An-Najah Staff

The factors that make for success in learning a foreign language have been thoroughly investigated in an attempt to account for the variation in the levels of proficiency attained by learners. Among these factors are aptitude, -attitude, teaching techniques, motivation, age... etc. So the attitude of the learner towards the language and its speakers is one of the most important factors that influence learners' motivation to acquire the language. This importance of attitudes in learning English has been recognized by EFL specialists, and accordingly a great deal of research on the subject has been conducted to explore the relationship between attitudes and achievement in L2 learning. For instance, GARDNER (1980) found that there was a strong relationship between attitudes and proficiency in EFL learning. Pierson and others (1980) investigated the relationship between -English attainment and Chinese students' attitudes towards English in Hong Kong; they found that achievement in English was related to the attitude of the students and that direct measures of attitudes .were better predictors of attainment than indirect ones. CHIHARA and OLLER (1978) investigated the relationship between the attitudes of Japanese EFL students towards them selves, toward other Japanese people, toward English speakers, toward travel to English speaking countries and toward learning English and their attained proficiency. The results showed a weak correlation between students’ attitudes toward English and their attained proficiency