Iranians’ Attitudes toward English and Arabic as two foreign ‎Languages in Iranian Schools

With the rising significance of attitudinal studies in language researches and more particularly foreign language learning and teaching in the Iranian education system, this study investigated Iranian students’ attitudes toward English and Arabic as two foreign languages in Iranian schools. The participants were 30 Iranian undergraduate and graduate students for the Arabic survey (51 items) and 140 English language learners from various proficiency levels for the English verbal guise survey. Snowball sampling was the main sampling technique in this survey research. Furthermore, the reliability and validity of both questionnaires were confirmed through rigorous and systematic approaches. The Arabic survey was handed to the participants and for the English survey the participants listened to recordings after which they were requested to evaluate English accents. The results showed that the participants had generally a negative attitude toward Arabic language. However, the participants in the English survey had a strongly positive attitude toward English with American English and British English as the most favorable and African American English as the least pleasant accents. The results of these two surveys will be discussed from a language policy perspective and the reasons for the approval and disapproval of Arabic and English will be discussed from Bourdieu’s (1991) theory of language as a symbolic power.