Iranian Language Learners’ Attitudes towards Teaching/Learning English: The Role of University Major, Gender, and Age

Attitudes towards learning teaching a subject play a major role in determining individuals' success or failure in any educational programme. 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.

کلیدواژه ها:

age ، Attitudes towards Teaching/ Learning English ، gender ، Iranian EFLs ، University Major