Jordanian EFL Research Articles

The Effect Of Stations And Centers Strategy On Jordanian EFL Tenth Grade Students' Motivation In Reading Comprehension

The Effect Of Stations And Centers Strategy On Jordanian EFL Tenth Grade Students' Motivation In Reading Comprehension

The production and comprehension of apology strategies: Effects of English language proficiency

This cross-sectional study examined the effects of English language proficiency on Jordanian EFL students’ production and comprehension of apology strategies. The participants were 270 Jordanian EFL learners and 90 native speakers of English. Data were collected using Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) and Multiple-choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT). Descriptive statistics and the Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient (rho) test were used to analyse the data. Results showed that Jordanian EFL learners’ production and comprehension of apology strategies is influenced by their levels of English language proficiency. A small to large negative correlation relationship was reported between Jordanian EFL learners’ language proficiency and the production of explicit apology strategies and non-apology strategies. On the other hand, the study revealed a small to medium positive correlation relationship between Jordanian EFL learners’ language proficiency and the production of less-explicit apology. The study also showed a significant correlation relationship between proficiency and the comprehension of apology strategies. Thus, teachers of English at Jordanian schools may need consider focusing on classroom activities that can help EFL learners enhance their pragmatic knowledge of apology strategies.

THE EFFECT OF SCAFFOLDING AND PORTFOLIO ASSESSMENT ON JORDANIAN EFL LEARNERS’ WRITING

<p>This study examines the potential effect of scaffolding-based instruction and portfolio-based assessment on Jordanian EFL tenth grade students’ overall writing performance and their performance on the sub-skills of focus, development, organization, conventions and word choice. The study uses a quasi-experimental experimental/control group, pre-/posttest design. In the experimental group, 15 female tenth grade students from the North-Eastern Badia Directorate of Education (Jordan) were taught to generate ideas, structure, draft, and edit their written pieces using agency scaffolding, the scaffolding principles of contextual support, continuity, intersubjectivity, flow, contingency and handover, and a slightly adapted version of Hamp-Lyons and Condon’s (2000) Portfolio Model of collection, selection and reflection. A control group of 28 students were instructed conventionally per the guidelines of the teacher’s book. Using descriptive statistics and ANCOVA to analyze the students’ scores on the pre- and the posttests, the results showed that the group taught through scaffolding-based instruction and portfolio-based assessment outperformed the control group (at a≤ 0.05) in their overall writing performance and in their performance on the five writing sub-skills.</p>

The Effect of the Graphic Organizer Strategy on University Students’ English Vocabulary Building

This study aimed at investigating the effect of the graphic organizer strategy on vocabulary building and vocabulary incremental growth of Jordanian university EFL students. One hundred and two students participated in the study which lasted for one academic semester of four months. Each student enrolled in one of two intact and equally-sized classes of a general English Language course. One of the classes was assigned to an experimental group, whose students were taught eight specific features of vocabulary items using the GO strategy. The eight features were the word’s spelling, pronunciation, part of speech, meaning in the first language, meaning in the foreign language, synonym, antonym and using it in an example sentence. The other class was assigned to a control group, whose students were taught the same vocabulary items using traditional instruction. A pre-test and a post-test were administered to all students whose responses were analyzed using adjusted means, standard errors and an ANCOVA. Results revealed that the experimental group students outperformed those students in the control group concerning their vocabulary building. To decide whether the GO strategy had an incremental growth in students’ vocabulary building, students of both groups sat for three separate evaluative tests. Students’ responses were analyzed using Microsoft Excel sheets and results showed that this strategy significantly improved students’ vocabulary growth over time.