Málfríður - 15.10.2011, Blaðsíða 8

gained as students learn to work together. The patience
and perseverance developed through English study
are also of value to all young people. From what stu-
dents say it would seem that if their studies are to
be relevant they must involve choice, class participa-
tion, and learning new things. Strategies for assessing
progress and taking responsibility for learning are also
necessary. Students seem to expect English to be enter-
taining and ego-boosting. If it is not, the teacher may
be blamed and judged as either boring or incompetent.
It seems, however, that students’ self-confidence
about their ability in English may in fact not be deep-
ly-rooted. In my experience, people do not talk about
needing to “practice pronunciation”, or to improve
“communication skills” in their first language. The
very use of these terms suggests that students see
English as a foreign, not a first, language. Although
students claim to speak English with ease (three actu-
ally offered to be interviewed in English), a closer look
at how they pepper their conversation with English
reveals many single words or two-word collocations.
Some of these, such as vocabulary, communication skills,
technical terms, scientific terms, topic sentence, conclusion,
and business, may be borrowed from English textbooks.
Others are slang terms (meika sens [make sense], á sama
leveli [at the same level], piece of cake) that are widely
used in Iceland.
Students’ talk about “getting by” or “coping” in
English implies proficiency far from level C2 of the
European Language Portfolio (Europe, 2010), where a
speaker “Can express him/herself spontaneously, very
fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of
meaning even in more complex situations”. Icelandic
teenagers seem to be content with the more basic level
B1, in which language users “Can deal with most situ-
ations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where
the language is spoken” (ibid.).
Conclusion
The “four-self” model I have described is an attempt
to re-channel the discussion of motivation in lan-
guage learning into the area of relevance. It may be
that English plays such an important role in the lives
of young Icelanders today that the term “motivation”
may no longer be entirely appropriate when discussing
English learning and teaching in Iceland.
A fuller picture of the relevance of English and
English studies at school to young Icelanders should
emerge during the next few months as analysis of
data from older participants (in university study and
employment) continues.
Even though the model presented here will undoubt-
edly develop as analysis progresses, I believe that rel-
evance will open up a new dimension for research into
foreign language learning, which will benefit both stu-
dents and teachers.
identity was not compromised by English. They did
feel, however, that the responsibility for communica-
tion with foreigners lay with them and that foreign-
ers could not be expected to know Icelandic. Icelandic
remains important “for the country itself… To keep
your, you know, your origins”.
Discussion
That young Icelanders have a positive view of English
will come as a surprise to few readers. The level
of exposure to English in Iceland and its influence
escape nobody, nor does the fact that entertainment
and English seem to go hand in hand. What I have
attempted to show here, however, is that the relevance
of English at secondary school has an extremely broad
basis.
Secondary school English helps students understand
more and express themselves better. This increased
proficiency is deeply relevant to participants since
many envisage themselves living, studying or holiday-
ing abroad. For them, English constitutes a key to the
world. At home in Iceland, English is also the key to
knowledge; in areas students already find interesting
and in areas introduced through class tasks. Not know-
ing English is regarded as extraordinary and almost
ludicrous.
Relevance is evident in inferential reading skills
which are useful in other areas, and in social skills,
8 MÁLFRÍÐUR
Frá FEKÍ félagi
enskukennara
á Íslandi
Dagana 4. og 5. nóvember var hjá okkur
Annette Fisher frá höfuðstöðvum ESU (The
English Speaking Union) í Lundúnum og
þjálfaði bæði nemendur og kennara í ræðu-
mennsku. Nemendur úr FÁ, FB, MH, MK, MR
og VÍ mættu til leiks svo að von er á harðri
keppni eins og fyrri daginn í landskeppninni
sem verður haldin laugardaginn 18. febrúar
nk. Við vonum að sem flestir skólar efni til
keppni eða velji 2-3 nemendur til að taka þátt,
en þemað þá verður “The Wisdom of Youth”.
Lokafrestur í smásögu- og ljóðasamkeppni
fyrir grunnskóla er 1. desember. Sendið á Jón
Hannesson, Menntaskólanum við Hamrahlíð.
Næsta IATEFL námstefnan verður daga-
na 19. – 23. mars 2012 í Glasgow, en FEKÍ
verður með alþjóðlega ráðstefnu 8. og 9. júní í
Reykjavík á næsta ári.