Influences on teachers' attitudes towards languages of learning and teaching: the Estonian experience

Despite Estonia being ranked among the highest performing nations in the world-wide testing of students, these encouraging results are somewhat overshadowed by the challenge to overcome the divided school system with different languages of learning that impacts crucially on students' social, academic and professional paths. The study examines teachers' (N = 312) attitudes to languages of learning and teaching through various components from a sociolinguistic perspective. The findings, gathered from a correlation and hierarchical clustering analysis, point to a strong connection between the affective (situational variable), conative (operational variable) and cognitive (situational variable) component of an attitude. The results indicate how attitude direction varies in four sub-groups of the sample when interpreted through the element of the cognitive component. The exploration of the latter underlines the necessity to consider the complexity in teachers' attitudes, as almost two-thirds of the participants share a monoglossic vision of learning and teaching languages, giving preference to either Russian or Estonian. Further research is needed to investigate how to enhance a positive attitude towards both languages of learning and teaching.