language attitudes

Numerous studies have shown the benefits of articulating the learning of, and in our own, majority and foreign languages, and experts and institutions have denounced the sensitive situation of Aragon's own languages. Despite this, Aragonese classrooms continue to be characterised by the scant prominence of these languages, especially Aragonese. Schools are one of the key factors in the process of revitalising and safeguarding minority languages. However, before undertaking any linguistic change in the educational context, it is essential to know the attitudes of both the speakers of these languages and other individuals in the society to which they belong. In order to gain an understanding of the linguistic attitudes of future Aragonese teachers of primary education, we present a study in which we highlight the considerably positive results towards Aragonese despite the minority status of this language at all levels.

Catalan is one of the Aragonese regional languages. In spite of its introduction as a school subject three decades ago in some Eastern Aragonese schools, Catalan has no presence in the teacher training degree at the University of Zaragoza. Considering the threatened status of the Aragonese regional languages and the influence of school context, and particularly teachers, on the pupils¿ linguistic attitudes, it seems necessary to know what the linguistic attitudes of future Aragonese teachers towards their regional languages are. The present study reveals very unfavorable attitudes towards Catalan by first and fourth year Aragonese students of the degree in primary education teaching.

Although it was introduced in Primary schools two decades ago, very few research has been focused on the situation and prospects of Aragonese language in the educational field. With the aim of providing a general perspective on this, we are implementing a multimetodological research project mainly focused on the lingüístic attitudes of the educational community (teachers, governing bodies, parents and pupils) located in Alto Aragón territory. We also are focusing on the attitudes of teacher training students of University of Zaragoza.

Over the last century there has been an important paradigm change in Education. In the case of Didactics of Language, this fact has favored the comprehension of the language learning process from a multifactorial view where some concepts like attitudes or motivation, not considered previously, are now understood as key factors. With the aim of contributing in this field in the case of threatened languages, we developed a quasi-experimental research focused on the influence of the use of the minority language as a medium of instruction. Results show that this way of teaching increases the motivation of children in order to learn their mother tongue and it also stimulates the use of the threatened language among them.

Linguistic diversity in Aragon has been institutionally recognized since 1982. Nevertheless, its presence in the media has been poor and questioned. Given that situation, this concern has been tackled by activists from the ‘new speakers’ sphere. With the aim of making a contribution with respect to the Aragonese language in the mass media, a qualitative research was conducted in Alto Aragón. Results show the existence of a majoriatian favorable attitude towards the presence of Aragonese in the media, particularly in the areas where the language has still some level of vitality. Nevertheless, initiatives developed by activists have a very little impact around native speakers of Aragonese, and this situation underscores the gap that exists between ‘native speakers’ and ‘new speakers’. Finally, it is also important to stress the lack of information about the regional language among the population. Thus, it is common to find the identification of Aragonese language with linguistic models tainted with prejudices. One recurring example is the ‘baturra’ identity, that has been largely widespread by films and the media during the XXth century.

Aragonese is one of the regional languages spoken in Aragon. Although it has not a cooficial status in the territory where it is spoken, there are some laws that recognize its value as one important element of the Aragonese culture. In spite of its arrival at some schools as a subject almost two decades ago, Aragonese teaching has been little developed. This fact, together with the unestable and variable Aragonese teacher corps, took us to question ourselves about the degree of job satisfaction among Aragonese teachers. With the aim of contribute to the knowledge of the situation, we performed a qualitative research study using Grounded Theory analyses. In each interview, we focused on four main themes: attitudes towards Aragonese language and its teaching among the educational community, the evolution of their own attitudes as ‘Aragonese language teachers’, the situation with regard to the available training and learning-resources, and the methodologies implemented. We used a non-probability sampling (concretely snowball sampling) because of the small size of the universe we were interested in. We collected the impressions of 15 of the 17 people that have taught Aragonese in the schools of Alto Aragon since 1997/1998. The data were analyzed under grounded theory procedures. We extracted the main topics and also their categories and subcategories directly from the data corpus and we reviewed the literature simultaneously. Our results show that there’s an overall situation of job dissatisfaction among Aragonese language teachers and there also are some clear cases burnout syndrome.

In contradistinction to other Spanish plurilingual territories, language planning has hardly been developed in Aragon until now. Nevertheless, in recent years, the institutions have shown a growing interest in this issue. Thus, it is necessary to go deep into the study of the attitudes towards the regional languages among people who would be affected by the future language policies. The main objective of our research is to contribute to this necessary preliminary analysis through the study of Primary Education students’ attitudes towards Aragonese language. In this way, we designed a quantitative research with a sample of 655 schoolchildren from the territory of historical influence of Aragonese language. The results show a general attitude favorable to the regional language and the positive influence of social, family and school contact with this tongue. In addition, the data provide new evidences regarding the weak situation of this language, confirming that only a minority of children from Alto Aragón use it habitually with their family.

INTRODUCTION. Aragonese is one of the regional languages of the Spanish autonomous community of Aragon. In spite of its introduction as a school subject two decades ago, there are still few studies focused on its position in education. Considering the influence of teachers on the pupils’ linguistic attitudes, and their major role in decision-making about the presence of Aragonese in schools, it seems necessary to examine the attitudes of future teachers towards this language and its teaching. METHOD. With this aim, qualitative research was conducted among teacher education students on the Huesca campus of the University of Zaragoza. RESULTS. The data reveal that the majority of attitudes towards Aragonese are favourable or neutral attitudes. Nevertheless, the plurilingual reality of Aragon is still invisibilized in this autonomous community’s schools. Furthermore, the majority of future teachers consider that Aragonese should be taught as a subject and this attitude does not help the language to progress from its current situation. DISCUSSION. Considering that the contact with Aragonese or other regional languages is the main factor associated with committed attitudes towards its teaching among future teachers, we cannot be optimistic about its future in the school system.