The Problems Encountered by Teachers and Learners of English in Non-English Departments at the Algerian University

Abstract

English has acquired a unique and special status among languages of the world and it has been acknowledged as a global language This position was the result of the dominating role of English speaking countries in the fields of economy, science, technology and politics. This led more and more people to use this language in a growing number of occupational and educational contexts. Nowadays, scientists and researchers show an eager need to learn English in order to have access to English written documents and participate in international conferences. However, the majority of Algerian students in different departments of different majors show a lack of proficiency in this language. Biology students at Akli Mohand Oulhadj University of Bouira are no exception. This study aims at highlighting the teaching / learning conditions of English at the Biology department in the University of Bouira and shedding light on the different problems encountered by both teachers and learners of the same department. It aims, also, at searching for the different reasons that lead to unsuccessful achievement and the students’ difficulties when faced with materials of their specialty written in English. For this purpose, it seems necessary to briefly review the relevant literature related to the field of ESP. since our study falls under the frame of quantitative studies whose aim is to present pictures of the group under investigation, the descriptive statistical method seems to be adequate relying on the questionnaire and the structured interview as data collection tools. The questionnaire is addressed to third year biology students and the interview is held with teachers of English at the same department. The results will be presented by percentages. The latter will be provided by the means of tables and histograms (chart pie) for the close-ended questions. Open-ended questions will be followed by small comments summarizing the respondents’ propositions