Faculty of Education - Theses

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The good language learner: students of Italian in an Australian secondary school

Foard, T. A. ( 2000)

The present study profiles nine high school good language learners in an Australian Year 8 Italian class. These learners were making good progress in assessment tasks and tests and indicating a desire to continue with their language study beyond the compulsory years. There were no obvious attributes among them to explain their success. The central focus was to examine the notion of the good language learner in the school context and to ascertain whether there exist common personal characteristics and commonly employed learning strategies. The overall objective was to identify factors which might usefully be taught to enhance the success of many other learners. The findings reveal that the support of family and friends are pre-eminent factors in the learners' motivation and success, and that the learners exhibit a range of language learning strategies. The present group was too small to be statistically significant and further research is required to check these findings. However, the study does suggest that although some important factors may lie beyond their reach, there are ways teachers may foster the success of all students through establishing a certain classroom culture and providing strategy training.