Abstract
The present study aims at investigating the effect of using the native language as a pedagogic intervention on the complexity of Iranian EFL learners' English oral productions. A sample of 39 male and female adult English learners of B1 and B2 CEFR proficiency levels was recruited to participate in this study. They were placed into two intact classes (i.e., as already determined by the institution’s authorities) and each class was randomly chosen to serve as either the experimental (EG) or the control (CG) group. Improving the learners’ speaking ability was the focus of both groups while only the EG was asked to orally produce the equivalents of Persian sentences presented to them. In order to measure the lexical and grammatical complexity of oral productions of the learners, two parallel speaking tests of IELTS 10, in the form of two oral interviews, were used as pre- and post-test oral interviews. A MANCOVA test was run to compare the performance of the two groups in terms of their lexical and grammatical complexity after the treatment. Results indicated that the EG's lexical and grammatical complexity improved as compared to the CG, and the improvement in both of these variables was statistically significant.
Highlights
Among the four language skills learners are expected to have mastery over –listening, speaking, reading, and writing– the second one, speaking, is considered to be the most demanding for the teachers and the most popular for the learners (Aleksandrzak, 2011)
The present study aims at investigating the effect of using the native language as a pedagogic intervention on the complexity of Iranian EFL learners’ English oral productions
The mean of this group regarding the grammatical complexity of their oral productions (M=.45, SD=.092) was lower than that of the CG (M=.54, SD=.141)
Summary
Among the four language skills learners are expected to have mastery over –listening, speaking, reading, and writing– the second one, speaking, is considered to be the most demanding for the teachers and the most popular for the learners (Aleksandrzak, 2011). Speaking is intensively required to be developed in order for EFL/ESL (English as a Foreign Language/English as a Second Language) learners to interact and communicate effectively in various contexts and situations. Many scholars and experts in this field assume that the ability to communicate orally is equal to knowing the given language, as speaking is the main means of human communication (Lazarton, 2001). 35), “expressing oneself effectively and appropriately during oral conversational exchange with native or expert speakers of a target language represents for many learners and teachers the ultimate goal of language instruction” According to Payne and Ross (2005, p. 35), “expressing oneself effectively and appropriately during oral conversational exchange with native or expert speakers of a target language represents for many learners and teachers the ultimate goal of language instruction”
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