The Psycholinguistic Background of L1 Polish Students of L3 Spanish

Martín Testa

University of Warsaw, Poland

Abstract

The study was aimed at exploring the psycholinguistic background of Polish students of L3 Spanish. Two groups of students (B1 and B2) were asked to fill out a survey with questions related to proficiency, self-confidence, language identity, usefulness, prestige, stress, sound, and frequency of use. The last part of the survey included some questions about psychotypology, as well. In terms of foreign language anxiety, Spanish was ranked by most of the students as the most stressful language. A follow-up session was carried out with them in order to try to discuss the reasons behind their choices, and their feedback helped to shed some light on the topic and raised further questions about the role and impact of Polish teachers of Spanish in Poland.

Keywords:

sociolinguistics, stress, foreign language anxiety, L3 Spanish, third language acquisition, multilingualism, psychotypology