Developing EFL Learners' Oral Proficiency through Animation-based Instruction of English Formulaic Sequences

Abstract

The current pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study attempts, firstly, to probe the effects of teaching formulaic sequences (FSs) on the second or foreign language (L2) learners' oral proficiency improvement and secondly, to examine whether teaching FSs through different resources (i.e. animation vs. text-based readings) have any differentially influential effects in augmenting L2 learners' oral proficiency or not. To this end, a cohort of 60 young L2 learners of an immersion program school in the southwest of Iran was randomly divided into three groups, two experimental and one control. During 24 instructional sessions, one experimental group received the FSs instruction through animation, and the second experimental group noticed FSs through text-based readings. The control group was taught using the school mainstream L2 textbooks without any focus on FSs. The results indicated that both FSs groups outperformed the control group. Moreover, animation-based instruction significantly increased the efficacy of FSs instruction, pointing to the issue that educational technology is a better strategy for teaching FSs rather than the traditional way of reading.