4. Conclusions
The correlations show that out of the affective factors, motivation and anxiety are strongly linked to English performance in the sample in question, thus reiterating the results of previous research. Our results are partly consistent with those in Robinson's research (2005), which showed that motivation and aptitude are the best predictors for successful outcomes in learning a foreign language after training. However, in our study, attitude does not have a significant influence on performance in English so further studies should be accomplished in order to find out whether their attitude is related to learning in general or to learning a foreign language or to learning English. The means show that students majoring in English are more motivated and have a more favourable attitude towards learning English than students from the faculty of psychology and educational sciences, probably because the formers learn English with the specific purpose of using it at a professional level so they must have been strongly motivated to choose it for their university studies and they probably also have a positive attitude towards this language and everything regarding it, as it is their major. Whereas, students majoring in psychology or pedagogy learn English as part of their compulsory curriculum and only need English for collateral professional purpose (such as reading scientific papers) so their motivation and their attitude towards learning English are significantly lower. As concerning the anxiety level, psychology – pedagogy students are more anxious than their colleagues majoring in English, which can be explained by the fact that they do not feel as secure as the latters when using a foreign language. Anxious students (Horwitz, 2001; MacIntyre & Gardner, 1989) feel unable to meet the demands of learning a foreign language, feel less competent than their peers, are afraid of being negatively evaluated by them, are afraid of making mistakes. As overcoming these comes with experience, we may assume that students from the faculty of letters, who have been learning languages for a longer time and more diligently, feel less anxious when using a foreign languge, which for some is already as a familiar as their mother tongue. As Dörnyei highlighted, Gardner’s socio-educational model of language learning does not account for the pedagogical issues that may affect learning in the classroom, or for the cognitive aspects of motivation (Dörnyei, 1994b). Hence, some pedagogical recommendations for teachers of English could be derived: students’ motivation for learning a foreign language must be raised in order to obtain good results in English; changing attitude is a difficult and time-consuming process, so it is better to form a positive attitude towards foreign languages as early in life as possible; situational factors, that is the school environment and contextual items, may affect students’ anxiety level so teachers should provide a secure and engaging environment. Putting pressure on students can only discourage them, especially when a teacher must develop students’ speaking abilities.