scholarly journals Exploring Self-Mention in The Yemeni EFL Argumentative Writing Across Three Proficiency Levels

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali Alward
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Cultural Background ◽  
First Person ◽  
Argumentative Writing ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Proficiency Level ◽  
University Level

Self-mention used by university-level Yemeni writers is regarded as a challenging task. The overuse use of this feature is often considered as less formal and objective in academic writing. Despite the significance of this feature in academic writing, previous studies were mostly conducted in the Western cultural context. Research on self-mention produced by EFL learners of Arabic cultural background seems to be overlooked. Therefore, this study aimed to explore and compare the use of the first-person pronouns across three proficiency levels in an argumentative paragraph written by 80 third-year undergraduate students. Data were collected, assessed by ELT specialists, and then quantitatively analyzed. The results revealed that Yemeni EFL learners make extensive use of the first-person pronouns in their argumentative paragraphs. Differences were found in the occurrences of the first-person pronouns across three proficiency levels. The results also indicated that learners with a high proficiency level tend to use the first-person pronouns less than learners at low and intermediate proficiency levels. Since low-proficient learners rely more on the use of the first-person pronouns than those at higher levels, learners need to be exposed to a variety of strategies of how they can project their voice appropriately in their written texts.

scholarly journals The Analysis of Indonesian EFL Argumentative Writing Using Toulmin’s Model: The Structure and Struggles from the Learners

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Hanna Sundari ◽  
Rina Husnaini Febriyanti
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Point Pattern ◽  
Argumentative Writing ◽  
Specific Level ◽  
Toulmin Model ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Writing Assignment ◽  
University Level ◽  
Block Pattern ◽  
Thesis Statement

<p>Argumentative writing plays an important role in academic writing at university level. However, learners mostly find that writing this essay a challenging and effortful task. This present study aims at exploring the structures of argumentative essay written by Indonesian EFL students from one university in Jakarta Indonesia. Moreover, it investigates their difficulty and constraints during composing the essay. Using a descriptive qualitative design, the authors selected writing assignment and questionnaire for collecting data. A layout of Toulmin model of arguments was used in analyzing the essays. The findings of the study show that the argumentative papers cover the main elements: claim (thesis statement), data, rebut, and rebuttal data using either in block pattern or point-by-point pattern. The elements show diverse in types. Logical analysis and explanation are the most frequently used on the papers. Though they present acceptable thesis with well-organized essay, some information is unrelated and data for supporting the claim are seemingly insufficient. In addition, the students think that this essay as difficult task. In general, lack of knowledge, vocabulary and practice cause the constraints. In specific level, the students report that giving argument, finding support and working on counterargument become source of difficulty and constraints.</p>

scholarly journals Cross-Sectional Study of Refusal Speech Act Used by Iraqi Undergraduate Students

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 166-173
Author(s):  
Hutheifa Y. Turki ◽  
Juma’a Q. Hussein ◽  
Ahmed A. Al-Kubaisy
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Proficiency Level ◽  
Arabic And English ◽  
Refusal Strategies

This paper is conducted to investigate how Iraqi EFL learners refuse different speech acts across different proficiency levels. It aims to examine the most appropriate strategies used by 2nd year students of English as compared to those of 4th year when refusing their interlocutors' invitation, suggestion, and offer. WDCT questionnaire was used to collect data from 40 Iraqi undergraduate students of English: 20 2nd year and 20 4th year. Adopting Beebe et al.'s (1990) theory of refusal, data collected was analyzed quantitatively using statistical analysis. The findings revealed that the 2nd year students of English were more frequent in using direct refusals than their 4th year counterparts. This means the latter were more aware of using refusals politely than the former. On the other hand, the findings showed that 4th year students more frequent in their use of indirect refusal strategies that the 2nd year students. This indicates that the EFL learners of low proficiency level might not bridge the gap between the pragmalinguistic strategies and the grammatical form of the target language. This means that they were not pragmatically competent of the use of the appropriate pragmalinguistic strategies. This implies that the 2nd year students need to pay more attention to pragmatics and use their refusal strategies appropriately. Thus, the paper recommends conducting further research on the use of refusal speech act in Arabic and English.

The interplay of oral corrective feedback and L2 willingness to communicate across proficiency levels

2020 ◽  
pp. 136216882092896
Author(s):  
Mostafa Zare ◽  
Zohreh Gooniband Shooshtari ◽  
Alireza Jalilifar
Keyword(s):  
Corrective Feedback ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Willingness To Communicate ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Feedback Type ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Proficiency Level ◽  
High Preference ◽  
Oral Corrective Feedback ◽  
The Impact

This study aims to explore the impact of oral corrective feedback types on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ willingness to communicate across proficiency levels. It also investigates how EFL learners view different types of feedback in relation to their willingness to communicate. Sixty Iranian EFL learners were tracked in four proficiency levels. Initially, the participants filled in a questionnaire to measure their attitudes to oral CF and their willingness to communicate. Subsequent to the teachers’ employment of explicit correction, recasts, and prompts, the learners’ willingness to communicate was measured anew. A semi-structured interview was also conducted. The results revealed learners’ high preference for prompts. A two-way mixed between-within ANOVA demonstrated a significant effect for both oral corrective feedback and proficiency level on willingness to communicate. Furthermore, elicitative types of feedback were ranked as the most contributory feedback type to L2 willingness to communicate.

scholarly journals THE VOCABULARY LEARNING STRATEGIES USED BY UUM STUDENTS IN RELATION TO THEIR PROFICIENCY LEVELS

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 92
Author(s):  
Noraziah Mohd Amin
Keyword(s):  
Learning Strategies ◽  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Vocabulary Learning ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Proficiency Level ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Vocabulary Learning Strategies ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Universiti Utara Malaysia

AbstrakTulisan ini berfokus pada strategi pembelajaran kosakata yang digunakan oleh Band 1 dan Band 4 mahasiswa sarjana Universitas Utara Malaysia (UUM). Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mensurvei penggunaan strategi pembelajaran kosakata yang digunakan oleh responden dan untuk menentukan sejauh mana penggunaan strategi dipengaruhi oleh tingkat kemampuan mereka. Instrumen yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah kuesioner yang dikembangkan oleh Lachini (2007) berdasarkan klasifikasi Cottrell tentang strategi pembelajaran yang terdiri dari lima kategori strategi belajar kosakata: kreatif, reflektif, efektif, aktif dan motivasi. Respon dari 100 responden dari masing masing kelompok, Band 1 dan Band 4, hasil kuesioner diperiksa pada frekuensi penggunaan strategi pembelajaran kosakata. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa tidak ada perbedaan yang signifikan dalam hal frekuensi penggunaan antara Band 1 dan Band 4 peserta sebagai mayoritas kedua kelompok digunakan sebagian besar strategi baik 'sedikit' atau 'sering'. Temuan penelitian mungkin bisa membantu instruktur untuk memfasilitasi pembelajaran kosakata bahasa Inggris oleh mahasiswa UUM dan mahasiswa lain pada umumnya.                        Kata-kata kunci: Strategi pembelajaran kosakata, tingkatan kemampuan berbahasaAbstract This thesis is concerned with the vocabulary learning strategies used by Band 1 and Band 4 undergraduate students of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM).  The objectives of this descriptive study were to survey the vocabulary learning strategies used by the respondents and to determine to what extent their use of the strategies was influenced by their proficiency level. The instrument employed in the study was a questionnaire developed by Lachini (2007) based on Cottrell’s classification of learning strategies. It consists of five categories of vocabulary learning strategies: creative, reflective, effective, active and motivated. The responses of 100 Band 1 and 100 Band 4 students to the questionnaire were examined on the frequency of their use of the vocabulary learning strategies. The results indicated that there was no significant difference in terms of the frequency of use between Band 1 and Band 4 participants as  the majority of both groups employed most of the strategies either ‘a little’ or ‘often’. The findings of the study perhaps could help instructors to facilitate the learning of English vocabulary by UUM students and other students at large.    Keywords: The vocabulary learning strategies, proficiency levels

scholarly journals Validation and Investigation of Sentence Parsing Strategies: a Study of EFL Learners Psych and Language Processing

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 1099-1122
Author(s):  
Sahar Moeenian ◽  
Gholam Reza Abbasian
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Strategy Use ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Proficiency Level ◽  
Late Closure

Having a proper insight into understanding the human cognition in sentence processing strategies, this study explored the nature of Minimal Attachment and Late Closure strategies in relation to language proficiency levels. Facing the problem that why some EFL learners tend to parse differently (i.e., use Minimal Attachment and Late Closure Strategies), on one hand and the need to develop a reliable and valid instrument to do the respective investigation on the other hand, was the motive behind this study. By administering a Preliminary English Test (PET), three groups of Iranian adult EFL learners, both male and female were conventionally classified into three levels of proficiency. Three separate researcher-made sentence comprehension tests (each for one proficiency level) were then adopted as the main data collecting instruments through applying Think- Aloud Protocol in which all steps of instrument validation were taken. Findings revealed the use or better to say construct validity of various strategies. Meanwhile, the analyses revealed that the parsing strategies are, to some extent if not that much, associated with language proficiency levels, indicating that language proficiency level has some degree of effect on the participants use of parsing strategies as a whole, although findings on Minimal Attachment and Late Closure strategy use as two separate ones differed. While, there was not much effect of language proficiency level on Minimal Attachment strategy, the findings indicated a moderately large effect size on Late Closure strategy use and the three groups showed almost higher means on Late Closure strategy rather than the other one. Therefore, certain parsing strategies are associated with language proficiency level proving the fact that language proficiency level is an effective parameter as far as human cognition in language processing in general and sentence processing in particular are concerned. Moreover, not only is there relationship among language proficiency levels and the strategy use but the nature of relationship varies depending on language proficiency level and strategy type.

scholarly journals Exploring academic identities of EFL novice writers

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna Juliaty
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Writing System ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Academic Identities ◽  
Writing Culture ◽  
Novice Writers ◽  
Writing Practice

In academic writing, undergraduate EFL learners are not required only to apply correct L2 writing system, but more profoundly, construct and convey ideas in ways recognised in their discipline as they continuously create and recreate identities as members of their academic community. Such a process of identity construction shapes EFL novice writers’ characteristics and nurture their growth as writers in the academic environment. This study, thus, aims to explore the portrayal of academic identities of undergraduate EFL novice writers. Eight Indonesian undergraduate students of an English Department in a private Indonesian university participated in this study. The data collected included an autobiography journal, a semi-structured interview and two essay assignments. The data were analysed qualitatively by employing Ivanič’s (1998) concept of writer identity, consisting of autobiographical self, discoursal self and authorial self, and Hyland’s (2010) metadiscourse model. The findings reveal that despite numerous writing repertoires applied to display aspects of autobiographical, discoursal and authorial selves in the learners’ academic writing, the portrayal of academic identities in the writing is overall weak due to the struggles that the learners faced in adjusting and engaging themselves in the academic community of their discipline. Some recommendations in relation to L2 academic writing practice for EFL undergraduate students include facilitating students to have more exposure and access into L2 academic writing culture and academic community of their discipline.

scholarly journals Learner Corpus and Academic Writing: Identifying the Error Patterns of Taiwanese EFL Students

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Hsiao-I Hou
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Curriculum Design ◽  
Writing Curriculum ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Grammatical Errors ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Lexical Errors

<p>The purpose of this study is to find practical implications for improving academic writing curriculum design by exploring lexical and grammatical errors produced by EFL learners in a vocational institution in Taiwan. To satisfy this purpose, a small learner corpus was compiled in this study. The data were obtained from 58 undergraduate students of a public vocational university from September 2012 to June 2013 in Taiwan. There are 112 essays in the corpus that include 34,426 tokens. Learner errors were annotated based on the error categories found in (Dagneaux et al, 1996). Transfer errors and intralingual errors were analyzed. Lexical Tutor and AntConc software were used to conduct the analyses. Lexical errors, including incorrect word choices, misspellings, and word insertions, deletions or replacements occurred primarily due to students’ insufficient mastery of vocabulary. The top three grammatical errors were verb forms, article errors, and preposition errors. Based on the research results, pedagogical implications that focus on teaching EAP writing to vocational university students in Taiwan are discussed.</p>

scholarly journals SYSTEMATICITY OF L1 THAI LEARNERS' ENGLISH INTERLANGUAGE OF DEPENDENT PREPOSITIONS

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 246
Author(s):  
Piyaboot Sumonsriworakun ◽  
Nattama Pongpairoj
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Negative Transfer ◽  
Cognitive Factors ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Proficiency Level ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
English Usage ◽  
Thai English ◽  
Advanced Proficiency ◽  
Shed Light

The study investigates systematicity in English interlanguage of dependent prepositions among L1 Thai learners of L2 English. It is hypothesized that Thai learners show non-random use of English dependent prepositions in their English interlanguage, and that the systematicity is largely attributable to cross-linguistic influence and certain cognitive factors. To test the hypothesis, 30 L1 Thai undergraduate students of L2 English at elementary, intermediate, and advanced proficiency levels took two tests: a Thai–English translation test and a cloze test. The tests involved four types of relationship between English and Thai dependent prepositions: (1) [–prep] in English but [+prep] in Thai, (2) [+prep] in English but [–prep] in Thai, (3) [+prep1] in English but [+prep2] in Thai, and (4) [+prep] in English and [+prep] in Thai. The findings demonstrate that systematicity occurred in the learners’ English usage of prepositions of all such types, possibly due to negative transfer from the learners’ native language. Also, the L2 learners tended to exhibit such systematicity irrespective of their English proficiency level. It may be assumed that the cognitive aspect of L2 learners’ working memory is involved in processing the usage of the four types of English dependent prepositions. The results of the study are expected to shed light on the problems of L2 English interlanguage of dependent prepositions among L1 Thai learners.

scholarly journals EFL students’ perception on the use of Grammarly and teacher feedback

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-25
Author(s):  
Mohammad Amiqul Fahmi ◽  
Bambang Yudi Cahyono
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
English Proficiency ◽  
Teacher Feedback ◽  
Writing Evaluation ◽  
Proficiency Levels ◽  
Automated Writing Evaluation ◽  
Proficiency Level ◽  
Writing Course ◽  
Efl Students

Many studies on the Automated writing evaluation (AWE) Program predominantly focused on the outcomes of the students writing and the comparison between AWE programs. However, studies investigating the students' perception on combining an AWE program and teacher feedback are still insufficient.  This study examined the students' perception on the use of Grammarly and teacher feedback on their writing. It also sought to know whether the students' English proficiency level influences their perception. The participants included 26 undergraduate students of the Faculty of Law who were taking an English for Specific Purpose (ESP) Writing course when the data were collected. The data were the students' responses to the questionnaire and their TOEFL scores. The result of the analysis showed that the students perceived the use of Grammarly and teacher feedback positively. Furthermore, the students' perception on the use of Grammarly and teacher feedback was not influenced by their English proficiency level. Students of high and low English proficiency levels gave positive responses to the use of Grammarly and teacher feedback. HIGHLIGHTS: Combining two kinds of feedback (AWE program and the teacher) providers will produce the feedback that is truly helpful for both the teacher and the students. The role of teacher feedback cannot be neglected as it can complement the demerits of the AWE program. English teachers should consider the appropriate approach when using Grammarly for students with certain English proficiency level because students from different English proficiency levels need a different approach.

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