Undergraduate English Students Research Articles

MORPHOLOGICAL MARKING IRREGULARITY OF BAHASA INDONESIA AND THE ACQUISITION OF ENGLISH WORDS

All languages share the same lexical categories. Unlike English, however, Bahasa Indonesia carries fewer consistent patterns of morphological markers for word categories. A verb, for instance, is marked with the prefix {me-} as in me- nginjak (to step on); however, other verbs do not carry this marker as in makan (eat), tidur (sleep), and tergantung (depend). As for English, the suffix {-ing} or {-ed/-en}, for instance, indicates that the root is a verb regardless of the verb transitivity. This research investigated if the irregularity in the morphological marking of Bahasa Indonesia verbs created problems in acquiring English words. A test of the "word category assignment" (Test 1) was provided to two groups of respondents: undergraduate students of English and doctoral students of Bahasa Indonesia. And, "word-in-context translation into English" (Test 2) was given to a group of undergraduates of English group. The first was to know if the respondents managed to assign the Bahasa Indonesia words with correct lexical categories, and the second was to know if the words were assigned with correct word categories when translated in English. This was to know if the Bahasa Indonesia and English words received the same word-category assignment. The results show that errors in the assignment of the grammatical categories of the Bahasa Indonesia words were found pervasive among the two groups. And the lexico-grammar behavior seems to give impact on the categorization of the Bahasa Indonesia words when provided in English as also detected in the translation. It is strongly indicative that confusion in the word category assignment of Bahasa Indonesia gives impact on the acquisition of English words.

Standardization of EFL Undergraduate Skill Exam Papers: A Case Study at Majmaah University

Designing standardized exams for EFL undergraduates is a matter of great concern in pedagogical practices that assess learners’ academic achievements. This case study was conducted at Majmaah University, Saudi Arabia, to explore the significance of educational exam standardization and its impact on the process of implementation, leading to a balanced and equitable assessment of English language skills. During the study, 250 final English skill exam questions of two semesters were analyzed. A mixed-method approach using a questionnaire and Focused Group Discussion was adopted to collect relevant data. The quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS 16, and the qualitative data was processed by thematic analysis. The quantitative data results showed that questions were balanced, valid, and reliable in language skill exam papers designed for undergraduate English students. The qualitative data revealed four major themes – standardization of questions, the efficacy of Bloom’s taxonomy, assessment/evaluation, and alignment of the question with learning outcomes. These emerging themes highlighted the effectivness of standardizing exam papers, identified problems, and suggested ways of improvement. The study indicates that exams must be scrutinized for the sake of standardization in terms of maximum course coverage; the variety in the question item; clear, concise, and precise instructions; validity and reliability of exam papers; and the alignment of questions with the course and program learning outcomes to ensure the implementation of the revised Bloom’s taxonomy. The study suggests, to generalize the results, that further investigation should be done in another Saudi university for the sake of comparison.

Synchronous and Asynchronous Electronic Learning and EFL Learners’ Learning of Grammar

As a negative consequence of COVID 19, almost all students felt obliged to leave the universities and use electronic devices to learn. Some universities encouraged faculty members to use Electronic teaching as an alternative to traditional classrooms. Despite a large number of studies on different forms of electronic learning, the effectiveness of synchronous and asynchronous E-learning in teaching grammar to EFL learners has been neither investigated nor compared appropriately. Two intact classes of undergraduate students of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) from Farhangiyan university were selected. and each received the treatment through either synchronous or asynchronous E-learning activities. The same syllabus consisting of dependent Clauses, Appostive, infinitives, and gerunds were taught to the two groups. EFL learners’ knowledge of grammar was measured by recognition and production tests. The two groups’ scores were submitted to repeated measures ANOVA tests. The findings showed that both modes of E-learning greatly influenced the language learners’ knowledge of grammar as measured by recognition and production tests. Results also showed that the interaction between electronic modes and grammar recognition and production tests was statistically significant. Therefore, it could be concluded that E-learning learning is useful, synchronous learning is more effective for improving the language learners’ production, and asynchronous learning is effective for improving the skills and subskills which require reflection and comprehension.

Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction, Goal Orientation, Willingness to Communicate, Self-efficacy, and Learning Strategy Use as Predictors of Second Language Achievement: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach.

The study of the complex impact of the cognitive and psychological factors' interplay in learning process has for long obsessed educational researchers. In an attempt to partially address the issue, the present study investigates the direct and indirect interrelationship among Iranian EFL learners' basic psychological needs satisfaction, goal-orientation, willingness to communicate, learning strategy use, self-efficacy and second language achievement through a path analytic research design. To this end, 506 Iranian undergraduate English students took the related questionnaires and based on the collected data, a hypothesized model of interrelationship among variables was tested using AMOS statistical package. According to the final path analytic tested model, L2 achievement was predicted by goal orientation, self-efficacy, and learning strategy use. Moreover, while basic psychological needs satisfaction did not directly predict L2 achievement, it was indirectly associated with L2 achievement through goal orientation. The findings imply that the teachers need to first identify the most relevant individual sources of performance variation in their context and next design procedures to maximally cope with inhibitive psychological or cognitive factors which associate with their learners' rate and route of learning. Moreover, language learners need to be more oriented towards setting their future goals, believing in their capabilities, and use more learning strategies.

VIRTUAL REALITY IN ENGLISH VOCABULARY TEACHING: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON AFFECT IN THE USE OF TECHNOLOGY

ABSTRACT The evaluative studies of hypermedia effects on second language acquisition have been mostly applied to interfaces whose user’s input is limited to clicks, typed texts, and voice. Nonetheless, virtual reality (VR) technology expanded user’s interactions with a data processing machine since it explores a sense of presence through body language, 360-degrees images, and tactile techniques. It is in this context that this paper approaches VR to explore its potential for foreign language vocabulary teaching and learning, considering mainly the appraisal mechanisms novelty and pleasantness proposed by Schumann (1999). This exploratory research presents the preparation and the results of a study applied to sixteen undergraduate English students at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil, as well as to nine students from the author’s one private course. The technology used in this study were three Google products: Cardboard™, as the VR headset; Expeditions, for the narrative; and Polly, for the building of the VR scenes. The following methodological actions were addressed to the participants of the study: an English placement test; vocabulary tests; exposure to the virtual environment, a guided visit to Museo Frida Kahlo, in Mexico; and a questionnaire on the evaluation of the experience. At the theoretical level, the present study is based on the assumptions of the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (MAYER, 2001) and in the role of affect in language learning (SCHUMANN, 1997; 1999). The results of vocabulary tests, the questionnaire, and limitations of the technology are discussed, giving a basis for the conclusion that VR can significantly contribute to foreign language vocabulary teaching and learning since the technology has the potential to motivate students and immerse them into real-life-like scenarios.

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

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 Effect of Project-Based Learning on First-Year Undergraduate Students in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Courses

Project-Based Learning is an approach that is significantly different from the conventional English Language Teaching method. PBL has been advocated as an effective instruction that promotes the simultaneous acquisition of language, content, and 21st-century skills to EFL (English as a foreign language) and ESL context. In this study researcher’s attempt is to integrate PBL (Project-Based Learning) approach, which incorporates authentic, learning by doing, problem-solving, critical thinking and team working skills with ESP (English for specific purposes) courses. The study aimed to investigate whether the PBL projects assist EFL learners in acquiring department related literature and information in the English language and the effect of project work on learners’ ESP course academic achievement. The study was conducted at Tishk International University, formerly known as Ishik University, in Iraq-Kurdistan Region with 2 Engineering (Architectural and Civil engineering) and Business and Management departments’ students. A mixed-method approach was designed to make the authentic interpretation of gained results. Quantitative and Qualitative instruments were utilized to probe the effect of PBL in the ESP course of undergraduate Iraqi EFL learners. The findings of this study reveal that PBL had a significant positive effect on acquiring department-related vocabulary and information in English as well as learners’ ESP course academic achievement showed statistically significant increment.

Needs Analysis and Teachers’ Perceptions: A Study of English Undergraduate Students

Needs Analysis in the context of language-learning-teaching is an important process to design a certain course and syllabus. It helps course designers to set objectives, choose content, method of instruction, appropriate teaching aids, and classroom activities for different courses. This paper reports the perceptions of the researchers on the English language learning needs of the English undergraduate students of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University Sheringal, Pakistan. The data is based on the researchers’ personal experience and first-hand observation of the population as the researchers have been teaching in the target context for about a decade. Furthermore, the researchers have always been in discussion with their students and colleagues about the target students’ English learning needs, preferred learning styles, motivation in learning English, interest, strengths/weaknesses, and attitude toward English learning in the target setting. Learners’ assignments, exam answer sheets, and presentations have also been used as a source of data collection. A needs analysis model proposed by Hutchinson and Waters (1987) has been applied in order to analyze the data. The results show that the students lack well grammatical sentences, have poor spellings, capitalization problems, limited vocabulary, unaware of collocations, poor/slow reading comprehension, and lack effective presentation skills. Furthermore, most of the students have lack of involvement in classroom activities and feel shy in speaking the English language. It was reported that the provision of authentic material, interesting activities, suitable audio-visual aids, relevant texts, language labs, and other logistic arrangements can better help them in learning the English language. The findings demonstrate that the students wished to have a learner-centered-course that helps them excel in their academic life and learning the English language.

Cultural Awareness among First-Year Undergraduate Students of English and Translation

The article presents the results of a culture quiz that was administered among undergraduate students of English and Translation at the University of Maribor in 2019. Comprising twenty items from five domains of culture that the respondents had to identify, the results of the quiz showed that that the students were most familiar with items from the domains of technology and its closely related vocabulary, followed by sports, politics and high culture (drama, literature, ballet). The study also suggested some differences based on respondents’ gender and their high school grade performance in English. The results partly overlap with the results of a similar study from 2007, corroborating that popular culture remains the most recognizable cultural domain among the surveyed students.

The Anti-language in the English as a Foreign Language Curriculum

The aim of this paper is to raise awareness of the significance of slang in educating well-rounded EFL learners. The study, first, uncovers the most salient features of slang, distinguishing it from jargon, argot, cant, etc. It also discusses the reasons why slang springs to life; the users of slang and functions it performs, as well as the word-formation processes employed in its creation.The paper further investigates the familiarity of Macedonian undergraduate students of English with currently relevant English and American slang, the main hypothesis being that they lack knowledge of slang due to insufficient exposure and instruction. The instruments used are a questionnaire and a quiz comprising 60 slang terms, intended to inspect informants’ knowledge of slang.The results obtained from this research confirm that slang is disregarded in EFL acquisition, and that no steady progress is made in the students’ knowledge of slang in the course of their university studies.

Needs Analysis and Teachers' Perceptions: A Study of the English Undergraduate Students

Needs Analysis in the context of language-learning-teaching is an important process to design a certain course and syllabus. It helps course designers to set objectives, choose content, method of instruction, appropriate teaching aids, and classroom activities for different courses. This paper reports the perceptions of the researchers on the English language learning needs of the English undergraduate students of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University Sheringal, Pakistan. The data is based on the researchers’ personal experience and first-hand observation of the population as the researchers have been teaching in the target context for about a decade. Furthermore, the researchers have always been in discussion with their students and colleagues about the target students’ English learning needs, preferred learning styles, motivation in learning English, interest, strengths/weaknesses, and attitude toward English learning in the target setting. Learners’ assignments, exam answer sheets, and presentations have also been used is a source of data collection. A needs analysis model proposed by Hutchinson and Waters (1987) has been applied in order to analyze the data. The results show that the students lack well grammatical sentences, have poor spellings, capitalization problems, limited vocabulary, unaware of collocations, poor/slow reading comprehension, and lack of effective presentation skills. Furthermore, most of the students have a lack of involvement in classroom activities and feel shy about speaking the English language. It was reported that the provision of authentic material, interesting activities, suitable audio-visual aids, relevant texts, language labs, and other logistic arrangements can better help them in learning the English language. The findings demonstrate that the students wished to have a learner-centered-course that helps them excel in their academic life and learning the English language.

The Impact of Vocabulary Depth and Breadth to the TOEFL Reading Subtest in IAIN Kediri

TOEFL has been provided as a standardized test to measure the English proficiency of non-native speakers. However, one thing should be considered that TOEFL is still a big challenge for non-native English learners, especially for EFL learners. This is one of the factors, related to how proficient the vocabulary knowledge which students have. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate to what extent the relation between vocabulary knowledge, breadth and depth, and TOEFL test, especially reading subtest session. Participants of this study were undergraduate English students who never took a TOEFL preparation course. To help analyze data, IBM SPSS 24 version with Spearman rank correlation analysis was used to make it more precise. The result of Spearman rank correlation analysis revealed that there was a significant correlation among the variables. This result supports some previous studies focusing on the same topic.

The argumentation structure of research article ‘findings and discussion’ sections written by Non-native English speaker novice writers: a case of Indonesian undergraduate students

ABSTRACT Considering the increasing participation of non-native English speaker (NNES) writers in international publications, the rhetorical organization of their research articles (RAs) keeps receiving ample attention from researchers of English for academic purposes. However, the issue is understudied among NNES novice writers. This study examines the rhetorical organization of academic argumentation in 113 Indonesian English education undergraduate students' iterative findings and discussion sections using a move analysis method. The findings demonstrated that the conformity manifestations of the comments move were exhibited in interpreting results and comparing results with previous literature. The non-conformity manifestations exemplified the limited manifestations of dissimilarities with previous research and the absence of explanation after claims were made. This caused an absence of criticality as the fundamental element of RA writing. Moreover, several grammar-related and idea-related errors occurred in most steps. Hence, recommendations for the pedagogy of English for research publication purposes and future research are presented.

Thai EFL Learners' Collocational Competence and Their Perceptions of Collocational Difficulty

The collocational competence of undergraduate students of English at a university in northeastern Thailand and their perceptions of collocational difficulty were investigated in this study. The participants were 153 2nd-, 3rd-, and 4th-year students of English selected through a convenient sampling method and via their consents to take part in the study. The participants who were enrolled in the second term of academic year 2017 were administered a collocational competence test which comprised 35 fill-in-the-blank items with optional alternatives. They were to answer a Likert's type questionnaire of 5 rating scales (Reliability co-efficient = 0.96) probing their perceptions of the difficulty of collocations in parallel with each test item. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and One-Way ANOVA was computed to test the hypothesis. The results indicated that on the whole the participants had a 'moderate level' of collocational competence. They were not significantly different in terms of their collocational competence when it comes to their different years of studies. The participants perceived collocations as fairly difficult with the idiomatic collocations reported as being the most difficult category. The findings were discussed in relation to the theoretical difficulty of collocations and suggestions for pedagogy and further research were offered.

Analysis of error sources in L2 written English by Indonesian undergraduate students

This study investigates second language learners’ production in writing, aiming to understand common problems the learners frequently have with English. The study focuses on the analysis of errors in 100 essays written by 50 Indonesian undergraduate students of English, which is aimed at identifying the commonly occurring errors, classifying them according to a linguistic category, and explaining the causes of the occurring errors. The study shows that a large number of the occurring errors resulted from intralingual sources, the proportion of which account for more than 60% of the total errors. The results conform to a number of earlier studies in this research field which concluded that the majority of errors L2 learners make stem from intralingual interference. Another possible explanation for the phenomena is that because the subjects participating in this study are university students majoring in English, they had at least mastered the basics of English when entering university. As a result, they are more likely to make fewer interlingual errors than students at elementary level who tend to rely more on their native language when dealing with the aspects of the target language which they have not yet mastered.

A Conversational Analysis of Grice’s Maxims Theories on Cooperative Principles at Undergraduate English Students

This study was aimed to analyze students’ conversation based on Grice’s maxim theory at the English department of Muhammadiyah University of Mataram. The method of this research was qualitative. The result of this research showed that students were followed the maxim of quantity is 60 utterances, followed the maxim of quality is 16 utterances, followed the maxim of relevant is 24 utterances, and followed the maxim of manner is 6 utterances. Violated maxim of quantity is 47 utterances, violated maxim of quality is 27 utterances, violated maxim of relevant is 50 utterances and violated manner is 89 utterances. Violated maxims often happen than followed the maxims, total of violated whole the maxims are 213 and total of followed whole the maxims are 106 because the speaker and participants are come from different cultures, using informal language and their purpose in communication to maintain their social harmony.

Needs Analysis and Teachers' Perceptions: A Study of the English Undergraduate Students

Needs Analysis in the context of language-learning-teaching is an important process to design a certain course and syllabus. It helps course designers to set objectives, choose content, method of instruction, appropriate teaching aids, and classroom activities for different courses. This paper reports the perceptions of the researchers on the English language learning needs of the English undergraduate students of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University Sheringal, Pakistan. The data is based on the researchers’ personal experience and first-hand observation of the population as the researchers have been teaching in the target context for about a decade. Furthermore, the researchers have always been in discussion with their students and colleagues about the target students’ English learning needs, preferred learning styles, motivation in learning English, interest, strengths/weaknesses, and attitude toward English learning in the target setting. Learners’ assignments, exam answer sheets, and presentations have also been used is a source of data collection. A needs analysis model proposed by Hutchinson and Waters (1987) has been applied in order to analyze the data. The results show that the students lack well grammatical sentences, have poor spellings, capitalization problems, limited vocabulary, unaware of collocations, poor/slow reading comprehension, and lack of effective presentation skills. Furthermore, most of the students have a lack of involvement in classroom activities and feel shy about speaking the English language. It was reported that the provision of authentic material, interesting activities, suitable audio-visual aids, relevant texts, language labs, and other logistic arrangements can better help them in learning the English language. The findings demonstrate that the students wished to have a learner-centered-course that helps them excel in their academic life and learning the English language.

Measuring foreign language anxiety among learners of different foreign languages: in relation to motivation and perception of teacher\u2019s behaviors

This study investigates foreign language anxiety among Indonesian undergraduate students of English, French, Japanese, Korean and Arabic language programs, and examines its relationship with students’ motivation and their perception of teachers’ behaviors. Questionnaires were distributed to 182 s-grade undergraduate students majoring in five foreign languages at an Indonesian public university. One-way ANOVA analysis revealed that learners of Japanese have the highest foreign language anxiety level compared to others. Furthermore, using independent sample T-test method, it showed that learners of non-Latin languages group (Japanese, Korean, and Arabic) have a higher foreign language anxiety level than those of Latin language group (English and French). The relationship between foreign language anxiety, learners’ motivation and their perception of teachers’ behaviors, was analyzed using a multiple-regression method, and the finding indicated that learners’ motivation does not affect foreign language anxiety. Meanwhile, their perception of teacher’s behaviors significantly affects foreign language anxiety. Based on the results, the present study suggests that foreign language teachers should give more attention to their teaching method and behaviors applied inside the classroom, and on how to create a more conducive learning environment in the classroom in order to reduce foreign language anxiety experienced by their students.

Examining Levels and Factors of Speaking Anxiety among EFL Libyan English Undergraduate Students

This study aims at investigating EFL the fourth-year students’ level of speaking anxiety. Also, the study investigates the main three factors (communication apprehension, fear of negative evaluation and low self-confidence) that contribute to increasing speaking anxiety among EFL learners. The Foreign Language Speaking Anxiety Scale (FLSAS) has been adapted to collect quantitative data and specifically measure speaking anxiety. The sample of this study was 300 fourth-year English department students at three universities in Libya. The findings of this study revealed that students experienced a moderate to high level of EFL speaking anxiety. Additionally, the findings of the study revealed that the low self-confidence factor received the highest average followed by fear of negative evaluation, and communication apprehension factors.

How Thai EFL Learners Deal With English Regular Past Forms: A Case Study of a Speech Sound Perspective

The pronunciation of regular past tense verbs seems to be difficult for most L2 learners, especially in L2 learners whose first language phonological system is different from the English one. It is predicted that Thai EFL students could encounter difficulties perceiving English coda clusters like the ‘-ed’ ending sounds. For this reason, this research investigates the extent to which the first-year and the third-year English major undergraduate students in a public university perceive the English regular past tense verbs. To be precise, this study compares the ability to perceive the regular past tense of the first-year and third-year students. In addition, the strategies they use to perceive the ‘-ed’ ending verbs among the three different allomorphs ([t], [d] and [ɪd]) are investigated. The data collection was derived from the perception tests of 30 first-year and 30 third-year students and a Pronunciation Learning Strategy (PLS) questionnaire. The perception tests were divided into two subtests: perception test and perception syllable identification test. The PLS questionnaire was employed to find out the strategies they used in English pronunciation learning. The overall results show that the third-year students demonstrated a better performance than the first-year students in both tests (t=-2.778; p<.01 in the perception test; t=-1.466; p>.05 in the syllable identification test). However, the syllable identification test’s results do not show consistency with Solt et al.’s (2004) model, while the perception test’s do. Moreover, the findings from the questionnaire reveal no statistically significant difference between the first and the third-year students in terms of pronunciation learning strategies (p>.05).