Internal and External Factors Affecting Learning English as a Foreign Language

This study investigated the effects of internal and external factors on learning English as a foreign language from Iranian EFL learners’ points of view. Copies of a 30-item Lickert-scale questionnaire, addressing internal and external factors or principle components, were distributed among about 140 postgraduate students of ELT in three universities in Iran. The collected data were then subjected to Principle Component Analysis (PCA). The findings revealed that while internal and external components are distinguishable, many of the variables do not heavily load on the principle component to which they theoretically belong. After separating the non-correlating variables it became clear that most of these variables are very important variables. Further analysis indicated that it is possible to divide internal variables to cognitive and affective and external variables to environmental and curricular. The conclusion reached was that the importance of variables should not be judged based on their nature but based on the importance accorded to them by the respondents. It was also concluded that extreme attention paid to internal variables should be balanced against external variables.