A disseration submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of the degree "Licence en Langue et Littérature Anglaises

Résumé,

The present work deals with the primacy of instrumental motivation over negative attitude in English language learning : a study conducted in some selected English teaching centers in Bujumbura city. It firstly investigates the existence of instrumental motivation and negative attitude for adults who attend evening classes to learn English. It also assesses which is the dominant element between instrumental motivation and negative attitude in the English language learning for adults in some selected English teaching centers. I was guided by three question that were answered along my research.

The first question is to know if instrumental motivation has a great influence in language learning than negative attitude, the second question tends to find out the place of negative attitude in langage learning for adults who learn English language for occupation purposes and the third question aims at knowing if those who have a negative attitude towards the target lagnage can succeed in mastering the English language when they decide to attend English teaching centers. In order get the answers to those questions ; I distributed questionnaires to evening learners in English teachning centers selected, taking into account all learners because they were not many. The learners' answers made me to conclude that instrumental motivation is the most important factor in language learning and that learners who have a negative attitude succeed in mastering their target language when they have a vital need to use it materially. Unfortunately, they complain about the time allotted to the speaking skill, and the lack of favorable environments to practice themselves the language learned. I ended this work by formulating some recommendations by the help of research findings.