Abstract:
Attitudes towards learning and teaching a subject play a major role in determining
individuals' success or failure in any educational programme. Hence, this paper
delves into the attitudes of university and non-university students towards teaching/
learning English in Iran. To this end, thirteen MA and forty-three BA students
majoring in English, twenty-nine non-university students attending language
institutes, and twenty-nine university students majoring in a field other than English
were recruited to participate in the study. they were both male and female and were
requested to complete a-five point Likert-scale attitudes towards teaching/ learning
English questionnaire. The analysis of elicited data indicated that overall students
had positive attitudes towards teaching/ learning English. t-test analyses revealed no
significant difference neither between males and females nor among different age
groups and nor between non-English majors and other groups in terms of their
attitudes towards teaching/ learning English. The paper concludes that paying
attention to students‟ attitudes towards the subject being taught/learnt is of utmost
importance. It also highlights the usefulness of such research for every
teaching/learning context. The results can be used in a wide range of contexts from
the very stage of designing to the final evaluation stage of programme design and
implementation. Further findings and implications are discussed in the paper.
Machine summary:
Ibnian (2012) also investigated the effect of using group-work technique on developing the attitudes of 64 non-English major students at the World Islamic Sciences and Education University towards learning English as a foreign language.
Since English versus non-English students may benefit differently from different methods of teaching English as well as from different classroom materials, educational policy makers and curriculum developers should pay due attention to these distinct needs of the learners and various goals for which they learn English which necessitate varying procedures for delivering courses and different ways for fostering motivation to boost positive attitudes towards the target language.
The results of the present study can also offer advice to English language teacher-training courses wherein among the various subjects, principles of educational psychology would also be directly discussed and these teachers would be encouraged to learn how to deal with their male and female students, the negative attitudes of students and how to assist them in coping with these affective filters in an authentic and independent manner, which will in turn make students life-long learners.
The results of the present study can also offer advice to English language teacher-training courses wherein among the various subjects, principles of educational psychology would also be directly discussed and these teachers would be encouraged to learn how to deal with their male and female students, the negative attitudes of students and how to assist them in coping with these affective filters in an authentic and independent manner, which will in turn make students life-long learners.