Honey catches flies more than Ginger: Enhancing Arab Students’ Attitudes Towards English Classes

Abstract

Most members of the language teaching profession realize that their students' learning potential increases when attitudes are positive and motivation runs high. It has been noted that individual difference variables, such as attitude and motivation, are important in learning a second language (L2). Lewis (1981) indicated " in the long run no policy will succeed which does not do one of the three things; conform to the expressed attitudes of those involved; persuade those who expressed negative attitudes about the rightness of the policy; or seek to remove the causes of the disagreement " (p. 262). Klausmeire, (1994) asserted that attitude " influences how well students learn " (p.375) Similarly, Brown (1994) claimed that attitude " determines academic achievement " (p. 168). It is evident that the more positive the attitude is, the more opportunities for success in language learning the learner gets (Al-Tamimi & Shuib 2009, Ba-Udhan, 2010; Dornyei, 2003; Karahan, 2007). By the same token, Shah (1999) studied certain characteristics of low-achievers, and found that lack of a positive attitude contributed to the students' low achievement. Figure one below shows how attitudes (positive or negative) influence English learning. Figure 1: Influence of Positive and Negative Attitude on English Learning (Saha, 1999) The figure reveals that students' low achievement is related to the learners' attitudes. This is because an ESL/EFL learner's performance in language learning is affected by his/her attitudes towards learning the language and the schoolteachers whose behaviors influence