After establishing that vocabulary is a reliable indicator of language proficiency, Sigríður Ólafsdóttir (2010) found that the Icelandic vocabulary of children residing in Iceland from between two years and up to seven years is not significantly different. In other words, after two years in Iceland, their language does not seem to grow much. This lack of second language growth seems to be at odds with findings in other countries. For example, although it may take immigrant children 10 years to be able to use “academic English” as well as their English-speaking peers, it has been shown that many immigrant children attain oral proficiency in 3 to 5 years and academic language proficiency in 4 to 7 years (e.g. Collier et al, 1989; Cummins, 1981a; Hakuta et al, 2000). But whether it is 7 years or 10 years that is required to attain equality with peers, we would expect to see evidence of significant progress between years 2 and 7. This may not be the rule in Iceland.

Of course, there are many possible factors that could explain the apparent slow pace of second language acquisition among many immigrant children in Iceland, including shortcomings of various sorts in their Icelandic schooling, or lack of care in maintaining their first language—which has been shown to be a key to academic success (e.g. Cummins, 1981b; Romaine, 1995). This paper reports on one possible factor:  immigrant children’s motivation to learn Icelandic. It was decided that before designing and undertaking expensive and lengthy studies to determine educational solutions, it was crucial to establish that these children were actually motivated to learn Icelandic, or were, as Krashen says, “open” to it (1981, p. 21).

Motivation “determines the extent of active, personal involvement in L2 learning” (Oxford & Shearin, 1994, p.12) and thus is a crucial precondition for learning to take place. But motivation in second language acquisition “is more complex than merely wanting to learn the language” (Gardner 2007, p.10).  Most crucial within the concept of motivation is what Gardner calls being “integratively motivated”, meaning that

a.   the individual is motivated to learn the other language

b.   the individual is learning the language because of a genuine interest in communicating with members of the other language (either because of positive feelings toward that community or members of that community, or because of a general interest in other groups)

c.   the individual has a favourable attitude toward the language learning situation.

(Gardner, 2007, p. 19)

Collier, V.P. & Thomas, W.P. (1989). How Quickly can Immigrants Become Proficient in School English? Journal of Educational Issues of Language Minority Students, 5, 26-38 Cummins, J. (1981a). Age on arrival and immigrant second language learning in Canada: A reassessment. Applied Linguistics, 2, 132-149 Cummins, J. (1981b). The role of primary language development in promoting educational success for language minority students. In Schooling and language minority students: A theoretical framework (pp. 3-49). California State Department of Education. Gardner, R.C. (2007). Motivation and Second Language Acquisition, Porta Linguarum, 8, 9-20 Hakuta, K., Goto, Y. & Witt, D. (2000). How Long Does It Take English Learners to Attain Proficiency? The University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute Policy Report 2000-1. http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/13w7m06g. Retrieved February 19, 2010. Krashen, S.D. (1981). Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning. http://www.sdkrashen.com/SL_Acquisition_and_Learning/i.html Retrieved February 22, 2010. Oxford, R. & Shearin, J. (1994) Language Learning Motivation: Expanding the Theoretical Framework The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 78, No. 1. 12-28 Romaine, S. (1995). Bilingualism. 2nd edition. Oxford: Blackwell. Sigríður Ólafsdóttir (2010). Íslenskur orðaforði íslenskra grunnskólanema sem eiga annað móðurmál en íslensku. Unpublished master’s thesis. University of Iceland.