Speaking, reading and writing in three languages. Preferences and attitudes of multilingual Malaysian students

Abstract

This study presents the main findings from a study which investigated Malaysian multilingual students' practical use of three languages with respect to reading, speaking and writing in Bahasa Malaysia (BM), English and German. In addition, two further aspects have been examined: students' motivation to learn a language, and the respondents' opinions about language learning. The sample of this study consists of three groups of students of different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds who were enrolled in three different courses (BA German, BA Malay and BA English) at a public university in Malaysia where the study was carried out. A Part IV questionnaire was used to inquire about biographical data, language use in two or three languages, learning strategies and opinions about language learning. The questionnaire responses reveal that: (1) students of the English and Malay BA course preferred English in speaking, reading and writing whereas the Malay group clearly preferred to use BM for all skills; (2) the majority of all students generally had positive attitudes towards language learning; (3) strategies used to communicate ideas in different languages are different and (4) opinions about language learning differed between the BA Malay/BA German group and the BA English group. This study should be replicated in a different multilingual context and the findings supported with larger sample sizes.

Keywords:

• multilingualism
• Malaysia
• learning strategies
• attitudes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the reviewers for their constructive and valuable comments as well as suggestions to improve the quality of this paper. My special thanks go to Agnieszka Otwinowska-Kasztelanic and Gessica de Angelis for their support.