Students’ Attitudes towards Learning English in the Kurdistan region of Iraq

Abstract

This research investigates students' attitudes towards learning English in Private Universities. Attitude is considered as a necessary component in language learning. Therefore, a positive attitude is considered as one of the important factors that have an impact on language learning. By providing insight into the attitudes of Private Universities students towards learning English, it contributes to the teaching of English as a foreign language. The main purpose of this research is to reveal students’ attitudes towards learning English and find out how to make their attitudes positive. Language educators who know how to develop positive attitudes in students will be able to conduct interesting and effective classroom activities; get them to be more successful in learning English. The researcher points out that the main problem is the fact that students in Private Universities are not encouraged to English. This is one of the reasons why they have negative attitudes towards learning English. Students have a perception that they are forced to learn English. This causes them to be unwilling to learn English and develop target language skills. The researcher made use a questionnaire to obtain data about the learners’ attitudes and analyze them. The random sampling technique was used. All the first- and second-year students at English department of the college in Private Universities were selected randomly for the study. The English department had 214 first- and second-year students. The study revealed the fact that students have negative attitudes towards learning English in terms of emotional, behavioral and cognitive aspects. Thus, the first hypothesis is supported. As there is a statistically significant difference in Private Universities students’ attitudes towards learning English language by gender, the second hypothesis is supported. The third hypothesis is supported by the fact that there is a statistically significant difference in Private Universities students’ attitudes towards learning English language according to the duration of the study. According to the correlation test, the researcher came to the conclusion that there is correlation between three attitude factors: cognitive, behavioral and emotional. According to the correlation test, the researcher found out that cognitive has negative correlation (r=.-.249**, p<0.01) with Behavior. Concerning the negative of the linear relationship is moderately strong between cognitive and behavior, cognitive has negative correlation (r=.-.330**, p<0.01) with Emotional. The negative of the linear relationship is moderately strong between cognitive and Emotional, and Behavioral has negative correlation (r=.-.336**, p<0.01) with Emotional. The negative of the linear relationship is moderately strong between Emotional and behavior, therefore hypotheses four supported. Concerning the experimental negative attitude towards learning English, the university lecturers are recommended to establish a motivating feeling in the English lessons to promote the students’ positive attitudes towards learning English. Lecturers also should highlight the significance of learning English.