scholarly journals The effects of English versus Persian subtitled movies on Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners speaking proficiency, willingness to communicate and motivation

Author(s):  
Mahsa Zahmatkesh ◽  
Fakhri Alamdari Ebrahim
2019 ◽  
pp. 136216881989186
Author(s):  
Antonio Fernández-García ◽  
M. Carmen Fonseca-Mora

One of the main reasons for studying a foreign language is communicating with others, but many students do not feel confidently enough when trying to develop their speaking skills. Among adolescents’ frequent activities are that of listening to music while paying attention to song lyrics. We hypothesize that these musical experiences could influence their speaking skills. The present study aims to consider different factors that could influence students’ speaking proficiency. Among these factors, students’ emotional understanding, their willingness to communicate in a FL and their musical experience are considered. One hundred and twenty-four students of English as a foreign language (EFL) in the fourth year of Secondary Education from three different high schools in Spain took part in the study. Oral data were collected through individual interviews and three scales were administered to measure the different factors. Students’ musical experience and emotional response to music were measured through The Absorption in Music Scale, their emotional understanding of verbal texts through The Situational Test of Emotional Understanding – Brief, and their willingness to communicate in the EFL class through Willingness to Communicate Scale. Although no direct connection was found between students’ musical experience and their speaking proficiency, results demonstrate that students with high emotional understanding show better speaking skills and that students with musical experience exhibited higher emotional understanding. We detected a significant positive connection between emotional understanding and all the five parameters considered to assess students’ speaking proficiency. The connection between willingness to communicate in the EFL class and students’ speaking skills is even greater.


Author(s):  
Xiaopeng Zhang ◽  
Baoshan Zhao ◽  
Wenwen Li

Abstract This study examined n-gram use in oral production by Chinese college-level English as a foreign language (EFL) learners at four distinct proficiency levels. Thirty indices regarding range, frequency, and association strength of bi- and tri-grams obtained from retelling and monologic samples were analyzed. Results suggest that, i) the four proficiency levels differed in measures for frequency and association strength of bi- and tri-grams, ii) academic bi- and tri-gram proportions and association strength (captured by MI- and t-scores) were predictive of EFL speaking proficiency for both the retelling and monologic samples but the effects were small, and iii) EFL learners used more well-attested bi- and tri-grams in monologues than in retelling, demonstrating that higher rated samples tended to contain more strongly-associated bi- and tri-grams, a greater proportion of frequent attested academic tri-grams, and that EFL n-gram use was task-sensitive. These findings help enrich our understanding on EFL development of multi-word sequences and have potentially useful implications for EFL pedagogy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
Suci Nugrah Amalia ◽  
Abdul Asib ◽  
Sri Marmanto

The principal goal of L2 education is to enhance learners’ willingness to communicate (WTC). Hence, this survey study was undertaken with the purpose of exploring Indonesian EFL learners’ WTC especially in a classroom context or the so-called Instructional WTC (IWTC) in order to know the conditions triggering their willingness and unwillingness to communicate using L2. This survey applied descriptive quantitative method where 100 EFL learners from three State Universities in Indonesia were involved as the respondents. The respondents are the English students of IAIN Curup Bengkulu, Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta and Universitas Musamus Merauke Papua. Those universities represent three of five major islands in Indonesia. A questionnaire was distributed to the respondents in order to explore their WTC in six IWTC components comprising communicative self-confidence, integrative orientation, situational context of L2 use, topical enticement, learning responsibility, and off-instruction communication. The findings revealed that group size, classroom environment, students’ cohesiveness, familiarity to the topic, degree of topic preparation, classroom seating arrangement, gender, self-awareness, and familiarity with interlocutors were the factors that affected learners’ WTC. Further studies are highly recommended to deeply explore the teaching activities done by teachers by considering the influential factors of learners’ willingness and unwillingness to communicate as an effort to maximize their WTC.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 612-619
Author(s):  
Wira Kafryawan

Motivation is one of some psychological factors which influences the speaking proficiency. Therefore, this study aims at finding out whether or not there is a significant correlation between EFL learners’ motivation and their speaking skills. With regard to the methodology applied in this study, a correlation research was used to determine whether, and to what degree, a relationship exists between two or more quantifiable variables in form of quantitative method. Purposive sampling was used in the correlational research due to the assumption that the selected students were able to give information or data in relation to the research problems based on the research design. Thus, 46 learners were chosen as the samples. The study was conducted at learners in SMA Negeri 1 Marisa, Pohuwato Regency, Gorontalo. Moreover, the quantifiable data were obtained from speaking test based on the Heaton assessment and motivation test based on the Likert Scale assessment which were distributed to the learners. The data were then analyzed by Pearson product moment. The findings showed that there was a significant correlation between EFL learners’ motivation and their speaking skills in degree of high correlation. In other words, the assumption views that that the higher motivation belongs to EFL Learners to speak the better ability they speak.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 1094
Author(s):  
Shirin Arkavazi ◽  
Mania Nosratinia

The purpose of this descriptive quantitative research was to systematically investigate the association among EFL learners' Self-Regulation (SR), Locus of Control (LC), and their Willingness to Communicate (WTC). To fulfill this purpose, 222 male and female EFL learners, within the age range of 20 to 32 (Mage = 26) were selected based on the convenience sampling strategy. These participants were asked to fill in three questionnaires, namely the English versions of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, & McKeachie, 1991), the Internal Control Index (Duttweiler, 1984), and the WTC Scale (McCroskey, 1992). Since the assumptions of normality of distribution were partially violated, the research questions were answered using parametric and non-parametric tests. The obtained results led the researchers to conclude that significant and positive correlations exist between SR and WTC, SR and LC, and LC and WTC. Furthermore, considering WTC the predicted variable, a regression analysis revealed that LC is a better predictor of WTC than SR. The study finally presents a discussion on the results and provides some implications for those engaged in EFL learning and instruction.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document