Fluency Of EFL Learners Research Articles

Factor structures of speed and breakdown fluency in EFL learners’ story retelling performances

Abstract Utterance fluency is widely acknowledged to be three-dimensional (i.e., speed, breakdown and repair), but little direct evidence has been offered in support of its dimensionality. This study examines the factor structures of speed and breakdown fluency and their relationships with EFL proficiency by evaluating 162 EFL learners’ retelling performances with respect to commonly used speed measures as well as pause length and frequency measures. Findings from structural equation modeling show that speed fluency was represented by articulation rate and mean length of utterance, and breakdown fluency by mid-clause pause length and frequency as well as end-of-clause pause length. Although speed and breakdown fluency were strongly related, EFL proficiency had a direct effect on speed fluency but not on breakdown fluency. When articulation rate was replaced with speech rate as the sole measure of speed fluency, the factor structure of breakdown fluency was changed and EFL proficiency contributed a little more to speed fluency. These findings help to better understand how EFL learners make pauses and how measures of speed and breakdown fluency differ from but simultaneously relate to each other.

Two Edges of Sword of Strategy-Based Instruction (SBI) and Implicit Task-Based Instruction (TBI) on EFL Oral Performance

This pilot study aimed to investigate the effects of two classroom instructions on the complexity, accuracy, and fluency of EFL learners’ speaking. The first one involved implicit task-based instruction with meaning-focused pedagogic tasks. The second instruction reduced learners’ practice time but complemented it with explicit strategy-based instruction (SBI) to raise their metacognitive awareness in planning, monitoring, and evaluating their speech. Participants in the explicit instruction group learned to practice three specific strategies, while the first group had only more practice opportunities. The study involved 16 English students from a third-tier university in Indonesia. Audio recordings of each participant’s oral presentations during the pre-test and the post-test were transcribed and coded for non-parametric analysis. The findings revealed that both instructions had a comparable impact on EFL learners' oral performance by improving complexity but not accuracy and fluency. There was also a possible trade-off effect found in participants’ performance. The study findings could provide a basis for EFL teachers to use either explicit strategy instruction or implicit instruction for their speaking class.

The effects of task complexity on the accuracy, syntactic complexity, and fluency of EFL learners’ compositions

The present study sought to examine the effects of task complexity on English narrative writing performance of Korean university students, especially...

Task complexity and its effects on complexity, accuracy and fluency of EFL learners’ written production

The present study investigated the effects of task complexity on complexity, accuracy, and fluency of learners’ written narrative task production. The participants of this study were 30 intermediate students, who were randomly selected as one group. Two picture stories were used for the purpose of the study. All 30 participants were required to look at the picture stories in 15 minutes and narrate them at two separate sessions but in same condition. During the first session, they looked at the pictures which were selected based on the courses they have passed and performed here-and-now (HN) task by writing their narratives in present tense and at the second session, with similar conditions, they performed there-and-then (TT) task by writing their narratives in past tense. After all writings were collected and scored, three scores were obtained by each rater as measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. The results of statistical analyses showed that tense variation had significant effects on the complexity of learners, but it did not have any significant effects on the accuracy and fluency of EFL learners’. Keywords: task-based language teaching, task complexity, accuracy, fluency, complexity

The Effects of Guided vs. Unguided Pressured Planning on EFL Learners’ Writing Fluency

Task-based planning can be conceptualized as the opportunity to work out task performance before the actual performance. It allows learners to process the content and language of their planned production at a deeper and more meaningful level. In the face of the wide range of research conducted on the effects of pre-task planning on L2 production, relatively little attention has been paid to the impacts of pressured within-task planning. The present study was, therefore, primarily aimed at investigating the effects of guided pressured within-task planning and unguided pressured within-task planning on the fluency of EFL learners’ written production. The participants of the study were 30 upper-intermediate EFL learners whose age ranged between 18 and 22. In both guided and unguided conditions, the participants were provided with two sample process-writings, the only difference was that in the guided condition, the participants were provided with the samples including underlined sequence markers, bolded passive verbs, and underlined simple present verbs plus a list of sequence markers to serve as guide during writing. The results obtained from independent-samples t-test revealed the fact that guided pressured planning condition resulted in greater fluency than unguided pressured planning condition. The findings of the study may have pedagogical implications for teachers to design sequences of instructional activities providing opportunities for the learners to benefit from different types of planning in task performance.

The effect of dynamic assessment on complexity, accuracy, and fluency in EFL learners’ oral production

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of dynamic assessment on complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) in EFL learners’ oral production. Participants were 44 intermediate; they were all female and aged from 11 to 15 in a language institute in Isfahan. They were divided into two experimental and control groups: The experimental group received the treatment (dynamic assessment/DA), and the control group received regular instruction under institute’s normal situation. Findings revealed that the implementation of DA promoted more complex and accurate oral productions while it did not have any effect on the fluency of learners’ oral productions. In addition, results manifested strong positive correlations between measures of CAF and learners’ oral proficiency scores. Finally, the factor analysis revealed that there were three main factors (CAF) underlying the six measures used in the present study. The results of this study have a number of implications for EFL practitioners and teachers as well.