University of Groningen Retention and attrition of Irish as a second language Murtagh, Lelia IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite from it. Please check the document version below. Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Publication date: 2003 Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database Citation for published version (APA): Murtagh, L. (2003). Retention and attrition of Irish as a second language: a longitudinal study of general and communicative proficiency in Irish among second level school leavers and the influence of instructional background, language use and attitude/motivation variables. s.n. Copyright Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). 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Download date: 06-10-2021 Retention and Attrition of Irish as a Second Language RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN Retention and Attrition of Irish as a Second Language A longitudinal study of general and communicative proficiency in Irish among second level school leavers and the influence of instructional background, language use and attitude/motivation variables Proefschrift ter verkrijging van het doctoraat in de Letteren aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen op gezag van de Rector Magnificus, dr. F. Zwarts, in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 2 oktober 2003 om 14:15 uur door Lelia Murtagh geboren op 5 december 1959 te Longford, Ierland Promotor: Prof. dr. C.L.J. de Bot Co-promotor: Dr. F.W.P. van der Slik Beoordelingscommissie: Prof. dr. A. van Essen Prof. dr. S. Reker Prof. dr. S. Zimmer (Universiteit van Bonn) ©2003 Lelia Murtagh, Dublin “Loss is a magical preservative. Time stops at the point of severance, and no subsequent impressions muddy the pictures you have in mind.” From Lost in Translation by Eva Hoffman, Minerva, London, 1991: 115 Contents Acknowledgements xi 1 Background to the study 1 1.1 Introduction 1 1.2 General outline of the dissertation 1 1.3 The Irish language in Ireland: Historical context 3 1.3.1 A short history of the language 3 1.3.2 Language shift in Ireland: 11th-20th century 4 1.4 The schools as a means of promoting Irish 6 1.5 Ability, use and attitudes to Irish in the adult population 8 1.5.1 Ability in Irish and use of Irish: Census data 8 1.5.2 Ability in Irish and use of Irish: Language survey data 9 1.5.3 Attitudes to Irish in the general population 11 1.5.4 Attitude/Motivation among school learners of Irish 12 1.6 Immersion education in Ireland today 13 1.7 Irish in the Leaving Certificate Programme 15 1.7.1 The established Leaving Certificate Programme and Examination 15 1.7.2 The Leaving Certificate Course in Irish 16 1.7.3 The Leaving Certificate Examination in Irish 18 1.7.4 Leaving Certificate candidates’ overall time spent learning Irish 20 2 Theoretical and empirical issues in second language attrition 23 2.1 Emergence of a new field of study 23 2.1.1 A typology for research on language attrition 24 2.2 Three studies of attrition of school acquired L2 skills 24 2.2.1 Bahrick’s study: Attrition of L2 receptive and productive skills 25 2.2.2 Weltens’s 1989 study: French receptive skills 25 2.2.3 Grendel’s 1993 study: Attrition of lexical items in French 26 2.3 Linguistic aspects of second language attrition 27 2.3.1 The Regression Hypothesis 27 2.3.2 Evidence for Regression and Linguistic Features Hypotheses 27 2.3.3 Linguistic skills affected in attrition 29 2.4 Rate of attrition, initial proficiency and critical threshold 30 2.4.1 Rate of attrition 30 2.4.2 Critical Threshold 30 viii Contents 2.5 Retrieval failure theory: Lost but not gone 31 2.5.1 A psycholinguistic model of bilingual processing in attrition 31 2.5.2 Lexical retrieval 32 2.5.3 Relearning 33 2.6 Relevant variables in the study of second language retention 34 2.6.1 Attitude/motivation and use: The work of Gardner and colleagues 34 2.6.2 The role of social, institutional and cultural factors in maintenance 36 2.7 Methodological issues in second language attrition research 38 3 Design of the study 41 3.1 Introduction 41 3.2 Selection procedures and samples 41 3.2.1 Instructional background of students 41 3.2.2 The Initial Sample 42 3.2.3 The Target Sample 43 3.2.4 The Final Sample 43 3.2.5 Method and procedure 45 3.3 The research instruments 46 3.3.1 Student Questionnaire 46 3.3.2 The Irish C-Test (ICT) 50 3.3.3 Test of Proficiency in Spoken Irish (TPSI) - Listening Section 52 3.3.4 Test of Proficiency in Spoken Irish - Speaking Section 54 3.3.5 Participant’s Questionnaire at Time 2 59 4 Proficiency in Irish, attitude/motivation and use among Leaving Certificate students: Baseline data 61 4.1 Introduction 61 4.2 Student Questionnaire 61 4.2.1 Student Questionnaire: Reliability 61 4.2.2 Student Questionnaire: Results 62 4.3 Item analysis and reliability of the Irish language tests 76 4.3.1 Classical test theory 76 4.3.2 Item Response Theory (IRT) 76 4.4 The Irish C-Test (ICT) 77 4.4.1 ICT: Item analysis and reliability 77 4.4.2 Irish C-Test: Analysis of scores 81 4.5 Test of Proficiency in Spoken Irish (TPSI): Listening Test 85 4.5.1 TPSI-Listening: Item analysis and reliability 85 4.5.2 TPSI-Listening: Analysis of test scores 86 4.6 Test of Proficiency in Spoken Irish (TPSI): Speaking Test 89 4.6.1 TPSI-Speaking: Item analysis and reliability 89 Contents ix 4.6.2 TPSI-Speaking: Analysis of test scores 90 4.7 Leaving Certificate Examination grades awarded 94 4.8 Student background and achievement: Correlations results 95 4.8.1 Gender, instructional background and achievement 95 4.8.2 Relationship between student background and achievement 97 4.9 Multiple regression analyses 100 4.9.1 Building a model 100 4.9.2 Regression models: Results 102 4.10 Summary and discussion of main findings 104 4.10.1 Ability in Irish 104 4.10.2 Irish Attitude/Motivation and Use of Irish outside school 105 4.10.3 Relating attitudinal and use factors to achievement in Irish 106 5 Retention of Irish skills: The longitudinal study 109 5.1 Introduction 109 5.2 The interview at Time 2 109 5.3 Profile of the Final Sample at Time 1 110 5.3.1 Achievement in Irish at Time 1 110 5.3.2 Self-assessed ability in spoken Irish and use of Irish at Time 1 111 5.3.3 Attitude/Motivation to learning Irish at Time 1 113 5.4 Time 2: Retrospective views on learning Irish 114 5.4.1 Reasons for choosing course level in Irish for Leaving Certificate 114 5.4.2 Benefits of having learned Irish at secondary level 115 5.5 Comparing background data at Time 2 and Time 1 117 5.5.1 Self-assessed Ability to Speak Irish (SASI) 117 5.5.2 Use of Irish at home and general opportunity for use 118 5.5.3 Use of Irish in four skill areas at Time 2 120 5.6 Relationships between background factors 124 5.7 Achievement at Time 1 & Time 2: Attrition or Retention? 126 5.7.1 Irish C-Test (ICT) 126 5.7.2 Test of Proficiency in Spoken Irish: Listening Section 128 5.7.3 Test of Proficiency in Spoken Irish (TPSI): Speaking section 128 5.7.4 Test of Proficiency in Spoken Irish (TPSI): Total Score 129 5.7.5 Correlations between achievement and background variables 131 5.7.6 Repeated measurement analyses 133 5.7.7 Visual representation of interactions between variables 134 5.8 Regression analyses: Explaining achievement at Time 2 140 5.8.1 Building a regression model 140 5.8.2 Regression models: Results 142 5.9 Final Sample participants’ comments and profiles 142 5.9.1 Participants’ comments 143 5.9.2 Profiles of participants with greatest ‘gains’ and ‘losses’ 143 5.10 Summary and discussion 145 x Contents 5.10.1 Background profile of the Final Sample 145 5.10.2 Change in achievement over time: Test results 146 5.10.3 Significant factors in maintenance of Irish 147 5.10.4 A short qualitative analysis of the data 148 6 Summary and conclusions 149 6.1 Introduction 149 6.2 Methodology 149 6.2.1 Design of the study and participants 149 6.2.2 The instruments 150 6.3 Attitude/motivation, use and proficiency in Initial Sample 152 6.3.1 Irish Attitude/Motivation and use of Irish 152 6.3.2 Achievement in Irish at Time 1 and background variables 153 6.3.3 Conclusions from the first phase of the study 155 6.4 Retention of Irish skills among secondary school leavers 157 6.4.1 Background information on the Final Sample 157 6.4.2 Assessing change in achievement over time in the Final Sample 158 6.4.3 Significant factors in maintenance of Irish 159 6.4.4 A qualitative analysis of participants’ comments and profiles 160 6.4.5 Conclusions from the second phase of the study 161 6.5 Implications of findings for Irish language teaching policies 163 6.5.1 Establishing clearly defined goals for the language learner 163 6.5.2 Course design factors in proficiency and retention 164 6.5.3 Participation in the Irish language speech community 165 6.6 Possibilities for further research 166 Bibliography 167 List of appendices 179 Samenvatting (Dutch summary) 239 Achoimre (Irish summary) 245 Curriculum vitae 251 Acknowledgements This book is the product of a three-year empirical research project which began in the Summer of 1999.