Beliefs about learning resources

24 these beliefs differ across language learners, particularly in terms of individual differences such as gender, age, nationality, learning style, and personality type Bernat Gvozdenko, 2005; Wenden, 1999; Horwitz, 1999; Rifkin, 2000. A study from Daif 2012 showed that statistical significant gender differences were found in the areas of English language aptitude, learning and communication, and motivation and expectations . In addition, Ellis 2008:701 proposes “cultural background could also manipulate varied learner beliefs systematically even though it needs further investigation”. She argues, “general factors, such as personality and cognitive style, could be more substantially influence learners’ beliefs”. Meanwhile, the learning situation has included how students experience and understand aspects of the classroom, like instructor behaviors Brown, 2009 . “It also often encompasses the instructor as well as the instructional techniques used ” Gardner, 2005 . Little and Silvius 1984 reported that “past experience, both of education in general and of language learning in particular, played a major role in shaping attitude language learning where attitude defines as a complex mental orientation involving beliefs and feelings and values and dispositions to act in certain ways ”. It can be inferred students’ experience in case of learning has strong influence on their belief. Then, the target community also contributes to how student hold their belief about language learning. Gardner, 2005 states that learner attitudes have often been addressed in the literature in relation to two different targets: attitudes toward the learning situation often encompassing the instructor as well as the instructional techniques used and attitudes toward the target community. Attitudes toward the 25 target community have been addressed in recent work by Yashima 2009, who developed the idea into the notion of “international posture,” which relates to how students see themselves as “connected to the international community, with concerns for international affairs and their readiness to interact with people from the target cultures ” Yashima, 2009, p. 146.

4. English Learning

As a subject of the study, literature about English learning should be provided in this chapter. The discussion falls into three main headings, they are English learning at university level, English at non-English major, and English at Faculty of Engineering Yogyakarta State University. Moreover, a number of theories will be incorporated to construct comprehensible information of those aspects. a. English learning at University Level English has been an important language for the global society. Many people have considered English as a requirement imposed by globalization Zacharias, 2003; Yuwono, 2005. With the emergence of today’s role of English as an International language and even a global lingua franca, it is not surprising that English has become the main subject range from elementary level till university level. As a global lingua franca, universities are aware to provide the students with an adequate competence of English in order to support their future carrier. The most important role for teachers of a foreign language at some universities is to aid students to be effective and strategic readers as well as speaker. This is based on the claim that,