Social Attitudes of Students Towards Teaching English at High Schools in Gaziantep, Turkey

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of the students toward teaching English. This research was conducted at 26 high schools in Gaziantep, Turkey. A questionnaire consisting of two parts for the students was used as the data collecting instruments for the research. In the first part of the questionnaire, there are questions related with personal traits of students. In the second part, there is a Likert type attitude scale. 414 students' questionnaires were taken into evaluation. The significance of differences between means was analysed using "t" test, Anova (one-way analysis of variance), Scheffé test and the data related to the opinions of the students were analysed by utilising frequency distribution on percentages. The validity was assured by means of factor analysis procedure and the reliability was assured using Cronbach Alpha measure. All these statistical procedures were carried out using SPSS software (10.0 versions) in windows for IBM platform. The findings of the study indicated that Teaching English is not in accordance with the requirements and demands of the students.