LANGUAGE IN INDIA

AN EVALUATION OF THE MOTIVATION AND ATTITUDES OF IRANIAN MEDICAL STUDENTS TO ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING
Giti Karimkhanlui

INTRODUCTION

This study examines motivational and attitudinal factors involved in medical students' retention of English courses together with some suggestions of how the teachers of EAP can encourage their students to continue their English study in to advanced levels. To gather the data concerning motivational factors on one hand and attitudes of the students of English language .we distributed a questionnaire to university students of Zanjan. Then we used SPSS to analyze the data. The results Proved the results of the previous studies on the positive role of motivation and attitude on learning of medical students.

In the past four decades much research has been conducted on the relationship between motivation and language learning. Previous studies have examined the types of motivation that lead to enhancement of language learning (Dornyei, 1990; Gardner and Lambert 1972).

Deci (1985) examined types of motivation in a foreign language context and identified two types, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is that type of motivation that is derived from internal interests but extrinsic motivation arises from interests such as getting good job. Highly motivated students tend to develop insightful beliefs about Language learning process. They also tend to develop a more active and autonomous attitude that allows them to take charge of their learning. (Anstey 1988). Teachers must therefore acknowledge and react students’ attitudes and experience and help them overcome any harmful perceptions and blocks. The present study closely examines the relationship between motivational and attitudinal orientation and their effect on language learning.

METHOD

This study is for the most part based on Gardner and Lambert (1972) whose pioneering work has laid the foundations for a systematic research into the role of attitudes and motivations as determinants of success or failure in language acquisition.

The participants in this study were 100 learners studying at Zanjan University of medical sciences which studied English as their curriculum 2 hours a week. They were 18 to 21 years old and the class level ranged from first year to second year of English.

A questionnaire that investigated the learning reasons was administrated to all of the participants. (Appendix).

The questionnaire contained questions on:

1. Instrumental and integrative motives
2. Questions eliciting demographic data such as age, sex ,and course and
3. a set of attitudes and motivation questions and scales adapted from Gardner(1985) and Flaitz (1988).

The questions were based on the Likert Scale which ranged from strongly agree to strongly disagree. After analysis of the data using SPSS all the data coded from 1 meaning strongly agree to 5 indicating strongly disagree. Then the data was analyzed for further study.

MOTIVATION

Language learners learn a language because they want to learn it. They want to communicate or to get a good job or to find friends or perhaps wish to be acquainted with their culture or history of that country. Whatever the reason may be, they learn it because they want to. But if they do not have any desire to learning a second language imposed on them at school or university, what will happen. In Iran, many students pass years of compulsory study of at least seven years to learn English, but only a few of them learn English at a satisfactory level. We believe that motivation to learn has something to do with this situation. If one has higher amount of motivation, it will affect the degree of effort one puts into foreign or second language learning. More amounts of motivation and holding positive attitudes lead to success in learning and vice versa.

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