Learning another foreign language at Ueh: Investment, consumption or identity?

Abstract

Perceptions toward learning foreign languages play an instrumental role in forming learners’ decisions and directions. So far, this research area has only been popular in international contexts, and little research has investigated learners’ insights in learning languages other than English (LOTEs) in Vietnam. The present study set out with the aim of examining Vietnamese English-majored undergraduates’ perceptions toward LOTEs, as well as the forming process of their beliefs and identities. The data included questionnaire responses of 97 participants who are English-majored undergraduates at UEH University and semi-structured interviews with seven of those who completed the questionnaires. Research findings shed light on how participants' imagined identities govern their beliefs in learning LOTEs. These findings further support the idea of Norton (2016), who argued that imagined identity and aspirational goals impact investment in language learning. Furthermore, the results added another perspective in relation to LOTE learning beliefs: consumption, corroborating the thesis of the previous work (Chen et al., 2020). Our research provides reference contributions for lecturers and students to orient teaching and learning LOTEs. Based on that, learners can make appropriate decisions regarding their career aspirations and future desires. Future research in the field might be conducted with larger sample size and more gender-balanced for diversified and definitive results.