L1 Speaker, L2 Speaker, or Both? A Diachronic Investigation into Attitudes of University Students in Icelandic as a Second Language towards Their Teachers

Abstract

This paper investigates the attitudes of students enrolled in Icelandic as a Second Language at the University of Iceland towards native (L1) and non-native (L2) teachers. It presents a diachronic comparison of data collected through surveys in the academic years 2018/2019 and 2023/2024. To ensure reliable comparability, an identical methodology was employed in both studies. The surveys aimed to explore whether teacher nativeness matters to students and whether their preferences vary across specific variables—such as attitudes towards teaching, language and country, language-related issues, self-perceived language proficiency, learning strategies, and motivation. The results from the two studies are presented in parallel, comparing them and providing an overview of responses across all aspects covered by the surveys. Outcomes of the studies reveal that, while the majority of participants do not express a strong preference for either L1 or L2 teachers, the responses from those who do indicate a preference are distributed somewhat differently between the academic years 2018/2019 and 2023/2024, with attitudes appearing more evenly balanced between the two teacher groups in the later study. In some cases, these differences appear to align more closely with findings from similar research conducted abroad.