ATTITUDESOFTURKISHANDFOREIGNSTUDENTSTOWARDSENGLISH LANGUAGE, AND THEIR ENGLISH SPEAKING ANXIETY AT TURKISH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS IN SAUDI ARABIA

Abstract

Thestudy focusedon the attitudes of Turkish and foreign students’ attitudestowards English language, and their English speaking anxiety. The study adopted case study research design based on quantitative data. Theparticipants were 140 High School Students (70 Turkish, 70 foreign) at Turkish International Schools in Saudi Arabia, and were all selected randomly and on voluntary basis. The data were collected via a) the Questionnaire on Attitudes Toward English adapted from Aiken by Tunç (2003); b) the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS)’ adapted from Horwitz by Saltan (2003). The data were analyzed throughstatistical tests,such as Pearson Correlation, t-test, standard deviation, mean scores, and simplelinear regression.The results of the two groups in terms of attitude and anxiety indicated that Turkish students developedmore negative attitudes towards English with more anxiety, whereas foreign students hadmore positive attitudes towards English with less anxiety.The results also revealed that there wasa significant and negative relationship between attitudes of students towards English and their English speaking anxiet