Attitudes, motivation and achievement in learning English as a second language

Attitudes and motivation are two important elements in determining the achievement of students in their learning. These two aspects interact and influence each other and lacking either one of this aspect will contribute to poor achievement or performance of the students in their study. This study is aimed to find out the correlation between the students’ attitudes and motivation with their achievement towards learning English as a second language. Along the line, this study also seeks to explore on the students’ level of attitudes and motivation as well as their learning preferences in the classroom. The study was conducted in twelve weeks and data are gathered by using questionnaire which is given to 138 students from MARA Vocational Institute, Lumut. Each item in this questionnaire is carefully designed in order to enable the students to provide clear and precise information regarding their attitudes and motivation towards learning of English as a second language. Generally, it was found that students’ attitudes and motivation towards learning English were favourable. Nevertheless, the correlation between these variables and students’ achievement was only at a moderate level