English with reference to the Cultural and National Identity of Private School Students in Erbil

الملخص

This article discusses the sociolinguistic attitudes of Kurdish parents from Erbil towards their children’s bilingualism in those private schools where English is the main language of the school. Studies have shown that the attitude of the learners towards second language learning has an impact on their mother language development. In such a context, children’s increased use of English compared to their limited use of their native language has become a prevalent phenomenon. As a consequence, despite the fact that Kurdish is the first language of the children and even the region, children have created their own speech communities in which their social engagement with classmates and teachers is in English inside and outside of school.

This study attempts to explore the reasons behind the motivations of those parents in choosing English medium schools and their attitudes towards the educational experiences of their children. By virtue of parents playing a crucial role not only in having influence on the academic progress of their children but also in changing the attitudes of their children towards the importance of the first language, it is also important to examine the parents’ attitudes towards educational systems and language learning of their children as a whole. The last question examines whether preferring learning a second language over a mother tongue does not put the Kurdish language in danger in the future, and how the role of government may be considered in this regard.