Attitude of Undergraduate Pakistani Students of other Disciplines towards English as a Minor Subject: A Case Study of Undergraduate Students at Minhaj University Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

The present study is a first-hand exploration of university students' attitudes by a university lecturer teaching in various departments. The study gives an insight into the motivation level of these students towards their English language class, their expectations from the course, their feedback about the content being taught to them and their general attitude towards English as a language. Students from various departments were interviewed with open-ended questions by the teacher to get in-depth qualitative answers, as well as with a questionnaire of close-ended questions for some quantitative analysis too. The answers of the students were categorized according to research questions, and they were analyzed to find the most common answers and to get the gist of students' feedback and revise our course content and policy of English as a compulsory subject in undergraduate programs accordingly. The analysis of their answers showed that the majority of the students wanted to learn the English language but they found the course content and teaching methodologies, including classroom instructions, a bit boring. Most of the students expected grammar and spoken skills to be taught. Very few students were of the view that ESP courses with subject-specific English should be taught to them. The findings of this research are limited to students of Minhaj University Lahore.