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Attitudes of Secondary School Counselors and Superintendents toward Foreign Language Teaching: A Descriptive Study
Author(s) -
Beard Joe Leonard
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
foreign language annals
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.258
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1944-9720
pISSN - 0015-718X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1944-9720.1984.tb01702.x
Subject(s) - foreign language , descriptive research , psychology , pedagogy , secondary education , mathematics education , state (computer science) , political science , sociology , computer science , social science , algorithm
This study, conducted recently in the State of Illinois, describes the attitudes of public secondary school superintendents and guidance counselors toward the study of foreign languages. Concluding statements based upon the analysis of the data revealed that: 1) the majority of superintendents and counselors generally do support the study of foreign languages in the public schools; 2) secondary school counselors exhibit a significantly more favorable attitude toward foreign languages than secondary school superintendents; 3) attitudes toward the study of foreign languages do not vary with the size of school districts; 4) the majority of the two groups of educators believe that every student should be “encouraged” to take a foreign language; however, most educators believe that every student should not be “required” to take a foreign language; and 5) the majority of the secondary school educators believe that cultural understanding is the major justification for taking a foreign language course.