The Correlation between Arabic Student's English Proficiency and Their Computer Programming Ability at the University Level

In order to find the relationship between students’ English ability and the students’ programming comprehension, we conducted a survey. The survey explores if students’ weakness in the English language affects the ability of the students to understand the programming with respect to the following factors: Computer Lab, lecturer, mathematics, and logical thinking. This paper analyzed the results of two surveys conducted in two Libyan universities. Results of the surveys showed that 37%, 38%, and 25% of students stated that their programming abilities were negatively affected by English, Computer Lab and Lecturer respectively. While over half of the lecturers mentioned that the students’ lack of English was the main reason for their weak performance in understanding programming skills. This study found that the programming ability had a moderate correlation with the Level of English proficiency, r=0.63, for both universities. Based on English, Computer Lab and Lecturer factors, a regression model was able to explain that 45% of the variance in programming skills