Investigation of Attitude and Motivation of EnglishStudents Towards Learning English Language

Abstract

The research is intended to investigate the attitudes and motivation of third year English language students in Sudan University of Science and Technology at college of languages (SUST) toward English language learning. 70 students (49 female, 21 male) from the Department of English language at SUST participated in the study. The researcher hypothesized that; SUST students were motivated and have positive attitudes towards their use of English, there is not much difference in SUST students' attitudes towards English language learning regarding gender, and lastly there is different strategiesthat could be utilized to enhance the students' attitude and motivation. To achieve the aims of the study a questionnaire for student was used for data collection. The quantitative data of the questionnaire were analyzed through Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and the results were critically described and discussed. According to the results the three hypotheses were conformed, for the students’ attitudes, the findings showed third-year English language students had positive attitudes towards the learning of English. Interestingly enough, the results indicated that a high number of the students showed their interest towards speaking and practice of English On the other hand, data for the students’ motivation revealed that subjects’ are generally more extrinsically than intrinsically motivated to learn English to do well in their examinations and for future career. As regards gender, results show no significant differences between subjects' response to attitude and motivation. Moreover male and female students have stronger instrumental motivation orientation than integrative motivation.