“Family education is the cornerstone”: Chinese parents’ perspectives on young learners’ attitudes and motivation in EFL learning.

Abstract

Young learners’ attitudes and motivation are believed to be important predictors of foreign language learning outcomes (Csizér & Dörnyei, 2005; Mihaljević Djigunović & Nikolov, 2019; Nikolov & Timpe-Laughlin, 2020; Schwartz, 2022). For instance, Pfenninger and Singleton (2017) argued that developing positive attitudes and motivation toward language learning is the major benefit of an earlier age of onset. However, there is a dearth of studies in the context of China, although a large population of Chinese children start learning English as a foreign language (EFL) at a very early age. Adopting the Socio-Educational Model (Gardner, 1985, 2019) and the Socio-Dynamic Theory (Dörnyei, 2005; Ushioda, 2009) and using a mixed-methods approach, this study investigated Chinese parents’ perspectives on their young children’s EFL attitudes and motivation. To this end, we collected data from 521 Chinese parents from 23 different provinces of Mainland China, which we analysed by means of correlations, multiple linear regression models and thematic analysis. The results revealed a strong correlation between parental factors and young learners’ EFL attitudes and motivation. Specifically, a considerable amount of the variation in EFL attitudes and motivation among young learners in China was explained by parental factors, age of onset and intensity of exposure. Chinese parents also reported that their children’s EFL attitudes and motivation were constantly changing and they believed that in the process of change, family, school and extracurricular training appeared to play different roles.