International Journal of English Literature and Culture

Vol. 9(6), pp. 188-197, November 2021

 ISSN: 2360-7831

https://doi.org/10.14662/ijelc2021295

 

Review

 

Abstract

 

Language is used among people to express ideas, emotions, and feelings through communication with one another. It is easy to do all these in our mother tongue or our first language. But if we want to express our ideas, emotions, feelings in a second language difficulty occurs. The purpose of this paper is therefore, to investigate whether learners as well as teachers of English language feel and contend that the difficulties faced while learning English as a Second language (ESL) are due to the culture tied to the target language. 10 ESL teachers and 90 (70 males & 30 females) students and teachers participants formed the subject of this research. A questionnaire of 13 items adapted from the work of Ronnie Goodwin (2013) was administered amongst the participants. The major finding of the work is that while the teachers strongly felt that cultural differences affect how we learn other people’s language, the students felt that culture isnot a barrier in learning ESL. Though this might be due to the impact of Globalization however, the researchers concluded that teaching ESL should incorporate teaching the culture of the target language (TL), especially with learners of ESL.

 

Keywords: Self – esteem, Academic Achievement, Influence  

 

Cite This Article As: Abba, T.S., Maina, U.A., Nuhu, A (2021). Culture as a Barrier to learning English as a Second Language (ESL): A Case study of College of Agriculture, Gujba and College of Administrative and Business Studies, Potiskum. Inter. J. Eng. Lit. Cult. 9(6):188-197