The Relation Between Students’ English Language Proficiency and Their Academic Performance: An Empirical Analysis

This paper empirically examines the relationship between English language proficiency and students’ academic performance. Studies have indicated that students’ proficiency in English contributes to their academic success. In this study however, we focus on students from schools where English is not the main language, but who have decided to further their studies in an institution which uses English as its medium of instruction. Thus, this study investigates how these students themselves perceive the role of English language for their academic success.

This study investigates the four skills of English language proficiency: reading, writing, listening and speaking, and its impact on different subjects within a particular discipline i.e. engineering subjects, business subjects and technical subjects. This study seeks to achieve the following research objectives:
i. To investigate the association of English language proficiency with the students academic success.
ii. To analyse students’ perception of their proficiency in English language for different fields of study.
iii. To explore students’ English language proficiency skills in terms of importance for their success in future career.
This study was conducted in a private engineering and technological university and the sample population was stratified across different years of studies (year 1 to year 4).