Orientations and attitudes of Iranian university students for english language learning
Orientations and attitudes of Iranian university students for english language learning

Summary/Abstract: This paper brings together some of the principal finding of a survey conducted in Tabriz and Kurdistan Universities in Iran. The main objective here was to investigate how key psychological and social factors in foreign language apply to Iranian bilingual university students. The main study was launched in 2008. A total of 400 students participated. The sample comprised 58 % female and 50 % males. The questionnaire given to students was developed in English than translated to Persian. The questionnaire consisted of two parts, questions eliciting demographic data and a set of attitudes and orientations scales. The respondents showed favorable attitude towards learning English. Also majority of students preferred to spend much of their time on English-related subjects. Furthermore, 85 % of the participants indicated that English is an important subject in their curriculum. Regarding their receptive skills of the respondents rated their reading skill higher than their listening skill. On the other hands, in regard to productive skills which are natural of course the respondents rated their writing skill higher than speaking. Majority of students acknowledge by their responses that learning English will be helpful in finding a good career. Students acknowledge the social dimension of English as a language that can offer the opportunity of cross-cultural exchanges. Also, strong correlations were found among integrative orientation and other psychological variables such as: instrumental orientation, motivation intensity, and desire to learn English. Hierarchical regression showed that, the change in integrative orientation is explained by only instrumental orientation variable. The results highlights that Iranian students learn a foreign language mainly for its utilitarian value rather than integrative motivation. Teachers should encourage a balanced development of both types of motivation especially for Iranian learners. Raising their interests towards the culture of the target language (i.e., English) can be done by activities such as giving information on the lifestyle, geography, literature of the English-speaking countries through visual, written and audio forms, or even organizing group-sharing for learners who have been to English speaking countries. Apart from raising Iranian learners’ level of integrative motivation, teachers can improve the contents, teaching methods, classroom activities to raises students’ interests and motivation in language learning.

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