Abstract

The poor outcome of ESL learning in Japan has been acknowledged by both foreign and Japanese linguists and ESL teachers for nearly a century. Attitudinal and affective factors such as ethnocentrism, Japanese cultural traits, and values and beliefs expressed through modern myths were conjectured by several linguists and researchers as a cause for this phenomenon. Many attitude studies in the past have investigated the relationships between L2 learning and integrative and instrumental motivation, but there are few studies focusing on L2 learning, ethnocentrism and traits. This study is a socio-linguistic investigation to determine whether or not ethnocentrism, Japanese cultural/personality traits, values and beliefs influence ESL learning among Japanese living in Montreal. These factors were investigated using a questionnaire that measures the degree to which Japanese subjects agreed with statements expressing ethnocentric views about Japanese culture and language, traits, proverbs and modern myths. The hypothesis is that these factors are negatively correlated with English proficiency. The conclusion of this study offers some evidence supporting the hypothesis in some groups of subjects, but not in others. Such a study of social factors and L2 learning has limitations, but these results may have implications for teaching ESL to the Japanese.