Students’ Motivation and Attitudes in EFL at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities in Rabat and Kenitra

Abstract

The present study investigates the various kinds of motivation adopted by students of English at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities in Rabat and Kenitra. It also seeks to highlight the nature of students' attitudes toward English-speaking people and the language courses. The participants were drawn from both the Faculty of Arts and Humanities in Rabat (Mohamed V University) and the Faculty of Arts and Humanities in Kenitra (Ibn Tofail University). The total number of subjects in this study is 60. The questionnaire is composed mainly of two parts. The first part is designed to elicit some information regarding the background of the respondents such as the variable of age and the variable of gender. The second part is, in turn, meant to cover the attitudes and motivation variables. Indeed, it contains a total of 18 items which are selected based primarily on Gardner’s (1985) Attitude/Motivation Test Battery. The results show that university students of English are both instrumentally and integratively motivated and that their attitudes toward native English speakers are simultaneously positive and negative. Moreover, the results reveal that students of English at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities in Rabat and Kenitra have positive attitudes toward English courses. Finally, this study provides some suggestions for further studies and some pedagogical implications.