English As A Cultural Bridge:A Qualitative Study Of Moroccan University Students’ Attitudes Toward Learning English

Abstract Book of the 10th World Conference on Teaching and Education

Year: 2026

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English As A Cultural Bridge:A Qualitative Study Of Moroccan University Students’ Attitudes Toward Learning English

Manar Souhair

ABSTRACT:

Due to the swift rate of globalization, English is becoming unavoidable, especially with the status it has acquired. That is, in today’s globalized world, English is no longer merely a lingua franca but is instead a cultural bridge, which connects millions of people across different traditions and worldviews. However, many believe that this is an extension of imperialism and cultural hegemony, which takes place at the expense of other cultures. This is because if English spreads then the Western culture tied to it does so as well. The other side of the coin is, English can be appropriated and used by non-native speakers to express other cultures and be at the
service of its speakers thanks to the concept of speaker agency. This is the case with Muslim non-English speaker who reside in non-English speaking countries, The present exploration sought to investigate the attitudes and beliefs held by Islamic studies’ students vis-à-vis the learning of English and the Global spread of the language. On what concerns the methodology,
the present study made use of an approach which is qualitative in nature as the aim was to carry out an in-depth analysis of the issue tackled in this paper. The study triangulated three qualitative tools ( structured and semi-structured interviews and an interview questionnaire) which were
carried out with 12 participants from the faculty of letters and humanities in Ain Chok. The findings suggested that Islamic Studies’ students have positive attitudes towards English and specifically its spread around the world; they also regard it as instrumental and as a necessary tool in the spread of Islam. However, generalizations can only be made if future studies investigate the same phenomenon among bigger and more diverse samples.

Keywords: Culture, Attitudes, Education, Religion, The global spread of English, Globalization.