Attitudes towards the use of English in the primary school

Abstract

English has reached the status of an international language in the world today. For this reason, and as a result of British Colonialisation, English is taught from the first year of Primary School in Malta. The survey carried out for the dissertation was set up to discover more about the teachers' attitudes towards the use of English in the Primary classroom. Their attitudes towards the language itself, towards English as a means of communication in the classroom, towards the methods employed and towards the textbooks available to teach English. The research was carried out through a questionnaire - or opinionnaire, using the Likert Scale of Summated Ratings. Results were interpreted by looking at percentage agreement or disagreement and then compared to the opinions of prominent scholars.