Mehrsprachigkeit in Europa: Plurilinguismo in Europa ... - EURAC

Research on the linguistic situation in the Lublin Region
4.2 Polls
The second part of our research focused on the polls conducted in the technical classes in Lublin
and Chelm. There were 40 students and four teachers involved in it. Contrary to university
students, these respondents showed virtually no interest in our study. Most of them claimed it
was boring and pointless. Although this survey was far from being representative, the conclusion
to be made is that western languages, especially English and German, defi nitely have a superior
status. Students are aware of the importance of learning them and they frequently complain
about a low standard of teaching those languages in their schools. The students also think
that foreign languages ought to be learnt at school, not at work. As regards the languages of
our neighbours, they mention mainly Russian, considering it to be a “useless language”. The
majority of the students had no opinion about Byelorussian and Ukrainian.
In conclusion, the awareness of the neighbouring languages in the Lublin region is rather low.
The lack of interest in learning them is noticeable and they are at a considerable disadvantage
in comparison with the universal languages such as English and German.
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