2015 IJRSLL – Volume 4 Issue 3
Author/s:
Tseng, Min-Chen*
General Education Center, National Taiwan University of Arts, Taiwan (janetseng@ntua.edu.tw)
Abstract:
In Taiwan, arts students spend most of their time developing their professions, such as musical instruments, acting, dancing, and painting. With the increasing importance of English in this global village and every Taiwanese university has set English capability as one of the graduation requirements, arts students must be aware that they need to acquire a good facility with English. This study investigated the English learning attitudes of Taiwanese university students majoring in the arts such as Fine Arts, Motion Pictures, Applied Drama & Theatre, Music, and Dance. A questionnaire consisted of two parts: part one focused on basic information and relevant English activities and part two covered English learning attitudes. The results show students spent about 10.40 hours per week doing English related activities and they realized the importance of learning English with a mean score of 93.92. They were also aware of the fact that English would help them greatly in the future, and good English would be useful for their careers after graduation. However, they did not like to raise their hands and asked teacher questions in the classes. They did not feel confident to speak English in front of their teachers and classmates.
Keywords: arts students; language attitudes; English learning; Taiwanese students
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5861/ijrsll.2014.929
*Corresponding Author