Milli mála - 2023, Page 125
Milli mála 15/2/2023 125
tion to the composite score of Icelandic use. In contrast to our expec-
tations, the more likely participants were to use Icelandic, the lower
they estimated their proficiency in the language.
Another strong factor was the amount of social contact with
Icelanders, where participants who reported more social contact esti-
mated their Icelandic proficiency to be higher. Next, origin interacted
significantly with proficiency, where origin from Western Europe, the
Nordic countries, or North America was related to greater Icelandic
proficiency than other origins. A university degree was related to
greater Icelandic proficiency than primary school or vocational train-
ing, and the heterogenous group with “other” education reported
higher proficiency than participants with primary school or voca-
tional training. Younger age, a longer intended stay, and being female
were related to higher proficiency in Icelandic. Residence in Iceland
(capital area vs. non-capital area), membership in clubs, associations
and societies, satisfaction with the courses, and income did not
significantly interact with proficiency in Icelandic. Most surprisingly,
the number of courses taken also had no significant relation to per-
ceived proficiency in Icelandic.
5.4 Satisfaction with Language Courses
There were 12% (N=240) of participants who had attended Icelandic
courses and who were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with the
courses. In order to compare satisfied with dissatisfied individuals we
excluded those participants who indicated they were neither satisfied
nor dissatisfied. Among all participants who had taken language
courses, there were 46% (N=891) of participants who were very dis-
satisfied or rather dissatisfied, while 20% (N=392) were rather satis-
fied or very satisfied. Figure 6 illustrates the distribution.
LARA W. HOFFMANN, YVONNE HÖLLER, MARKUS MECKL