Students’ attitudes towards English language studies at Makerere University

Abstract

This work outlines the results of the investigations carried out to examine the attitudes students have towards studying ELS in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Makerere University. The overall purpose of this research was to examine the attitudes students have towards ELS. It was also aimed at describing the nature of the subject-related difficulties that the students offering ELS face at Makerere University which lead to their failure of the subject and suggesting solutions that help to reduce the rate at which students fail. The topic of study came up from the fact that ELS as a subject taught in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences is not popular among the students yet English is an International language of communication. The basic design of the research was qualitative in nature, where the data collected was reported and explained in detail. It was carried out by use of an interview guide with 3 sections. (15 questions) and using a sample size of twenty respondents with in the college of Humanities and Social Sciences. The research study revealed that the students do have a negative attitude towards studying ELS and is attributed to reasons such as the influence of their mother tongue, the availability of the teaching resources, the time available to teach the students as well as the big size of the class rooms compared to the number of number of lecturers for the courses. One of the outstanding conclusions the research made was that more emphasis be put on orientation at the beginning of their study to enable them stay motivated during the 3 year course. A copy of the interview guide used by the respondents is appended at the end of this report