Teachers’ Attitudes towards English as a Foreign Language and Their Influence on Students’ Attitudes and English Learning: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

This study, based on a qualitative research design, aimed at investigating English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers' attitudes towards teaching English as a foreign language (FL), and how they influence their students' attitude and progress in English language learning. The main investigation in this study is whether or not teachers' attitudes, negative and positive, have an effect on the students' motivation, and ultimately, English language acquisition, as some of the literature suggests. The participants were two groups. The first group were thirty-five preparatory year program (PYP) students at a major University in Saudi Arabia, and in the second group, five EFL teachers at the same university. The thematic analysis of the transcribed interviews generated a total of 16themes which were further developed and arranged under five main categories. Keywords from the interviews were extracted, and the codes and categories were applied. The data analysis revealed several positive inclinations towards learning English when the teachers follow a favourable pedagogical approach. The conclusions drawn are that when teachers have strong positive attitudes towards teaching English, students have positive attitudes where the teachers managed to influence the reluctant students' mindset to a more flexible one as well as providing motivation and willingness in the students to face the challenges of learning English. Some recommendations were made for future research.