A Study on Factors Affect on Acquiring English as a Second Language

Abstract

English language skill is considered as one of most required skills in both educational and professional sectors in the modern society. After completing the school education students get chance to enter the state universities and this is where a graduate is being made according to universal aspects. Mass Communication and Public Relations are two global subjects which have been taught from very long time and English language skill is essential in both subjects in order to explore the academic and professional sector equally. However, every student is not given that privilege of learning the language properly. Especially when it comes to the non-urban areas of Sri Lanka, English language literacy is very law and in some areas it is zero. When a language is taught, the four skills of reading, speaking, writing and listening should be improved. During the process of learning, learner is affected by many factors in the second language acquisition process. The purpose of this research is to identify the ethnographic facts which affect on acquiring English as a second language. Under the qualitative research approach a questionnaire was distributed among 100 undergraduates who were selected randomly from the Department of Mass Communication. Additional information was gathered from secondary data sources such as research articles. It was proven by this study that undergraduates who belong to an upper social class background showed higher levels of English acquisition. At the same time it was revealed that undergraduates, who don’t belong to that social class but still showed higher levels of English acquisition, highly depend on school and private institution for learning English. The most important fact which was emerged through this research is, learning the alphabet and grammar do not support to acquire the language to the expected extent as long as there is a lack of practice in all levels of language acquisition. Contrary to these findings, it was also found out from this study that the undergraduates were highly motivated to learn English. However, higher motivation in itself did not result in higher levels of English acquisition for all undergraduates