Milli mála - 2023, Side 132

132 Milli mála 15/2/2023
Another aspect might be the timing of language course attendance,
which has been found to be crucial to the effectiveness of language
courses (Hoehne and Michalowski 2016). We did not ask when par-
ticipants attended courses in our study, i.e., whether it was shortly
after moving to Iceland or later. This represents one of the limitations.
However, the model of language education funding in Iceland is or-
ganized in such a way that students have to pay for courses up front
and are sometimes eligible for reimbursement through their unions.
This might impact the effectiveness of language training. Specifically,
migrants who may not be able to afford to sign up for language
courses soon after arriving will miss out on the benefits of attending
courses early. As prior research on immigrants’ satisfaction with
language courses was conducted among students who received free
language training (Reichenberg and Berhanu 2018), it might be in-
sightful to investigate to what extent course fees determine students’
expectations, as well as their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the
courses.
In addition to the structure of the system to teach Icelandic as a
second language, another possible explanation for immigrants’ dis-
satisfaction with Icelandic language courses could be possible frustra-
tion arising from trying to enter the Icelandic speaking community.
This has been shown to pose a challenge for immigrants in Iceland
(Skaptadóttir and Innes 2017). Negative experiences entering the
speaking community might affect immigrants’ rating of their experi-
ences with language courses and investment in learning the language
of the receiving society (Norton and Toohey 2011).
This confirms prior studies indicating that more exposure to the
language is linked to more satisfaction with language courses
(Reichenberg and Berhanu 2018). When looking at specific groups,
we found a trend that participants from Asia, Africa, Central and
South America and other places tended to be more satisfied with the
courses compared to people from Western Europe or Nordic coun-
tries. Further follow-up on this tendency revealed that that partici-
pants answering in Lithuanian and Thai were particularly dissatisfied
whilst participants answering in Arabic were particularly satisfied.
This indicates a need for further research into possible reasons for
dissatisfaction / satisfaction among these groups.
PREDICTORS OF SATISFACTION / DISSATISFACTION WITH ICELANDIC LANGUAGE
COURSE AND ICELANDIC PROFICIENCY AMONG ADULT IMMIGRANTS IN ICELAND
10.33112/millimala.15.2.5