scholarly journals Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Learners’ Argumentative Writing Performance in Private Language Institutes

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (15) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vahid Nimehchisalem ◽  
Masoud Machinchi Abbasi ◽  
Amirtohid Ebrahimzadeh ◽  
Seyed Ali Rezvani Kalajahi
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Argumentative Writing ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Writing Performance ◽  
Efl Learners

scholarly journals Collocational Differences Between L1 and L2: Implications for EFL Learners and Teachers

2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karim Sadeghi
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Teaching Experience ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
L1 And L2

Collocations are one of the areas that produce problems for learners of English as a foreign language. Iranian learners of English are by no means an exception. Teaching experience at schools, private language centers, and universities in Iran suggests that a significant part of EFL learners’ problems with producing the language, especially at lower levels of proficiency, can be traced back to the areas where there is a difference between source- and target-language word partners. As an example, whereas people in English make mistakes, Iranians do mistakes when speaking Farsi (Iran’s official language, also called Persian) or Azari (a Turkic language spoken mainly in the north west of Iran). Accordingly, many beginning EFL learners in Iran are tempted to produce the latter incorrect form rather than its acceptable counterpart in English. This is a comparative study of Farsi (Persian) and English collocations with respect to lexis and grammar. The results of the study, with 76 participants who sat a 60-item Farsi (Persian)- English test of collocations, indicated that learners are most likely to face great obstacles in cases where they negatively transfer their linguistic knowledge of the L1 to an L2 context. The findings of this study have some immediate implications for both language learners and teachers of EFL/ESL, as well as for writers of materials.

Interactional metadiscourse in young EFL learner writing

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huaqing Hong ◽  
Feng Cao
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Argumentative Writing ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Argumentative Essays ◽  
Qualitative Analyses

This study investigates how young English as a foreign language (EFL) learners from Chinese, Spanish, and Polish mother tongue backgrounds use interactional metadiscourse in descriptive and argumentative English essays by drawing data from the ICCI corpus. The quantitative and qualitative analyses show that (i) there are significant differences among the three groups of EFL learners in the use of boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, and engagement markers; and (ii) there are significant differences between the descriptive essays and the argumentative essays in the use of hedges and self-mentions. Discussion of the results is related to intergroup homogeneity and heterogeneity in the use of metadiscourse and the influences of essay types as well as topics/prompts. Pedagogical implications are provided for teaching interactional metadiscursive resources to young EFL learners from different mother tongue backgrounds and in relation to descriptive and argumentative writing.

scholarly journals Effect of the Comparative Continuation on L2 Writing Performance

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 27
Author(s):  
Jia-ling Han
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
L2 Writing ◽  
Writing Performance ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Input Text ◽  
Reading Materials ◽  
Language Writing ◽  
Writing Task

This study is a follow-up study of the continuation task, aiming to investigate the long-term alignment effects of the comparative continuation on L2 writing performance. The research lasted for a period of 16 weeks and employed a pretest-treatment-posttest research design. Two comparable groups of fifty-five Chinese undergraduate EFL learners participated. Both groups were assigned the same writing tasks i.e. writing an argument essay of the same topic within 30 minutes. One group was given an input text with comparative ideas before writing, while another group did not have any reading materials. After 8-week treatment, both groups received a posttest, in which the data were compared and analyzed with those of pretest. Results showed that (i) the comparative continuation task resulted in greater improvement in EFL learners’ writing performance than topic-writing task. (ii) the comparative continuation task was superior to the topic-writing task in incurring less meaning-based errors, but there was no difference in form-based errors between the two groups. The results can provide some enlightenment for teaching and research of foreign language writing.

Comparing the Impact of Divergent and Convergent Tasks on Extrovert and Introvert EFL Learners’ Writing Performance

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 1305
Author(s):  
Mania Nosratinia ◽  
Kolsum Kounani
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Analysis Of Variance ◽  
Personality Inventory ◽  
Entry And Exit ◽  
Comparative Effect ◽  
Writing Performance ◽  
Writing Ability ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Persian Translation

The present study attempted to study the comparative effect of convergent and divergent tasks on introvert and extrovert English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ writing ability. 120 homogeneous EFL learners between 20 to 28 years old (Mage = 24), including 60 extroverts and 60 introverts, were selected as the participants of this study; they were assigned into 4 groups. In order to categorize the participants as introverts and extroverts, the Persian translation of Eysenck and Eysenck’s (1985) Personality Inventory was employed. A number of PET tests by Quintana (2004) were piloted and employed for selecting homogenous individuals and testing participants’ entry and exit writing performances. Running a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that there were not significant differences between the extrovert and introvert participants' means on the posttest of writing (F (1, 116) = 3.67, p =.058, η2 = .031). It was also concluded that the divergent group had a significant but moderately higher mean on the posttest of writing than the convergent group (F (1, 116) = 16.32, p =.000, η2 = .12). The significance of divergent tasks over convergent tasks among introvert and extrovert participants was also confirmed through running 3 independent samples t-tests.

scholarly journals Vlog-Based Multimodal Composing: Enhancing EFL Learners’ Writing Performance

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (20) ◽  
pp. 9655
Author(s):  
Qiuzhu Xie ◽  
Xiaobin Liu ◽  
Nanyan Zhang ◽  
Qianqian Zhang ◽  
Xijuan Jiang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
Writing Performance ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Plain Text ◽  
English Writing ◽  
Multimodal Composing ◽  
Audio Video ◽  
Writing Competence

For most learners of English as a foreign language (EFL), there has long been a lack of effective opportunities to practice English writing skills. However, the recent development of social networking services (SNS) provides new possibilities for these learners to practice writing English in a meaningful way. Meanwhile, with the popularity of social media in language learning, writing is unnecessarily in the form of plain text, and multimodal composing based on text and additional modes such as audio, video or images has been a new form of writing activity instead. This study integrated SNS-based multimodal composing activities into secondary and higher education, with the aim of determining its effects on learners’ writing performance. Two classes in senior high school Grade 10 and four in college were recruited, three as the control groups without using SNS-based multimodal composing, and others as the experimental groups. While all classes’ writing performance improved between pretest and posttest, the gains in overall writing competence by experimental groups and the gains in three detailed aspects (readability, lexical complexity and syntactic complexity) by college students were significantly larger. Progress in detailed aspects, on the other hand, was different across different groups. These findings are discussed in relation to specific characteristics of multimodal composing and SNS-based learning that enables learners to improve writing performance.

The Effects of Self- and Peer-assessment on Iranian EFL Learners' Argumentative Writing Performance

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hamid Reza Iraji ◽  
Mostafa Janebi Enayat ◽  
Mahyar Momeni
Keyword(s):  
Peer Assessment ◽  
Teacher Assessment ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Argumentative Writing ◽  
Use Of Self ◽  
Writing Performance ◽  
Writing Ability ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Alternative Assessments ◽  
Efl Students

Alternative assessments have increasingly gained attention in L2 writing. One of the areas of research which has received much attention in the literature of ELT is the use of self- and peer-assessments and their effects on developing the writing ability of ESL/EFL learners. The purpose of this study was to find the effect of self- and peer-assessments on the argumentative writing performance of intermediate Iranian EFL learners. For this purpose, 36 intermediate EFL students were selected and homogenized based on the results of Oxford Quick Placement Test and an argumentative writing which served as the pre-test of this study. They were then randomly assigned into control and experimental groups to receive different treatments. The compositions of participants in the control group were assessed using traditional teacher-assessment while for the experimental group, self- and peer-assessments were used writing assessment. The results of post-test indicated that the use of self- and peer-assessments significantly affected the writing ability of the learners. Based on the obtained results, it was concluded that using alternative assessments for Iranian EFL students could be helpful in overcoming some of their argumentative writing difficulties. The results of this study have clear implications for both learners and teachers and other stakeholders of ELT. They can use these alternative assessments as a learning opportunity to lower the anxiety and improve the argumentative writing skill of the students. s, but they were permanently different in illocutionary acts. Finally, in terms of perlocutionary acts, the candidates were mostly intended to get the hearers know by their assertion, explanation, clarification, argumentation, etc.

Study of Consonant Pronunciations Errors Committed by EFL Learners

2019 ◽  
pp. 48-56
Author(s):  
Ali Akbar Khansir ◽  
Afsaneh Salehabadi
Keyword(s):  
English Language Learners ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
English Language ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Listening Skill ◽  
English Pronunciation ◽  
Efl Students ◽  
Knowledge Of Language

As the topic suggests, the research paper presents Study of Consonant Pronunciations Errors Committed by EFL Learners. Error analysis always tries to resolve language learners’ problems in acquiring second or foreign language setting. Learning to English pronunciation is perhaps as important as learning listening skill, speaking, and spelling. Errors in English pronunciation create several problems for English language learners in their works. In other words, most of the English language errors of pronunciation are due to the lack of knowledge of language learners. However, all the students in our sample are of age group (16-25) at Bushehr language institute and they are all Iranian nationals. In addition, all of them were female learners. An English pronunciation (consonant) test was used to get information about the knowledge of the learners in English pronunciation. Findings of this article indicated that the first and second hypotheses of this article were accepted, but the third hypothesis was rejected. However, the findings of this paper showed that the Iranian EFL students have problem to pronounce English sounds correctly.

INVESTIGATING ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS’ FOREIGN LANGUAGE SPEAKING ANXIETY: A CASE STUDY IN UNIVERSITAS AIRLANGGA, INDONESIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Dyas Intan Rachmawati ◽  
Jurianto Jurianto
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Significant Negative Correlation ◽  
English Department ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
Speaking Anxiety ◽  
Pearson Product Moment Correlation ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Achievement Score ◽  
Anxiety Levels

Anxiety during a speaking performance is a common phenomenon experienced by any EFL learners, including students majoring in English. Focusing on the issue, this study investigates the correlation between students’ foreign language speaking anxiety and speaking achievement. Moreover, this study also observes the levels and the sources of the speaking anxiety among the English Department’s fifth-semester students of Universitas Airlangga. This study used the Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety Scale (FLSAS) by Öztürk and Gurbuz (2014). The FLSAS questionnaire was distributed to 114 students in order to explore the correlation between speaking anxiety and speaking achievement, the speaking anxiety levels, and the speaking anxiety sources. The data collected through questionnaire were analyzed with SPSS 25.0. Pearson Product Moment Correlation isused to determine the correlation, while descriptive statistic alanalys is isused to investigate the levels and the sources for speaking anxiety. Horwitz, Horwitzand Cope’s(1986) theory and Horwitz and Young (1991) about the source and the levels of foreign language speaking anxiety are also used in this study. This study found that there is a significant negative correlation between speaking anxiety levels and speaking achievement. This means the higher the speaking anxiety they experience, the lower the achievement score they get. Most of the students have moderate levels of speaking anxiety, which is mainly due to the fear of negative evaluation.This study indicates that although the EFL learners are often exposed to English, they still experience speaking anxiety. These findings suggest that the lecturers should be more aware of students’ anxiety and use strategies that might encourage the students to speak more confidently.

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