Causes of English Major Student-Teachers' Classroom Participation Reluctance at Kuwait University

Abstract

Classroom participation plays an important role in developing students' oral fluency, and general understanding of the subject content. However, there is a noticeable participation reluctance among English major student-teachers in the College of Ed-ucation at Kuwait University. The present study investigates the causes of such a reluc-tance. The study adopted the descriptive analytical methodology applying a 4-Likert scale to respond to a thirty questionnaire items. Two domains were covered: the English language professor, and the English major student-teachers. The sample covered a total of 150 English major student-teachers 30 males and 120 females. The study revealed significant differences α=0.05 in the means between the participants according to gender in favor of females-student teachers and according to high school specialization in favor of Arts specialization. However, there were no significant differences according to the years of study.