The Effect of native speakers as language teachers on the attitudes learners towords language learning and language community

Abstract

ABSTRACT This thesis aims at assesing the difference between the attitudes of foreign language learners who have been taught by native speakers and who haven't towards the target language and target language community. The purpose of the study is to find out whether native speakers of English as expert users of the language and as representatives of their community cause any significant difference on learners ' attitudes towards the target language and community. The subjects involved in the study are all^.,j3«Ü,fe preparatory class students in private secondary schools' in Turkey. They are from almost the same economic background, at the same age and social status. The subjects were all given questionnaires adopted from Gardner and Lambert (1972) in order to measure their attitudes and the attitudes scores of subjects were compared and correlated with their other scores. The results implies that the difference caused by native speakers in learners ' attitudes towards the target language and community is statistically significant. The relation between attitude and achievement was also investigated and statistically significant correlation was found between them. In addition to native speaker exposure some other variables are involved in the study such as sex, type of graduate schools, being in a foreign country, having close relatives who can speak English as a foreign language, having native English pen friends. And the variables mentioned were studied in order to find out whether they have any effect on learners' attitudes and achievement.