Learning Modern Greek as foreign language in Barcelona, Spain

Despite increasing interest over the last decade in the acquisition of Modern Greek by Spanish learners, there is thus far little to no research on the topic. This chapter aims to partly fill this gap by sketching out the profile of students taking courses in Modern Greek in Barcelona, Spain, as well as their motivation for doing so. To this end, empirical data on student motivation were collected by means of a questionnaire from 156 adult participants, all of whom were studying Modern Greek as a foreign language at one of two institutions in Barcelona, the publicly-funded Official School of Languages and the School of Modern Greek, a private institution run by the Greek community of Barcelona. Findings showed that the average age of students was somewhat higher than that seen for learners of more frequently studied foreign languages worldwide like English or French, and their motives for studying Modern Greek were largely linked to personal satisfaction or cultural interests, rather than to practical reasons. The implications of this research for the teaching of Modern Greek in this kind of educational context as well as teacher education are discussed briefly.