PROSPECTIVE GRADUATES’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING IN BAHRAIN

The undergraduate level students in the Kingdom of Bahrain have problems in the acquisition of English as a second language. Most of the Bahraini students, who have spent ample years of learning English (from junior to secondary school), fail to acquire an expected level of proficiency in English when they enroll into the University for higher education. As a result, they are not easily absorbed by the global market. Aim: The aim of this study was to identify the Bahraini students' attitude towards learning English as a foreign/second language in the university which in turn can help in devising the ways and means to bring in the necessary changes to achieve the expected level of proficiency. Material & Method: The samples consist of 50 randomly selected Kingdom University students of College of Business Administration and College of Architectural Engineering & Interior Design. The survey handout is not a questionnaire but a series of statements with a choice of fixed five different responses. It mainly consists of three parts. The first part has 12 statements based on the reasons for learning English; second part has 12 based on how the students feel about English lessons and the third part has 6 statements to analyze how the students feel about learning English. Results & Discussions: The analyses of Parts A, B & C encapsulate that the students are aware of the usefulness of English and feel that the activities they are engaged with during the English classes to be beneficial and are contented with the progress they have been making since their school is in the acquisition of the proficiency of English language. Now, the question arises whether the students are achieving the expected level of proficiency, when they enroll into the university. Thus, this study lays the scope to identify the gap between the school level curriculum and college level expected frame of reference which is to be addressed by the educationists seriously as the findings portray a positive attitude towards English learning from the prospective graduators.