Cultural diversity in language learning attitudes: A study in cross-national similarities and differences in attitudes and approaches to learning English as a foreign language

Society changes and the fact that English is a global language and people are more mobile is putting pressure on national educational institutions to respond to these changes by ensuring that their young people have the English language skills to succeed. Yet despite this motivation and investment to promote English language learning, many countries are failing to achieve the results hoped for. This paper presents an ongoing research being carried out between Robin Anderson of the University of Milan-Bicocca, and Rieko Matsuoka of the National College of Nursing, Tokyo into factors affecting English language achievement in tertiary education. Previous studies of English language achievement have focused mainly on affective factors such as Willingness to Communicate (see Matsuoka, 2009) and stressed socio-cultural factors as predictors to success or failure in foreign or second language learning. However in the light of the fact that some Asian and European countries have radically improved their English language proficiency while others have not, or have even declined, this research aims to investigate socio-educational factors such as the educational context and learner attitudes as a result of previous learning experiences. By comparing and contrasting the results of the analysis of the 36-item questionnaire data of college students from Italy and Japan, the research aims to provide some answers to this question, while accepting that the whole picture is extremely complex.