Learners of English and Their Attitudes Towards and Beliefs About Multilingualism

This chapter addresses recent developments in research on two concepts: firstly, attitudes towards varieties or speakers of English, and secondly, beliefs about learning English as a second language (L2 is used in this chapter to refer to any additional language) held by learners, and importantly, from quite a novel perspective, namely, from the perspective of multilingualism. L2 learners of English already have other languages in their repertoires and thus they are multilingual by a current definition. The two concepts play an important role in the L2 learning process and outcomes, and they are closely related to learners’ autonomy, motivation, learning strategies, and actions in the classroom as well as to their emotions and identities, among other learner characteristics. The chapter first reviews recent literature on the two concepts that are crucial in understanding how learners approach the L2 learning process and how their teachers teach and make decisions in the language classroom. The chapter continues by illustrating how TESOL teachers could address the two concepts as part of their daily classroom activities and offers practical suggestions for action research that they could engage in to raise their students’ awareness of attitudes towards and beliefs about becoming or being multilingual in a globalized world. To these ends, the chapter suggests applying a variety of research methods, including questionnaires, interviews, visualizations of various kinds to challenge some traditional notions regarding multilingualism (such as monolingual bias and native-speakerism) in the contexts of teaching TESOL.