EFL Students’ Attitudes Towards Interacting in the Target Language Outside the Classroom.

Abstract

A significant part of language learning occurs thanks to outside classroom interaction since it provides a realistic setting for practice, which is quite different from in-class and instruction-based learning. Besides, most language educators believe that EFL learners should be responsible of their own learning and use pportunities to practice language actively outside the classroom. Therefore, the main aim of this study is to delineate the EFL students’ attitudes towards out of class interaction. To meet this objective, the following major research question was put forth: what are the attitudes of the third year university EFL students towards the use of English outside the classroom? In order to answer this question, a quantitative approach is adopted. Of note, the participants of the study were fifty third year students of English at Mila University Centre who volunteered for responding to a questionnaire during the second semester of the academic year 2022-2023. The findings of this study indicate that most of the students are aware of the importance of interacting in English outside the classroom; so, they practice speaking in non-formal settings (both on-site and on-line) although they face some linguistics and socio-psychological difficulties. Overall, EFL learners showed positive attitudes vis-à-vis the use of the target language outside the classroom. To wrap up this research, a number of limitations were stated and several recommendations were advanced.