The relationship between the teachers perception of the foreign culture and their students attitudes toward English language at the basic stage in Jordan

Other Title(s)

العلاقة بين إدراك المعلمين للثقافة الأجنبية و اتجاهات طلبتهم نحو اللغة الإنجليزية في المرحلة الأساسية في الأردن

Dissertant

al-Kilani, Rowla Ahmad

Thesis advisor

Jafar, Fatimah Abd al-Halim

Comitee Members

al-Khawlidah, Ahmad Hamad
Abu Zaynah, Farid Kamil

University

Amman Arab University

Faculty

Faculty of Educational Sciences and psychological

Department

Department of Curriculum and Instruction

University Country

Jordan

Degree

Master

Degree Date

2008

English Abstract

This study aimed to investigate if there is a relationship between perception of the foreign culture of teachers of EFL and their students’ attitudes towards English of the basic stage in Jordan, taking students and teachers of the 5th and 6th grades as representatives of this stage.

This study sought to answer the following questions: 1- What is the degree of the basic stages EFL teachers' perception of the foreign culture? 2- What are the basic stage students' attitudes toward the foreign culture? 3- Is there any relationship between the EFL basic stage teachers' perception of the foreign culture and the basic stage students' attitudes toward the foreign language? The subjects of the study consisted of 20 English language teachers, and 400 students from the 5th and 6th grades, both teachers and students were from 10 schools, randomly selected from Amman Second Directorate of Education.

To answer the questions of the study, the researcher designed two questionnaires to measure the teachers' perceptions of the foreign culture, and their students' attitudes towards English.

The validity of the two questionnaires was assured by consulting a jury of referees to ensure the equivalence and the consistence of the different groups, the researcher carried out a two fold analytical test on both the teachers' and the students' questionnaires to ensure reliability, and analyzing the results using Cronbach alpha which show to be acceptable for the purposes of this study of 0.86 and 0.82.

Findings of the study revealed that the teachers' perceptions of the foreign culture was high, the students' attitudes towards English as a foreign language were positive, but there was no significant relationship between the teachers' perceptions of the foreign culture and their students' attitudes towards English in the 5th and 6th grades.

The researcher built up some recommendations that the English language teachers should be aware of shortening the distance between the native culture and the foreign culture, in order to encourage their students to understand the similarities and differences between them.

Students at this level need to be motivated to learn the foreign language more than just memorizing and mimicking, but through involving them in real life situations.

In addition, the curriculum designers need to be aware of the cultural factories in the textbooks.

It was also recommended that more research should be conducted in this issue to fill the gap in the required reasons behind the weak outcome of the process of teaching English in general.

Main Subjects

Educational Sciences
Languages & Comparative Literature

Topics

• Education
• Learning
• Second language learning
• Attitudes
• Jordan
• Amman
• English language

No. of Pages

75

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-522433