Low English Proficiency; Causes and Effects to University Students
LOW ENGLISH PROFICIENCY; CAUSES AND EFFECTS TO UNIVERSITY STUDENTS
The low levels of English proficiency among university students nowadays becoming a hot issue among academic thinkers. This is because the students’ English language skills are not being developed during their higher education experience. Thus, reflects negatively on the quality of higher education and its graduates. The factors low English proficiency among most learners are due to two factors; internal factors such as no confident when using English, negative attitude towards the English language and external factor like the limited opportunities to use English outside the classroom. Most learners have lack of confidence when using English language. For example, the person that has low self-confidence may refuse to use the language in publics. Anna Freud once said “I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence but it comes from within. It is there all the time.” This shown that confident levels are decreasing when the learners are lack of self-confidence to use this language. They are afraid to be wrong and prejudiced about it. The second reason is the negative attitudes towards the English language. For information, attitude has been defined as the inclination to act or to be in a state of ‘readiness’ to act (Gagne, 1985). The learners just learnt English for pass the examination not using it as their second language. Students in university generally find it difficult to maintain their interest in English language learning as English is not seen as important for their immediate needs other than to pass their examination. A lot of negative attitudes build up from unfamiliarity with the culture of the target language (Tucker and lambert, 1973). Malay students from small towns or rural places usually grown up in a situation that English is unimportant language, not like their speaking homes language, Bahasa Melayu. Then, clearly that internal factors influenced the
The low levels of English proficiency among university students nowadays becoming a hot issue among academic thinkers. This is because the students’ English language skills are not being developed during their higher education experience. Thus, reflects negatively on the quality of higher education and its graduates. The factors low English proficiency among most learners are due to two factors; internal factors such as no confident when using English, negative attitude towards the English language and external factor like the limited opportunities to use English outside the classroom. Most learners have lack of confidence when using English language. For example, the person that has low self-confidence may refuse to use the language in publics. Anna Freud once said “I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence but it comes from within. It is there all the time.” This shown that confident levels are decreasing when the learners are lack of self-confidence to use this language. They are afraid to be wrong and prejudiced about it. The second reason is the negative attitudes towards the English language. For information, attitude has been defined as the inclination to act or to be in a state of ‘readiness’ to act (Gagne, 1985). The learners just learnt English for pass the examination not using it as their second language. Students in university generally find it difficult to maintain their interest in English language learning as English is not seen as important for their immediate needs other than to pass their examination. A lot of negative attitudes build up from unfamiliarity with the culture of the target language (Tucker and lambert, 1973). Malay students from small towns or rural places usually grown up in a situation that English is unimportant language, not like their speaking homes language, Bahasa Melayu. Then, clearly that internal factors influenced the