Attitudes of Students and Lecturers towards the English Language - Research Proposal Example

Title of the study Attitudes of students and lecturers towards English language in Saudi Arabia Introduction This research proposal focuses on the study of attitudes of students and lecturers regarding English language in Saudi Arabia, a rarely conducted study of cross-cultural aspect of studying and teaching English as a second language in Saudi Arabia. This study further narrows down to understand whether English is perceived as a western product that should be avoided or an international language with no cultural, hegemonic baggage. Only a few studies have so far being conducted focusing on such a specific topic. Studies have found that English was majorly taught to the expatriates’ children in Saudi Arabia in the beginning, but due to globalization and increase in business with the western world, the need to learn English as a second language became prominent, which resulted in the spread of the language in the country. Further, many students also started going to the universities in the US and the UK and therefore it required them to have fluency in English language (Hendrickson 2007). Thus, the government also focused on providing quality English language training to the students. However, the government also emphasized that the institutes and schools should maintain and protect the Islamic values while teaching English to the students (Hendrickson 2007). Later, English language also became a part of the school curriculum in Saudi Arabia despite many Islamic scholars opposing such a decision as they feared introducing English in such an early stage of education would create western influence on the children. However, gaining mastery over English by Saudi Arabia students of English as a second language (ESL) was not easy due to the dominance of the native language and limited chances to use English in daily interactions. Various studies have been conducted to understand the kinds of common mistakes being made by the Saudi Arabia students of ESL (Elyas 2008; Al-Hazmi & Scholfield 2007; Ibrahim 1983; Mukattash 1983; Suleiman 1983). Although, most of these studies emphasized that the failure to master the language by the students were mostly due to the lack of proper infrastructure, methodology and initiation on the part of the students, none of the studies focused on understanding the perceptions of the students or lecturers regarding the English language. The relationship between culture and language is a complex one. As per Ronald Langacker (1999), language is seen as an essential tool and integral part of a culture, which is being reflected through the linguistic structure. Further, linguists such as Lakoff and Johnson (1999) also suggested that cultural impact could be found in the various idioms and metaphors used in languages. Thus, as per most linguistic theorists culture has implicit impact on the development and learning of language (Goldberg 1999). Although, significant studies focusing on the relationship between cultural perceptions and English language in Saudi Arabia are not conducted, generic studies on the subject of culture and its impact on language can be found in ample. Prof. Farzad Sharifian is one such scholar who is an expert in the field of studying the influence of culture on learning English by non-native learners. Sharifian (2003) emphasized on the concept of cultural conceptualization in many of his works and stated that it is this concept that enables a cultural group to formulate a singular opinion, which forms a major impact on learning or teaching language as well. As per Sharifian (2009a) cultural concepts have immense impact on the linguistic devices and features, which he underlines through the study of English language spoken by several non-native speakers. Similarly, in an earlier work, Sharifian (2007) studied how English is being impacted due to cultural changes in China, Japan and Africa. In a case study on the use of English in Saudi Arabia, Sharifian (2009b) found that most students in the country considered English as an international language which would help them in communicating with people from different countries. None of the students interviewed for the study attributed that the language is perceived to belong to the US. However, on being asked about the efficacy of TOFEL, most of the Saudi students stated that due to the cultural difference between the dialect and content of the US and Saudi Arab, most students find the test difficult. Thus, it focuses on the dichotomy of the situation, wherein the students although finds the language as an international one, which would help them in gaining confidence to communicate with the international community, they find that cultural differences hinder their academic goals. Although, Sharifian has not specifically focused on finding the correlation between Arabic speakers of English and their perception about the language, he had conducted an in-depth study to find the relation between cultural concepts and speech acts undertaken by Persian speakers of English language (Sharifian 2008). This study may help in providing some basic premises for my proposed research as well, due to the Islamic influence studied by Sharifian. The dearth of studies on the attitude of Saudi Arabia students and lecturers towards English has promoted me to undertake this study as I believe that the failure to master English language by Saudi students might also be the result of their biased attitude towards the language other than the usual reasons such as lack of infrastructure and proper teaching methodology. Objectives of the study The proposed study would focus on finding out how students and lecturers in Saudi Arabia perceive English language and whether they believe that English should be avoided as it is a western product or is an international language without any cultural influence. Central problem of the research The central issue of this proposed study is to understand the attitude of the Saudi students and lecturers towards English, especially focusing on the question whether English is viewed as a western product to be avoided or an international language with no cultural, hegemonic baggage. It would find out if cultural inferences play any role in the perception about English language. Specific research questions: Do Saudi students and lecturers perceive English as a western product to be avoided or an international language with no cultural, hegemonic baggage? Does the Saudi culture plays any pertinent role in such a perception about English language? Would the perception about English language impact in the learning of the language by the students? Are the lecturers biased in their opinion about teaching English language? If so, how can such biasness be avoided or contained? Research methodology This research will focus on understanding the perception of Saudi students and lecturers about English language. It will conduct an in-depth secondary research regarding the cross-cultural implications of English language and how it is being perceived in non-native speaking countries such as in the Asian subcontinent and Middle East. Further, the research would narrow down to the perceptions of Saudi Arabia students and lecturers. As secondary research on such a topic is scarce, it is essential to undertake a primary research with the students and lecturers of English language in Saudi Arabia. I would employ the technique of undertaking structured as well as unstructured interviews with the participant to understand their opinions and views on the topic. I aim to interview at least 200 students and 30 lecturers for this research. In order to analyze the data collected from the primary research, I would use standard statistical packages (SPSS) for understanding the correlation between culture and language and its impact on Saudi students and lecturers to learn and teach English. Intended outcomes The research intends to find out: Evidences regarding the influence of culture on Saudi students and lecturers for learning and teaching English language Evidences about finding whether English is perceived as a western product to be avoided or an international language with no cultural, hegemonic baggage by the students and lecturers in Saudi Arabia Proposed development The research would take around four to five years to complete. Given below is the rough estimate of the probable timeframe for the completion of the study: First year: Conducting secondary research, literature review and refining research question based on feedbacks from peers and supervisor. Second year: Refining literature review section and developing research methodology based on the secondary research. Third year: Formulating questioner, identifying survey respondents, contacting respondents and conducting interviews. Fourth year: Compiling data, analyzing the compiled data and supplementing the data through the findings from the literature review. Fifth year: Completing the writing of the research paper; revising the paper and incorporating suggestions and feedbacks of the supervisor; and finalizing the paper and submitting for approval. Reference Al-Hazmi, S.H. & Scholfield, P. 2007, ‘Enforced Revision with Checklist and Peer Feedback in EFL Writing: The Example of Saudi University Students’, Scientific Journal of King Faisal University, 8(2), 237-258. Elyas, T. 2008, The Attitude and Impact of the American English as a Global Language within the Saudi Educational System, Novitas Roral, 2 (1), 28-48. Goldberg, A. E. 1999, The emergence of the semantics of argument structure constructions, In MacWhinney, B. (Ed.) (1999), The Emergence of Language, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hendrickson, P.B. 2007, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Educational System, University of North Texas, 6-12. Ibrahim, M. 1983, ‘The Role of English Departments in Arab Universities,’ In Dihayat and Ibrahim (eds.), Papers from the First Conference on the Problems of Teaching English Language and Literature at Arab Universities, University of Jordan, Amman-Jordan. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. 1999, Philosophy In The Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought, New York: Basic Books. Langacker, R.W. 1999, A view from cognitive linguistics, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22, 625-625. Mukattash, L. 1983, ‘The Plight of difficulty in foreign language learning’, In E. Dahiyat, and M. Ibrahim (eds.), Papers from the First Conference on the Problems of Teaching English Language and Literature at Arab Universities, University of Jordan, Amman-Jordan. Sharifian, F. & Palmer, G. B. (eds.) 2007, Applied cultural linguistics: Implications for second language learning and intercultural communication, The Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Co. Sharifian, F. (ed.) 2009b, English as an International Language: Perspectives and pedagogical issues, Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters, 195-200. Sharifian, F. 2003, ‘On cultural conceptualizations,’ Journal of Cognition and Culture, 3 (3), 187-207. Sharifian, F. 2008, ‘Cultural schemas in L1 and L2 compliment responses: A study of Persian-speaking learners of English,’ Journal of Politeness Research, 4(1), 55-80. Sharifian, F. 2009a, On collective cognition and language, In H. Pishwa (ed.) Language and social cognition: Expression of social mind, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 163-182. Suleiman, S. 1983, ‘Teaching English to Arab students at the university level,’ In Dihayat and Ibrahim (eds.), Papers from the First Conference on the Problems of Teaching English Language and Literature at Arab Universities, University of Jordan, Amman-Jordan. Read More