Investigating Attitudes towards the Use of English Language in Algerian Higher Education

Abstract

Nowadays, English is highly popular among students, but not to the point that it is employed in social situations; its usage is, nevertheless, restricted to the academic context, save for those students who are fond of the language and master it with a high level of fluency. The objective of this paper is to expose the status of English in Algeria and how it has been integrated into the educational system .It aims also at investigating science teachers and learners’ attitudes towards the language which can serve to frame useful sociolinguistic facts for our study and make them measurable. Accordingly the notion of English as a medium of instruction will be discussed through different perspectives. To this end, this research opts for a mixed method, blending quantitative and qualitative techniques, and using a structured questionnaire and a semi interview respectively. The questionnaire is administered to eighty (80) first year LMD science students of different specialties at Ibn Khaldoun University of Tiaret, Algeria, along with the interview that is directed to eight (08) teachers at the same research setting. The outcomes of this research reveal that the majority of the participants show positive attitudes towards using English as a medium of instruction. It is also found that it necessitates efficient strategies due to the complex linguistic situation in Algeria