EXPLORING ELEMENTARY STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES ON LEARNING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE IN THE DISTRICT OF BANKURA, WEST BENGAL

Abstract

The present study delves into the attitudes of elementary level learners towards learning English as a second language, specifically examining the influence of demographic variables such as gender, school locality, and school type. Employing a survey research design, the investigation focuses on 100 elementary school students from 7th and 8th standards, selected via simple random sampling from six educational institutions under the jurisdiction of the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education in Bankura district, West Bengal, India. Leveraging a modified version of a standardized tool with 40 items adapted from the work of Omar Al Noursi (2013), data was collected from the students to address three hypotheses formulated for the study. Statistical analyses including Mean, Standard Deviation, and T-test were employed to scrutinize the data. The findings reveal no significant difference in the attitude towards learning English between male and female students at the 0.05 level of significance. However, a significant disparity in attitude is observed between students from Government-aided and Private schools at the 0.01 level of significance. Additionally, a notable distinction in attitude is detected between rural and urban area students at the 0.01 level of significance.