Attitudinal factors and the intention to learn English in pre-vocational secondary bilingual and mainstream education*

Abstract

The effect of bilingual education (BE) on the attitude towards learning English of pupils in the first three years of pre-vocational secondary education in the Netherlands ( n  = 488) was investigated. Contrary to several other BE/CLIL studies, in the present study pupils choosing for a bilingual stream are not preselected based on their attitude or motivation. Attitude was measured using the Model of Planned Behavior (MPB). The best-fitting attitude model was one in which the perceived importance of learning English was a direct predictor of the Intention to make an effort, and not mediated by Affect. At the start of BE in year 1 (age 12), attitudinal differences between bilingual and mainstream pupils were non-significant, but after one or more years of a bilingual program, BE pupils scored significantly higher on four of the five MPB attitudinal constructs. BE appears to positively influence the attitude towards learning English of junior vocational students.