Comparing individual differences in successful and less successful language learners: A case study of four Asian students in Catalonia

Abstract

Immigrant adolescents in Catalonia are faced not only with two linguistic challenges but also difficulties adjusting to an unfamiliar mainstream community. This is a case study of four Asian students aged 15-16 who entered a Catalan multilingual secondary school in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat midway the school year 9-12 months before the study was conducted. The goal of the research was to explore the most obvious individual differences influencing the four Asian newcomers’ learning of Catalan. This study focuses on an up to date topic since it deals with multicultural classrooms and SLA but it is also a unique contribution to the field for two reasons. (1) It focuses on two successful and two unsuccessful Catalan learners in a Spanish dominant area. (2) The case study approach was not based on a set of battery tests but rather on in-depth participants, relatives and teachers interviewing, both classroom and playground observations, an oral proficiency task, first impressions upon arriving in Catalonia, students’ grades and school’s demographic information and fieldnotes. This methodology allowed for a narrative analysis which provided rich data to describe each learner profile and conclude that even though the difficult access to Catalan, the motivational concept of “ideal-self” (Dörnyei, 2005) plays the most significant role from all the factors analysed.