INVESTIGATING UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' MOTIVATION TOWARDS ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING

Abstract

This research aims at investigating the motivational factors of university students towards English Language learning. A quantitative method using a descriptive design was recommended for this study. A questionnaire was used as the data collection tool. The population comprises all males and females third year English language learner at colleges of education and languages at Sudan University of Science and Technology. Thus, the researcher used a sample size of 100 English language learners at colleges of Education and languages in Sudan University of Science and Technology being selected as participants in the current study, 99 valid responses were collected. Collected data is entered and treated by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. The following are some of important findings based on data analysis and discussion of the collected data: 1. There are many factors that have positive effect on students' attitudes and motivation to learn English language. The most important ones include, having a good English language teacher positively affects their attitudes to learn English, and Learning English is important, as it is one of the requirements for high- education.2. Students were highly motivated to learn English language. There are many factors, motivates the students, on the top of the motivates factors is that, the need for travelling around the world, and the second motivator is that, almost students confirm that, learning English makes them more knowledgeable as they can be able to communicate. Finally, the results of the study, do not detect any statistically significant variations between students of the current study perceptions regarding learning English language related to students’ gender and age.