scholarly journals A Qualitative Study: Investigating EFL Learners’ Self- Confidence To Decrease The Reticence In Speaking Ability

Author(s):  
Ikrar Genidal Riadil

Language is a pivotal aspect of human being. By learning, language people can communicate with each other, get information from one to another and interact. Unfortunately, in the real condition, it is still difficult for Indonesian students to practice their English ability in daily conversation. This study deals to increase the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students' confidence in English speaking. This research used qualitative analysis by distributing questioner. This study suggest that EFL teachers should seek ways to increase students' collaboration in the classroom to help them gain confidence in speaking. The study involved the students in the fifth semester in the English Department at Tidar University. The researcher compared the gathered data with other relevant researches and theories involved in the study. Based on the research questions, the research result shows that students’ perceptions of self-confidence have a significant to decrease reticence in speaking skills. However, lecturers need to push the students in practice speaking English in front of a class, especially to improve the self-confidence when the students are communicating in English. Two research questions were formulated in this study. There are: (1) what are the factors of the EFL students’ reticence in speaking? (2) Do the students have high self-confidence in speaking skills? In conclusion, this article showed the results that EFL Learners’ self-confidence can be decreased the reticence in speaking ability or not. keywords: Self-confidence, speaking ability, EFL students, qualitative study

2021 ◽  
pp. 204275302110280
Author(s):  
Quynh PT Duong ◽  
Thinh N Pham

There is a paucity of opportunities for Vietnamese EFL students to use and practise English speaking skills both inside and outside the classroom, attributing to students’ lack of interest and motivation in improving their speaking skills. Given that learning can be distributed across a multitude of formal and informal settings, the social and informal features of Facebook serve as potentially ubiquitous support for students to productively practise and use the target language. To date, however, much of the discussion of the promising incorporations of Facebook into EFL teaching and learning repertoire remains largely in writing and intercultural communicative effectiveness, with an evident scarcity of empirical research on students’ speaking practice. This qualitative study was conducted with 10 Vietnamese EFL learners, aiming to examine whether the Facebook-based learning community articulated any educational potentials for EFL speaking practice. The findings revealed that there were three features of the Facebook-based learning community, including flexible access, shared visions and values and collaborative relationships, which were beneficial for the members to maintain learning motivation, be more engaged in peer collaboration and co-construct essential knowledge for speaking practice. The findings suggested that the Facebook-based learning community could serve as a means for promoting more speaking practice among Vietnamese EFL learners.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 94
Author(s):  
Aziza M. Ali ◽  
Abu Bakar Razali

Being able to read well is important for English language learners. Through the process of reading, the learner becomes an active participant in producing an interaction with the writer of the text through predicting, analyzing, summarizing and using other types of reading strategies. However, building such a connection between the reader and the written information of the text is complex and for English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) students, it can be quite difficult for them to apply different types of reading strategies. This article provides a review of literature on 27 studies on the teaching of reading strategies (particularly cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies) for ESL/EFL learners, which reveals that ESL/EFL teachers need to keep updating their teaching methods to meet the ESL/EFL students’ needs, particularly in the use of correct reading strategies. The authors also highlight some of the main issues that prevent ESL/EFL students from improving and developing their reading comprehension. Furthermore, the authors discuss and conclude the article by suggesting to ESL/EFL teachers some teaching strategies to be applied in the reading lesson to improve the ESL/EFL students’ use of reading strategies.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 967 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abbas Pourhosein Gilakjani ◽  
Narjes Banou Sabouri

One of the important parts of foreign language teaching and learning is English pronunciation because it impacts learners' communicative competence and performance. Lack of pronunciation skills reduces learners’ self-confidence and limit their social interactions. EFL teachers can help their learners obtain the necessary skills of pronunciation they need for effective communication. In this paper, the researchers define the term pronunciation, explain the importance of pronunciation, declare the goals of English pronunciation, state the aspects of English pronunciation, elaborate the reason of integrating pronunciation in EFL classes, express techniques for teaching English pronunciation, and mention implications for the learning and teaching of English pronunciation. The review of literature indicates that EFL teachers play a vital role in improving the learners’ pronunciation skill.


Author(s):  
Zeynep Çetin Köroğlu

As it is known formative assessment focuses on both the learning process and learner's performance. In this study digital formative assessment and traditional speaking tests were utilized comparatively to evaluate 52 upper-intermediate EFL learners' English language speaking skills. The study was designed as a mixed-method. The quantitative data were collected via achievement tests which had been administered both in traditional speaking tests and digital formative tests. The qualitative findings were collected with students' interviews which consisted of four open-ended questions. The results of the study showed that participants outperformed in digital formative tests in comparison to traditional speaking tests. Another significant finding of the study is that participants are satisfied with the digital formative assessments in terms of peer collaboration during tests, enriched test materials, and preparation time for the speaking test. Although they have positive views on digital formative assessment, participants are dissatisfied with it in terms of technical problems that they encountered during the administration of digital formative tests.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 205-214
Author(s):  
Morita Panduwangi ◽  

This study aims to find out the effectiveness of Task-Based English Teaching (TBLT) to improve college students’ speaking skills. Teaching speaking is considered to be difficult as there are various factors involved, both from the teachers’ part and the students’ as well. TBLT uses authentic sources of teaching materials with tasks as the essence of the teaching instructions. The research was done in a private college in Bogor. Sixty 1st semester-students of non-English department are the subjects of the research. They were divided into two groups: the control group and experimental group. Each group consists of 30 students. The control group was taught using a more conventional method, however the experimental group was taught using Task-based instructions. A pre and post test were administered to both groups to find out the effectiveness of TBLT to improve their speaking skills. The mean scores of pre and post English speaking tests were tabulated using SPSS to identify whether there was a difference in students’ achievement of both groups and whether the difference was significant or not. Questionnaires were also distributed to find out their perspectives towards the English lessons. The results of the tests were supported by the students’ answers in the questionnaires in which all students of the experimental group showed significant improvement in their speaking skills in term of accuracy and fluency. Their perspective after experiencing TBLT in the English lessons also demonstrates a significant change resulting in students’ higher self confidence in speaking.


2021 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 01010
Author(s):  
Arifumi Saito ◽  
Younghyon Heo

This study explores how expanding circle communication (i.e., intercultural communication between “non-native” speakers of English) boosts the confidence of Japanese EFL learners by developing a positive attitude toward their own English. Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese university students participated in four sessions of online discussion. Since the idea of “English as an International Language” (EIL) is considered as a key to promote the learners’ positive mindset for what had been considered “non-native” English varieties and boost the confidence in their own English, it was introduced in the reading activities in each session. After the completion of four intercultural communication sessions, reflective writings on two questions asking 1) their self-confidence in speaking English and 2) their attitude about EIL were collected. The result shows that the expanding circle communication brought the Japanese participants to raise their confidence in speaking English in relatively high percentage (73%) of all cases. Regarding the attitude on EIL, on the other hand, students were divided into two groups with the negative (43%) and positive (57%) attitude. In this study, therefore, the gap in the percentage between the participants’ confidence in speaking English and attitude on EIL was examined and discussed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-53
Author(s):  
Alireza Bonyadi ◽  
Mehdi Kheyrollahi Kalvanagh ◽  
Minoo Bonyadi

Abstract Feasibility of maintaining an educational sustainable development (ESD) depends on exploring teachers’ concepts on their common practices in classroom settings. Speakers in multilingual contexts commonly switch their codes, languages, during their numerous social interactions. Nowadays, the phenomena, code switching, has expanded to cover any situation in which speakers switch from one accepted code into another. Through this perspective, various studies have been conducted to investigate different aspects of code-switching in EFL classrooms. The present study qualitatively investigated teachers’ perceptions on code-switching in their classrooms addressing two research questions, namely what types of code-switching EFL teachers were practicing in EFL classrooms and what were their perceptions on their code-switching. Four EFL teachers participated in the study. The analysis of the data collected through manual and electronic observations as well as structured interviews, indicated that intra-sentential and inter-sentential types of code-switching were practised throughout the classroom teaching processes. The main motives for resorting to code-switching were found to be EFL students’ lack of linguistic proficiency, keeping solidarity with the students and managing the classrooms.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
Seli Siti Syadiah

This research focuses on the EFL learners� problems in listening comprehension. The present research attempts to investigate listening problems encountered by a group of low level at seniors of a private university in Kuningan. This qualitative case study involved 10 participants who took TOEFL course in 7th semester. The data was gathered by means of questionnaires and interviews. The result of the research showed that accent, pronunciation, speed of speech, insufficient vocabulary, different accent of speakers, lack of concentration, anxiety, and bad quality of recording were the major listening comprehension problems encountered by EFL students. This research also found that most students (60%) used compensation strategy to overcome the problems by guessing the answer, while the others (30%) used memory strategy by using their knowledge or experiences, and the rest 10% of the students used affective strategy by motivating themselves to try answering the questions. Knowing students� learning difficulties may enable EFL teachers to develop the effective learning strategies and ultimately improve their English listening abilities. Suggestion is made for addressing problems regarding how students can help themselves and the teachers can help their students to overcome the listening comprehension problems encountered by the students.Keywords: EFL Learner, listening comprehension, listening problem


SAGE Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401989884
Author(s):  
Munassir Alhamami

This study used a mixed-methods design to investigate the effects of language learners’ subjective norm (SN) beliefs on learning English as a foreign language (EFL). To examine the perceived social pressure to learn EFL, two experiments were conducted in a Saudi university: a face-to-face language learning (FLL) experiment and an online language learning (OLL) experiment. A total of 674 EFL learners participated in the FLL treatment, and 286 EFL learners participated in the OLL treatment. In addition, several interviews were conducted with participants from both groups. The results show that understanding the SN beliefs of particular groups of people can help predict EFL students’ perceived social pressure to engage or not in learning a foreign language in online and face-to-face settings. Comparing the results of both groups shows that EFL learners hold more positive SN beliefs toward learning language in face-to-face settings than in online settings due to the participants’ SN beliefs. This finding highlights the importance of understanding the social pressure confronting language learners.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 116
Author(s):  
Maysa M. Qutob

This study investigates EFL students’ satisfaction with their acquired speaking skills based on the materials used as part of the classroom environment, and the teacher as a facilitator of the classroom environment. A questionnaire was adapted from Asakereh and Maliheh’s (2015) study, and completed by 60 students in the tenth grade at a private school in Jeddah. The study’s findings reveal that students are highly satisfied with their acquired speaking skills, materials, and language teacher. Moreover, a positive correlation was found between students acquired speaking skills with materials and with the language teacher.


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