Performance In Terms Of Fluency Research Articles

English

Unlike traditional methods, the communicative approaches draw on implicit and incidental ways of learning and contextualised exercises of grammar which improve language performance in terms of fluency and communicative competence. However, the discursive plan implies the use of high-level units of knowledge and the automatization of low-level knowledge is not ensured. Although learners’ production achieves success in terms of communicative skills, their competence in terms of accuracy is usually unsatisfactory. The benefits of explicit grammar teaching are another issue that concerns teachers and that needs more evidence. Therefore, a need exists to study which approach supports the automatization of low-level information, in a short class time (30-40 min). The first purpose of this study is to better understand the cognitive processes that lead to the automatization of forms, the second purpose is to know whether explicit grammar teaching promotes the automatization of forms. When first reviewing the literature on cognitive psychology and automatization, the focus was limited to how automaticity is brought about. Next, the main assumptions of Adaptative Control of Though (ACT*) and Instance Theories are presented. The reviewed research results confirmed the effectiveness of the explicit teaching of rules and the importance of practice and attention in the language learning process. In the conclusion, there are some recommendations that may be useful for language teachers.   Key words: Automatization, explicit grammar, focus on form, cognitive process.

The Effects of the Process Approach on High School Students’ Writing Performances

Quite a few research studies have been conducted to investigate whether the writing process approach has any effects on students’ writing quality in higher education. However, few studies have been conducted at a talented high school in a remote area in Vietnam to see whether it works in the same manner where students’ writing skills in paragraph levels were very low. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the process approach on enhancing EFL students’ writing performance in terms of fluency and accuracy. The target subjects were from grade twelve, Huynh Man Dat (HMD) High School at Kien Giang City, Vietnam. Sixty students from the control and experimental groups enrolled in this course as a normal curriculum of the school. The research instruments are the writing tasks, used as the pre-test and post-test. Data collection was from pre-tests, post-tests, and word-count from all essays of students to measure their writing fluency. Pre-tests and post-tests were compared to see if there were any differences in writing performance between the two groups. The students’ writing performance was evaluated using analytical scoring on the composite scores and the two aspects of writing which are fluency and accuracy. The results of the study set lights to teachers at HMD high school to consider to use this effective approach in their writing classrooms.

Pre-task planning and discourse cohesion: Analysis of Chinese EFL learners’ referential use in oral narratives

While the research on pretask planning has concentrated on its effects on learners’ task performance in terms of fluency, accuracy, and complexity, its possible influence on the overall discourse level, such as discourse management and coherence, has been largely ignored. The present study addresses the inadequacy by uncovering the potential effects of pretask planning on Chinese EFL (English as a foreign language) learners’ selection of referential expressions in oral narratives. Fifty-six intermediate-level learners were tasked with retelling the story of Modern Times under one of two conditions, that is, either with 10-minutes strategic planning or without any planning time. An additional 25 native speakers (NSs) also narrated the same story under the same task conditions. Their narratives were audio recorded, transcribed, and coded based on a coding scheme that distinguished the roles of characters, types of reference, and discursive status of reference. A combination of statistical analysis and discourse analysis showed that (1) compared with NSs, the EFL learners were overexplicit in using noun phrases and proper names to refer to singular characters, but not so in joint reference to the major characters; and (2) pretask planning facilitated more target-like selection of referential expressions when major characters were referred to, although it did not bring the learners’ performance up to NS standards. However, the impact of planning time on referential use seemed to be moderated by the role prominence. These findings were explained within the framework of Levelt’s speech production model and Skehan’s Limited Attentional Capacity Hypothesis.

Elementary English speaking assessment and tasks: Effects of task characteristics and performance conditions on speaking performance

In terms of English learning, tasks can be used not only as learning activities but also as assessment tools in that they encourage authentic use of English while promoting active interaction in concrete communicative situations. Especially, using tasks as assessment tools for speaking performance, it is possible to directly assess learners’ ability to use English. However, the assessment results may be affected by task factors such as task characteristics and conditions. Therefore, in order to utilize tasks as assessment tools, it is necessary to grasp the effects of task factors on speaking performance. From this point of view, this study investigates how task characteristics and conditions affect speaking performance, and provides some pedagogical implications for elementary English speaking assessment. Previous studies showed that task characteristics and conditions consistently influenced speaking performance in terms of fluency, accuracy, and complexity. Thus, these results are expected to provide important information for designing tasks to assess speaking performance in elementary English learning.

The Effect of Pre-Task Planning Time on Second Language Oral Performance in Terms of Fluency & Accuracy on Saudis Female Preparatory Students at Princess Nora University

The study investigates the effects of pre-task planning time on both fluency, and accuracy and fluency of the participants' oral performance. The participants' performance has been transcribed and analyzed. The experimental group was provided with 5 minutes planning time before task performance whereas the control group was given a zero-planning time .As a result , the experimental group produces accurate language and fluency language input. The results of the study indicated that participants who performed the task under time pressure spoke significantly faster that those who had no time pressure during the task and the Participants with zero – planning time produced a greater variety of vocabulary than those who planned before the task. The pre –task Planning time reduces the processing load , helps learners to get goals and organize the content , reduces pressure to speak freely with self-confidence during the performance of the oral task , enhances the accuracy of the second language learner' production , concentrates more on form which helps to improve the accuracy of their second language production , and Planning time helps them to form and edit their oral production. The findings of the study are beneficial for English teachers , English designers and materials development.

The Effects of Pre-task, On-line, and both Pre-task and On-line Planning on Fluency, Complexity, and Accuracy – The Case of Iranian EFL Learners’ Written Production

Previous studies on the effect of planning on language production have revealed that planning does have a positive effect on language performance in terms of fluency, complexity, and accuracy. The present study was an attempt to investigate the effects of pre-task, on-line, and both pre-task and on-line planning on fluency, accuracy, and complexity of Iranian EFL learners’ written production. Forty five Iranian learners of English performed a narrative task based on a series of six pictures. The narratives, then, were coded to measure the fluency, accuracy, and complexity of the participants' production. The results of one-way ANOVA revealed that on-line planning (OLP) and pre-task plus on-line planning (PTP+OLP) had no effect on the fluency, complexity, and accuracy of the Iranian EFL learners’ written narratives. However, pre-task planning (PTP) had a significant effect on one variable of fluency (i.e. syllables per minute) but it had no effect on the complexity and accuracy of the written narratives. Findings have pedagogical implications for language teachers and syllabus designers in EFL context.

Learners' Performance in Doing Task with and without Teacher’s Presence

Recently task-based language teaching has attracted many researchers’, testers’ and syllabus designers’ attention and consequently a lot of studies are carried out in this field. This study was conducted in the task-based realm too. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of teacher’s presence on learners’ performance in doing task with and without teacher presence. The participants of this were forty (40) EFL intermediate male and female English learners who were chosen randomly. The results of statistical analysis of the collected data revealed that teacher’s presence affected the participants’ oral performance in terms of fluency but not their accuracy and complexity. The findings of this study have implications for language teaching, testing and syllabus design.