The perceptions of part 1 Faculty of Education students towards factors affecting english language learning and language proficiency

This study was aimed to investigate the perceptions of first year students of Universiti Teknologi Mara, UiTM towards English language learning and the level of language proficiency. This study takes into account feedback from 104 respondents from seven different programs. This study was conducted to determine the factor that most affect English language learning as well as the level of proficiency among students. There are five main factors highlighted in this study, namely, motivation, attitude, home environment, learning strategies and linguistic distance. Thus, the five factors studied the correlation in order to determine the factors that most affect the students in learning and mastering English proficiency level. The findings of the study indicated that ‘motivation’ is perceived as the most important factor by the students. Then, the results of the study also showed that there is a weak positive correlation between gender differences and students’ motivation. Besides that, this study also proposed that there is no significant relationship between motivation and level of proficiency among students.