Positive Attitudes And Attitudes

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Attitudes are reaction that reveals individual’s thoughts or ideas on a particular issue either positive, negative or neutral. Scholars define attitudes in many different ways. Some believe that attitudes are linked to beliefs and behaviors. Others think that they relate to feelings. Allport (1961) referred to attitudes as “the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary social psychology.” Early scholars believed that attitudes related to feeling. Thomas and Znaniecki (1918) claimed that attitude is “a state of feeling continuously constructed by individual experiences, which finally leads to perception towards an object or situation of which a person is related to.” From this definition, it can be seen that attitudes deal …show more content…

Gardner (1986) and Lambert (1980) mention two types: instrumentional and integrative orientation. Instrumentional orientation is motivation for acquiring a language because of social achievement, personal success or economic benefit. For example, a person learns a language because s/he can find a good job. On the other hand, integrative orientation is motivation for learning a language due to social community and communication. For example, a person learns a language for communication with people from other parts of the world. It is believed that integrative orientation tends to be more successful than instrumentional orientation because people have motivation and encouragement to study a …show more content…

Abidin (2012) states that students have negative attitudes towards learning English because they are not aware of the importance of English and they lack any need for English as it is not a compulsory subject in Libya. The researcher suggests that students could see the positive side if their needs were assessed before conducting a class. When students are involved in what they need, they should have more positive attitudes. In addition, educational system also leads to negative attitudes towards English language. When the education system in a country does not focus much on English, the students find it unnecessary to learn. However, the language users must learn English when they became adults to speak with others. Both factors lead them to express significantly negative attitude towards learning English (Karahan,

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