Attitudes and motivation in speaking English in a residential school : a case study

The current investigation used in-depth interviews with guiding questions to study the attitudes  and motivation as contributing factor to speak English in a residential school. Once the data were  collected and analyzed, case studies were written. The case studies were all organized in the same  manner. First, each participant was presented in a chronological order, regarding their views of  speaking English. The study was carried out in a well-known residential school in Klang, Selangor. There are almost  700 hundred students in this school and participants are students selected in Form Four for the  purpose of this study. The school is situated in a town area. Six participants were selected for this naturalistic case study where their responses were recorded  and analyzed. In-depth interviews, observations and field notes were used as methods in the study.  The data were analyzed using Cohen Kappa's realibilty check to ensure reliability and validity of the data. Data were analyzed according to interpretative and descriptive code.                                 The main factor emerged in this study was the teacher factor, besides family, peer influence and self oriented. Participants also responded the reasons of not speaking in English. As far as  participants attitudes towards speaking English, they were mostly positive and motivating.  Participants displayed a sense of intrinsic motivation in their in learning to speak the language. Several recommendations for further research and more effective teaching were made as a result of  what was found in this investigation.