PERCEPTIONS AND ATTITUDES OF FILIPINO COLLEGE LEARNERS TOWARD SPANISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE.

The study found out the attitudes of the Filipino learners toward Spanish. Anchored on Gardner and Macintyre?s (1993) Socio-educational Model that looks at among others, the students? attitudes toward a foreign language, the study hypothesized that there is no significant difference among the varied perceptions of the students toward Spanish; and, there is no significant difference among the varied attitudes of the students toward Spanish. Descriptive statistics ? frequency, counts, and percentages and the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to determine the significant differences among the perceptions and attitudes of students. English was chosen by the participants as the most important language to learn and Spanish as their last choice thinking of these as useful languages when they go abroad to work. They perceived that Spanish is a ?difficult? language. Majority thought of it as a ?powerful,? ?productive,? and ?best? language. Overall result of the study showed that the hypothesis that says there is no significant difference among the varied perceptions of the students toward Spanish is rejected. The alternative hypothesis is thus accepted. This means that the participants had varying degrees of perception towards Spanish. It is suggested that Spanish, though not anymore familiar to the new generation Filipinos, remains a highly-esteemed language. The positive findings reflected the Filipino?s interest in learning a new language for the purpose of going abroad. It also indicates their compliance to learning foreign languages as part of their program in college.