Teachers’ Views and Experiences on Teaching Second and Subsequent Programming Languages

ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (ICER), pp. 294–305

Abstract

Motivation More and more high schools are teaching programming, and in many cases, teachers teach multiple programming languages to the same group of students. Objectives The goal of this paper is to explore the views of high-school teachers on second and subsequent programming languages, including their motivation for teaching multiple languages, their struggles, and their use of transfer strategies when they teach their second or third programming language. Method The study consists of semi-structured interviews with 23 high-school teachers in two European countries. Results Our findings indicate that school pupils face the same issues as university students when moving from first to subsequent languages. Furthermore, the teachers’ attitudes towards second language learning are highly variable, both positive and negative, with some supportive teaching strategies used, but many less helpful ones in evidence too. Discussion Our findings suggest that the value of second language learning needs to be highlighted in teacher professional development materials more strongly and that teachers might need more support in implementing transfer strategies.

Authors 5

1. Ethel Tshukudu

   University of Glasgow

   Affiliation as printed

   University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

2. Quintin I. Cutts

   University of Glasgow

   Affiliation as printed

   University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

3. Olivier Goletti

   UCLouvain

   Affiliation as printed

   UCLouvain and Leiden University, Belgium

4. Alaaeddin Swidan

   Open University of the Netherlands

   Affiliation as printed

   Open University of the Netherlands, The Netherlands

5. Felienne Hermans Aachen

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Leiden University, The Netherlands