Science Fair Projects on Foreign Language Learning

Purpose of Experiment: As I sit in my high school Spanish class, I continue to struggle with learning a second language. In fact, I struggled with this since I started learning Spanish in middle school. I began to wonder if other students struggled with this subject as I did. This motivated me to do a social science experiment to investigate whether age or gender affects the ability of middle school students to learn a second language.

Abstract

There are six thousand human languages, and all have their own sounds, grammar, and written symbols. Learning a first language seems effortless, as even a one year old can speak meaningful words. By the time he finishes high school, that same child will have learned five thousand new words each year.

Yet, learning a second language after early childhood is much more difficult. Much research has looked at the best time and way to teach a second language. The purpose of this study was to look at whether age or gender affected the ability of middle school students to learn a second language. Given the research, the hypothesis was that females would be more successful than males, and that younger children would be more successful than older ones.

Results showed that although males did better than females in their ability to learn the second language, both groups did poorly. When analyzed by age, eighth graders did better than seventh or sixth graders, but all groups did poorly. The data was analyzed further, by breaking the quiz down into the spoken word verses written word parts. All groups did better with learning the spoken word over the written word, but all groups still did poorly.

The results of this experiment can be applied to education to determine the best time and way to learn a second language. Results showed how difficult it is for middle school students to learn a second language, and the literature shows that foreign language instruction should begin at a much earlier age. If started later, middle school students need more help in learning how to quickly memorize many new words. Learning a second language is important in our world, where we need to peacefully interact with people of different languages and cultures.

Hypothesis

If age and gender affect the ability of middle school students to learn a second language, then girls will do better than boys, and sixth grade girls will do better than older girls, and sixth grade boys will do better than older boys.

Materials

• Elementary level foreign language book


• Digital video camera and DVD


• Pictures illustrating the selected foreign language words


• Posters, markers


• Permission form for testing human subjects


• Copies of written test, pencils


• Television


• Middle school students from sixth through eighth grade


• Answer key to written test

Continue to the background research by going to steps to social science fair projects...

What other social science fair projects are you interested in researching?