A Study of Attitude towards English Language among Teachers in the context of Area and Gender

Abstract

In a world that is increasingly globalized, the English language has emerged as a crucial tool for engagement, education, and career advancement, especially in non-native English-speaking countries like India, where it serves as a bridge language. Understanding teachers' attitudes toward English is crucial because they affect teaching methods, classroom environment, and students' motivation and proficiency in the language. Objectives: 1) To study the Attitude towards English Language among teachers. 2) To study the Attitude towards English Language among teachers in the context of area and gender. The Research Area for the study is Educational Psychology. Teachers of Ahmedabad were the population of the study. Selection of school was by Simple Random Technique and the selection of teachers was by cluster method. The sample size was 111 teachers. “Survey Method” was selected for study. Self-constructed attitude scale was used for Data Collection. t-test was applied for hypotheses testing. Findings: The distribution of teachers across categories reveals that 50.47% fall within the "Moderate" category, 28.97% are classified as "Low," and 24.30% achieve scores indicating "High" attitude levels towards English Language. Female teachers exhibit a markedly higher attitude, with 40.98% in the "High" category compared to only 2% of male teachers, while the majority of male teachers (56%) are in the "Moderate" category alongside 42.62% of females, and a significant 42% of male teachers fall into the "Low" category compared to just 16.39% of females. A significantly higher percentage of rural teachers (41.67%) fall within the "Low" attitude category compared to 17.46% of urban teachers, while rural teachers are more represented in the "Moderate" attitude level (56.25%) alongside 42.86% of urban teachers, and only 2.08% of rural teachers reach the "High" attitude category, in stark contrast to 39.68% of urban teachers who achieve this level. Female teachers have having more positive attitude towards English language than male teachers. Teachers from urban areas outperform those from rural ones in terms of attitude towards English language.