English, English teaching and English teachers: the perceptions of 16‐year‐olds

Summary

As part of a study of language performance of 16‐year‐old students entering further education colleges, an attempt was made to discover the attitudes of these students towards English. The purpose was to find out what they thought of English at school, what they enjoyed and what they did not enjoy, of what importance they thought English to be and their reasons. To this end a questionnaire was drawn up and the responses may be summarized as follows.

The majority of students were critical of the English they were taught at secondary school, and saw little purpose in much of what they had done. They felt teachers had either concentrated on a few aspects of the subject, or attempted to cover so many aspects that they were unable to see any ‘core’ in the subject. Teachers were described as having contradictory and conflicting approaches to English, particularly towards grammar, spelling and ‘correctness’. This seemed to lead, in the minds of many students, to the strong conviction that English teachers were uncertain about their subject, and how to teach it. When comparisons were made with teachers of other subjects they were seen to be less professional, less competent and less well prepared. Many students gave the impression that much of what was done in English lessons made little sense, seemed of little relevance, and had given little pleasure or enjoyment. As a result, ten or eleven years of being taught English had left them with a strong sense of failure, a feeling of their own inadequacies and, above all, the conviction that ‘poor’ English prevented academic success, restricted job opportunities, and caused others to see them as ‘uneducated’.