Málfríður - 15.10.2011, Blaðsíða 4

Introduction
“Love is all around” is how the song goes. Regardless
of how fitting this is in Iceland in 2011, making a small
change to the lyrics and claiming that “English is all
around” would not be far from the truth. Certainly
not all were in English, but it seems safe to assume
that a sizeable proportion of the 1006 tonnes of books
imported into Iceland in 2009 („Statistics Iceland,“
2011) probably was. A glance at the television sched-
ule will show that on an average day English-language
programmes on state or cable television predominate.
All but 8% of households in Iceland have access to the
Internet („Statistics Iceland,“ 2011), and 45% of all web
pages are in English (Pimienta, Prado, & Blanco, 2009).
Moving on to schools, during the autumn semester of
2009 English was studied by approximately 7000 stu-
dents at upper-secondary schools in Iceland („Statistics
Iceland,“ 2011).
Taking all this into account, I felt, having taught
English at upper-secondary level since 1989, that the
time was ripe to investigate questions such as: With so
much English “all around” what do students gain from stud-
ying English at school? What aspects of the language need
attention if students are to be competent users of English in
the future? And, going beyond the statistics available:
Just how important is English to young people today?
What I thus set out to do was to explore the concept
of relevance in English studies at secondary school in
Iceland. I believe that establishing relevance as a fac-
tor in English-learning motivation and investigating
its role in international orientation and in the develop-
ment of young Icelanders’ linguistic identity may open
up a valuable new area of study. Finding out about stu-
dents’ views on their school English studies could lead
to improvements in the curriculum, as understanding
may be gained about what students perceive as of ben-
efit to them at secondary school and what is insuffi-
ciently covered. My main research question is: What
characterises perceptions of practical and personal relevance
of secondary school English studies in Iceland?
I also wanted to allow student voices to be heard,
and to give a perspective to the learning and teaching
of English that has been little emphasised in Iceland.
In order to explore relevance from a post-secondary-
school perspective, I took interviews not only with
school students but also with university students and
young Icelanders in full-time employment.
Background, methods and analysis
In recent years, much attention has been given to the
“L2 Motivational Self System” (Dörnyei, 2005, 2009).
Dörnyei’s three-fold model encompasses the “Ideal
L2 Self” (the learner aspiring to become a successful
second-language user); the “Ought-to L2 Self” (the
learner fearing lack of success); and the “L2 Learning
Experience” which incorporates various elements con-
nected to the classroom situation.
I also took into account more recent research into
self-concept and self-regulation (Bong & Skaalvik,
2003; Miller & Brickman, 2004; Tabachnick, Miller, &
Relyea, 2008) and multilingual identity (Pavlenko,
2004; Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004). Language learn-
ers’ desire to be part of the international community
(Csizér & Kormos, 2009; Kormos, Csizér, Menyhárt,
& Török, 2008) without losing national identity is also
important (Gardner & Lambert, 1972), as is student
autonomy, which has been discussed in Iceland by
Hafdís Ingvarsdóttir (2004) and Lefever (2005).
Although I have taken a total of 39 interviews which
have produced approximately 26 hours of oral data,
this article focuses on 16 interviews taken with stu-
dents aged 18–21 at eight secondary schools in differ-
ent parts of Iceland, Most of the students have com-
pleted three or four terms of English, although some
have taken more. Four interviews are quoted from in
English translation.
In the quotations from interviews “…” represents
words omitted from a longer passage of speech.
Quoted words in italics indicate that the words were
spoken in English. Quotations in normal font have
been translated from Icelandic. Although my objective
has been to understand the experience of students at
secondary school, the interviews cannot be expected
4 MÁLFRÍÐUR
Secondary school English and its
relevance for students
Anna Jeeves er aðjunkt og
doktorsnemi við Háskóla Íslands
E-mail: ajeeves@hi.is
Anna Jeeves.