 

6

49

 

%

12%

 

 

12%

100%

TOTAL number

Count

124

16

11

151

833

% of total number of teachers (833)

 

15%

2%

1%

18%

 

 

 

To some extent, the distribution of the languages taught by the respondents to the ENLTA survey matches what is known about the popularity of various languages as a foreign or second language in Europe. Among our respondents, English was by far the most often taught language: 74% of our respondents who identified themselves as language teachers taught or had taught it as a foreign language, and a sizable number of them had also taught it as a second and/or first language. German and French came second but clearly behind English: some 15 – 16% of the respondents had taught these two languages as a foreign language, and some also as a first or second language.

 

The respondents also included a fair number of teachers of Swedish, Russian, Spanish and Finnish. Of these languages, Russian and Spanish are quite widely taught in Europe but the relatively big number of Finnish and Swedish teachers is due to the fact that so many of the respondents came from Finland (where Swedish is the second national language) and from Sweden.

 

All the other languages listed in Table BG-2a were taught by some 5 – 25 teachers each – languages with fewer teachers are not listed here. It can be noted that for some languages the majority of the respondents taught the language as a mother tongue rather than as a foreign or second language: Greek, Dutch, Estonian, Slovene, Romanian, Norwegian, Hungarian, Polish, and Bulgarian. Also, proportionately, many teachers of Finnish and Swedish reported they taught these languages as the first language. This is in contrast with the most widely taught languages in Europe such as English, German and French (and also Russian, Spanish and Italian) where the clear majority of respondents were foreign language teachers.

 

The accuracy of the background information above is hampered by at least two potential sources of confusion among the respondents. The first is the distinction between a ‘foreign’ and ‘second’ language, which may not always be clear in all teaching contexts, and whose exact meaning may not have been entirely clear to all respondents. The second source of different interpretations is the perspective from which the respondent answers the questions: that of the learners’ or that of the teacher’s. If you are a native speaking teacher of, say, English and you teach the language in a non-English speaking country, you could argue that you teach the language as a foreign (or sometimes, a second) language when the matter is viewed from the learners’ point of view. However, the teacher could equally well say he/she teaches English as L1 since it is his/her mother tongue.

 

While it is difficult to say to what extent the distinction between foreign and second languages may have caused confusion or difficulties for the respondents, the data show that the second issue (from whose perspective the language viewed as a mother tongue) may have caused confusion for some respondents. For example, only 31 of the 76 respondents who reported they teach English as L1 worked in the UK or Ireland which are the only European countries where one would normally expect to find many teachers who teach English as a mother tongue to native speakers of English. The same applies to teachers of French as L1: only one third of them worked in a country where French is spoken as L1 by large groups of people. An alternative explanation to why so many respondents reported teaching mother tongue despite being located in a country where the language is not spoken as L1 by a sizable proportion of the population, is that they had taught the language as L1 at some earlier point of their career – the questionnaire does not distinguish between current and past teaching. This issue is not explored further here but the fact that some of the L1 teachers (e.g. 11 of the 76 in the case of English) report teaching more than one language as L1 suggests that the FL/L2/L1 question is a complex one and may be interpreted in different ways. Future questionnaires probing the teaching of FL / L2 / L1 might wish to clarify the meaning of these terms to ensure all respondents understand them in the same way.