Factors associated with English proficiency of grade 12 students of Al-salt secondary school in Jordan

Abstract

The study was conducted to determine the factors that affect the English proficiency of Grade 12 secondary school students in Al Salt Secondary School for Boys and Al Salt Secondary School for Girls in Jordan. The respondents were 182 Grade 12 students chosen using the stratified random sampling. A construct validated questionnaire as the research instrument was used to gather the data. The data were gathered using the code-answering method and subjected to both descriptive and inferential statistics run in the SPSS computer software Version 17. The results of the inferential statistics were interpreted at the alpha level of 0.05 and further subjected to content analysis. The results of the study showed that more females have higher exposure and positive attitude than males. Moreover, it was found that there was no significant relationship between the respondents’ place of residence, parents’ education, and family income to their exposure and attitude. The study recommends that the students should be provided more opportunities to be exposed to English language for them to develop a positive attitude towards the language and thereby increase their proficiency in using it for communication. Keywords: proficiency, exposure, attitude.