Maximizing the learning results of our English students, certain issues have often focused on issues including language teaching, learning theories, teaching materials, teaching approaches and methodologies, syllabus design, etc. Though research is being undertaken everyday, much of it has been powerfully constrained by Western cultural assumptions. Little research has been directed to the topic of how the local educational/teaching environment has influenced students’ learning when the students are not English majors, but studying English as non-majors due to educational requirements and professional needs. This fact may at least lead to the result that local English learning problems remain unsolved for long periods of time. This paper looks into some causes that may have greatly hindered the effect of English learning for students in Taiwan, and to a wider extent Asia, since the role of English in the education systems across the region are highly similar. Through survey data analysis, students’ perspectives about English learning and the fears of learning English that may have grown out of previous experiences are documented. It is the authors’ belief that a better understanding of language learners can have a beneficial effect on the process of attempting to help language learners in learning English as a foreign language.