Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Zuid Afrika

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

This thesis is a case study situated in the town of Leuven in Flanders, Belgium. It explored international students’ levels of regular engagement with Dutch and Dutch language learning. The study was based upon answers given and written comments made by international students in the Master of European studies at the University of KU Leuven. The study consisted of a survey which considered the students’ point of view with regards to engaging with Dutch, whilst in their English-taught programme. The data was collected by means of a digital survey completed by 80 individual students. The survey investigated the participants’ motivation to explore the interplay between language learning aspirations and tangible language learning. The findings of this study were interpreted in the light of Dörnyei’s research-based publications on language learning motivation, and in particular his ‘The L2 Motivational Self System’ (Dörnyei, 2005: p.105). The results of this study uncovered trends in the types of reasons these students had that pushed them to learn, or not to learn Dutch. It identified and delved deeper into the reasons behind a high level of apathy towards the learning of Dutch. It found that less than half the student participants were committed to reaching a higher level of Dutch. This was related to the fact that participants rarely reported Instrumental reasons to acquire Dutch language skills and for the majority of participants Integrative reasons did not have a strong relationship to acquiring a higher level of Dutch (Brown, 2007). The group of participants who did commit to learning more than a small quantity of Dutch primarily drew attention to Intrinsic reasons for doing so (Brown, 2007). Drawing on Dörnyei’s ideas made it apparent that participants did not forge a link between their ‘Ideal L2 Self’ and fluency in Dutch thus explaining their lack of engagement (Dörnyei, 2005: p.105). The study pointed to the use of English within pockets of society in Leuven and the way that for some participants these pockets are tied to a lower level of engagement in learning Dutch.