Profiles of unsuccessful EFL learners

Inspired by Marianne Nikolov’s A study of unsuccessful language learners, this qualitative study tries to find and recognize unsuccessful learners among 91 learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) attending a four-year vocational program in a an urban high school. In this paper, the term ‘unsuccessful’ is purely based on the learners’ own opinion of themselves as EFL learners and, as such, the study has its own limitations as far as applying its results on a macro-level. In order to successfully identify unsuccessful learners, we presented the participants with an open-ended questionnaire consisting of 21 questions regarding their English learning experiences, motivation, attitudes, language anxiety, self-concept etc. hoping we would discover the reasons behind why they perceive themselves as being unsuccessful and to find some common features they share. The results show relatively low motivation, positive attitudes toward English language and high language anxiety among the 17 self-perceived unsuccessful EFL learners. As for the theoretical groundwork, we will define the above mentioned concepts relevant for this paper and describe important findings and theories concerning each of them in order to have a better understanding of the individual differences that help define a successful, or in this case, an unsuccessful learner. In the end, we offer some suggestions for further research based on the present research study