Proficiency Of EFL Learners Research Articles

EFL reading strategies used by high school students with different English proficiency

This study examines EFL students' reading strategy use and explores the differences between the factors affecting the use of the reading strategies by high and low proficiency EFL learners. The participants consisted of students from a high school in Taiwan. Their reading strategy usage and the influencing factors were assessed using the Survey of Reading Strategy (SORS), think-aloud protocols, and semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal no significant disparities in problem-solving strategies and supporting reading strategies between high and low proficiency learners. However, no table differences were observed in the employment of global reading strategies. In addition, learners' vocabulary size and syntactic knowledge emerged as influential factors in the utilization of reading strategies. The results also indicate that high proficiency learners employ top-down reading strategies, while low proficiency learners rely on bottom-up reading strategies to approach their reading tasks. Detailed results of the reading strategies used by the two groups of students and factors affecting the strategy results are shown and discussed, followed by pedagogical implications. At the end, suggestions for the future research will be presented.

Language learning strategies employed by proficient EFL students in learning speaking skills

This study investigatres the language learning strategies utilized by two proficient EFL learners in learning speaking skills. The present descriptive case study probes and narrates the accounts of two proficient English speakers related to the language learning strategies they employed in learning speaking skills. The two proficient English speakers were perceived as credible and ellible sources for this study as they possess the required TOEFL score for proficient learners as indicated by the English Testing Service (ETS), which is around 543-627 in range. The data used in this study were obtained through four semi-structured interviews conducted via Zoom meetings with the participats. A document in the form of participants’ detailed learning schedules was also gathered to enhance data trustworthiness. Subsequently, the data collected were analysed thematically, generating seven categories of language learning strategies. Findings indicate that both participants utilized all seven strategies performed as the most frequently used strategy. It implies tht both participants often plan, arrange and evaluate their learning in advance. The study also found that few strategies were employed at the early stage of leanring and are no longer in use at present.

The making of proficient young EFL learners in a bilingual speaking class: challenges and strategies

Teachers’ strategies to teach students’ speaking skills are very essential to overcome students’ obstacles in learning to speak. The present study aims to explore the challenges faced by EFL teachers and their strategies in boosting speaking skills to young learners at the elementary level which enacts a bilingual class program. Three primary EFL school teachers volunteered to participate in this study. Framed in a case study approach, data were garnered through observation and semi-structured interviews. The data from these two collection methods were analyzed qualitatively. The study findings have revealed several challenges faced by teachers in teaching speaking to young EFL learners such as lack of vocabulary, missing pronunciation, problems with students’ self-confidence, and speaking in line. In response to these, several strategies were applied by the teachers in teaching speaking to young learners, including discussion, games, picture description, and role-play. This study concludes with some pedagogical implications on how EFL teachers reflect on the enactment of interactive learning strategies that should adapt to the material, conditions, and students’ abilities so that the strategies can be adapted to foster proficient young EFL learners.

Engaging writing in the Arab EFL classroom

Abstract The PhotoVoice tool invites participants to create photographs that reflect aspects of their surroundings that they find problematic and to elaborate on them in writing. Participants then share their photographs and written accounts with an influential audience with the hope of resolving the highlighted concerns. Aiming to connect the classroom to the students’ community, the author, a teacher-educator, and her college students implemented PhotoVoice at Palestinian-Israeli schools, guiding small groups of elementary-level EFL pupils throughout the writing process. Children’s powerful presentations to the invited audience proved how creative and proficient EFL learners can be when provided with sufficient support to write and discuss social issues pertinent to their lives. Inspired by critical literacy pedagogy, this approach for improving literacy skills while promoting change challenges the teaching of EFL as a set of linguistic skills detached from reality. This tool can foster an engaging approach to language education that connects literacy teaching with social action.

A comparison of input- and output-based planning on the oral performance of low proficiency EFL learners

This study aims to compare the effects of input- and output-based planning on the oral performance of low-proficiency EFL college students. The purpose is to evaluate the received wisdom that output-based tasks used in task based instruction (TBI) do not fit low-level learners. For data collection, 168 Korean female college students with limited English proficiency were divided into two groups: a reading group and a writing group. The two groups received the same instruction, but the planning tasks differed for oral performance. The reading group had input-based planning, for which the students read example answers prior to speaking performance. In contrast, the writing group or the output-based planning group performed the same tasks after writing what they wanted to say. The students' performance on the pre- and post-test was compared in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) measures. The findings showed statistically significant differences between the two groups in terms of their speaking scores and the fluency measures, with the writing group outperforming the reading group. The follow-up interviews with the students and their reflection journals also confirmed the facilitative effects of output-based planning. These findings indicate how beneficial output-based planning can be for developing low-proficiency learners’ oral fluency.

Speaking Challenges of Saudi EFL Learners

This study aimed at exploring the possible underlying reasons for low speaking proficiency of EFL learners through adopting a qualitative methodology. To approach its goal, this study used a semi-structured interview to collect in-depth details from three EFL learners and one university professor. The internal construction of the interview was associated with the following four items; student, teacher, English materials or textbooks, and the assessment practices used inside classrooms. The findings of this study shed some light on multiple components related to teaching methods, teachers centered approach, students’ motivation, unauthentic English materials. This study recommended further investigation using quasi-experiments to explore more what causes this low speaking performance as well as to propose some valid suggestions and recommendations to develop EFL speaking.

Vocabulary Size and Depth of Knowledge: A Study of Bahraini EFL Learners

This study investigates the size and depth of vocabulary knowledge and its relationship to the general language proficiency of EFL learners. The study sample included 120 students from the University of Bahrain. The sample was randomly selected from the student population and split into two groups in terms of their level of English: intermediate and advanced. The study aims to answer four questions: (1) What is the effect of general language proficiency on the sizes of the receptive and productive vocabularies of learners of English at the University of Bahrain? (2) How does general language proficiency affect the depth of vocabulary knowledge of learners of English at the University of Bahrain? (3) What is the relationship between receptive and productive vocabularies and the depth of vocabulary knowledge? and (4) What is the relationship between vocabulary size and the nature of lexical networking? All the students in the sample completed three vocabulary tasks. The first two tasks were Meara and Jones’s Eurocentres Vocabulary Size Test (1990) and Meara and Fitzpatrick’s Lex30 word association task (2000), which were used to measure the sizes of receptive and productive vocabularies. The third task was Gyllstad’s COLLEX test (2007), which was used to investigate the depth of vocabulary knowledge. A quasi-experimental approach was adopted using a quantitative approach to analyze the data. The data of the study were analyzed by comparing the results of the two groups in relation to the three tasks using SPSS 16.0. The findings of the study have revealed that general language proficiency has a positive effect on learners’ receptive vocabulary size, a moderate effect on learners’ productive vocabulary size, and a very low effect on the depth of vocabulary knowledge. In addition, no relationship was shown between the size of vocabulary and the nature of lexical networking. With reference to these results, pedagogical and future research recommendations are made.

FORMATIVE TESTING PROGRAM FOR UNDERGRADUATE EFL MOROCCAN STUDENTS

While most previous studies attribute academic achievement to external and internal motivation, the present study associates academic achievement to language proficiency of EFL learners. Students’ underachievement of summative tests might be explained with their lack of English language proficiency. Students may have some gaps in the language that have been accumulated since elementary or high school. These gaps become fossilized in students’ minds if not addressed properly. In this regard, this study presents a testing method that leads to a remedial teaching program at the undergraduate level of the English studies at the Moroccan EFL University. 
 
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THE CORRELATION OF ENGLISH PROFICIENCY LEVEL AND TRANSLATION STRATEGIES USED BY INDONESIAN EFL LEARNERS

The importance of using translation to improve English language proficiency has been a debatable topic, specifically the effect of learners’ proficiency level in which dictate how the learners use the translation as a learning strategy. Thus, this study was purposed to find out the relationship between English proficiency level and EFL learners’ use of translation strategies. The Inventory for Translation as a Learning Strategy (ITLS) questionnaire was administered to 40 University students that divided into B2 and B1 based on CEFR level. One-way ANOVA results show that both learners are highly using translation as a learning strategy with mean score 3. Nonetheless, the significance difference was found in using translation to improve English skills such as reading, writing, speaking, and listening in which high proficient learners were less likely using translation strategies than low proficient. Furthermore, the correlation analysis shows the negative correlation between English proficiency and translation strategies and a positive correlation in using translation to find differences and similarities between L1 and L2. The pedagogical implications present that high and low proficient learners were benefited using translation strategies to enhance their English skills.

Negotiation of meaning in child-child vs. adult-adult interactions: Evidence from low proficiency EFL learners

AbstractAlthough adult and child differences have been a central issue in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) little is still known about the relationship between age and interaction. Within the interactionist framework, whose main claim is that conversation, especially when it generates negotiation of meaning, facilitates learning, researchers have suggested that children negotiate less than adults, at different rates and producing fewer moves to check comprehension. However, these claims have been made by comparing children and adults from different studies. In order to offer a more reliable comparison, we examine the interactions of 14 adults and 20 children, at similar levels of proficiency, performing a communicative oral task with (level and age) matched peers.Unlike suggested, children produce as much negotiation of meaning as adults and both age groups primarily use their moves to prevent misunderstandings. In light of these results, some previous claims are questioned and refined.

Revising Low-level and High-level Issues in Iranian EFL Learners’ Writings across Proficiency Levels, Age, and Gender

The present study was intended to investigate differences in the kinds of higher-order and lower-order revising practices employed by less proficient and more proficient Iranian EFL learners using an ex post facto design. Moreover, it was aimed at examining if (and how) these learners' age and gender affected their revising practices. To do so, 70 EFL learners studying in Foreign Language Institutions were selected. The participants had attended language learning classes at least for two years; therefore they possessed the minimum proficiency level required for the purposes of this study. The ESL Composition Profile was used to analytically score the learners’ writings, even though the writings were also holistically scored. The collected data were then submitted to SPSS for analysis. Some statistical procedures such as MANOVA, ANCOVA, and SPANOVA were used to test the hypotheses of the study. The obtained results revealed that there were significant differences in the kinds of higher-order and lower-order revising practices employed by the students with high and low writing ability. It was also revealed that the amount of differences between high-level and low-level students’ revising practices did not change significantly after controlling for the effects of age and gender. The results of this study might have implications for teaching writing.

METACOGNITIVE IN READING: THE AWARENESS OF LESS PROFICIENT EFL LEARNERS ON READING STRATEGIES

This article addresses the profiles of metacognitive reading strategies used by less proficient EFL learners in one public university in the east of Indonesia. Data were collected from 54 undergraduate students using MARSI (Metacognitive Awareness Reading Strategy Inventory) questionnaire. The questionnaires were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics which revealed the level of metacognitive reading strategies used by the less proficient EFL students. The analysis found that there is a high level of using Support Strategy (M=3.92, SD=1.22) and followed by Problem Solving Strategy (M=3.91, SD=1.1) and a medium level of using Global Strategy (M=3.39, SD=1.05). The finding revealed the lack of reading strategy instruction that concern the global analysis of the text. The results suggest that the less proficient EFL students need to generate their metacognitive level on global analysis strategies to improve their reading comprehension.

An exploratory study on the relationships between attitudes toward classroom language choice, motivation, and proficiency of EFL learners

Despite the growing number of empirical studies on using students’ first language in target language (TL) teaching, an issue yet to be investigated is the relationship between students’ attitude toward classroom language choice and other personal variables, such as their motivation to learn the TL and their proficiency in that language. In this study, 366 Korean undergraduate students completed a questionnaire on their attitudes toward classroom language choice and language learning motivation. A subset of these participants also took a computerized speaking test (n = 127) and submitted their scores on TOEIC (n = 123). Our analyses revealed that the participants were in favor of codeswitching when compared to their neutral attitude toward English-only in EFL classrooms. The participants who obtained a high score on the ‘Ideal L2 Self’ scale of motivation and those who were more proficient were more in favor of an English-only learning approach. It was also found that ‘Ideal L2 Self’ was a stronger predictor of students’ attitudes toward classroom language choice than their L2 proficiency level. These findings point to the importance of understanding students’ different types of L2 learning motivation, particularly ‘Ideal L2 Self’, before determining how and when to use an English-only approach.

L1-L2 Reading Comprehension Transferability in Factual and Inferential Tasks

The current study aimed to investigate the transferability of reading comprehension abilities from L1 to L2 between languages with distant orthographies. Furthermore, this study examined the degree of transferability based on different levels of tasks and different L2 proficiency groups. The scores of sixty-five Korean EFL high school students’ Trial-CSAT of English and Korean language tests were used as criteria for their level of L2 proficiency and L1 reading comprehension, in addition to a self-designed English reading test with factual and inferential tasks as L2 reading comprehension. This study has statistically analyzed the acquainted data and identified the following research findings: (1) Korean EFL students’ L1 reading comprehension ability did transfer to their English reading comprehension ability; (2) Korean EFL students’ L1 inferential reading comprehension ability was more transferable to L2 reading comprehension than their L1 factual reading comprehension ability; (3) A meaningful transferability of Korean inferential reading comprehension ability in English reading comprehension test (especially in English inferential reading tasks) was observed on the lower proficiency EFL learners, whereas no obvious transferability of Korean reading comprehension ability was found in higher proficiency EFL learners.

Syntactically–driven algorithmic processing of PP-attachment ambiguity in a second language

AbstractThis study explored whether Japanese EFL learners can utilize syntactically–driven algorithmic processing. For this purpose, the study attempted to inhibit other forms of processing (i.e., semantically–driven heuristic processing and processing with explicit knowledge) by using a self–paced reading task with priming of PP–attachment ambiguity. In the experiment, 20 highly proficient Japanese learners and 18 native speakers of English engaged in a phrase–by–phrase self–paced reading task after reading prime sentences. Although the results of non–native speakers (NNSs) showed a similar tendency to the NSs, there were slight differences between NSs and NNSs in terms of the size of the priming effects. This indicated that highly proficient Japanese EFL learners can utilize syntactically–driven algorithmic processing, but the process may be relatively “fragile” compared to that of NSs.

Reading Profiles in Indonesian Context: Concurrent Protocol Analysis

Verbal protocols have been used to construct proposition about cognitive process in language learning and reading process. Despite extensive development of cognitive –based research in reading strategies, revelations of cognitive process as well as its relation to proficiency are still inconclusive and more studies are still needed to venture into this field. There is a need to add existing literature in order to refresh current inconsistency regarding the relationship between proficiency and reading strategy. The paper reports the findings of a case study research at one of public university in Makassar, Indonesia. Five less proficient learners at English Department, Hasanuddin University participated in a six-weeks training. The verbal reports were recorded, transcribed, and then analyzed qualitatively by means of interpretative paradigm. Findings showed that less proficient EFL learners performed wide range of strategies, such as skimming, as well as compensation strategy of code-switching, and sounding out words to help their comprehension process. These learners tended to employ those strategies in less efficient manner so as to read the text line by line. Variability in the use of strategies did not fully support these learners’ comprehension over the text as indicated in the way they approached the tasks as well as their performance results in task completion. Lexical problem was indicative to account for their comprehension problem as shown in their report for willing to use ssupport strategy, such as the use of dictionary. Overall, the less proficient learners performed almost all of the important reading strategies commonly practiced by the proficient learners of ESL background. The findings strengthen previous proposition that no consensus can be drawn between certain pattern of strategy use in relation to proficiency level. The finding confirmsan emerging need of reading strategy instruction in order to generate strategic reading behaviour in these learners.

High School Teachers` Needs for DDL Materials: Appropriate Amount of Concordance Input

This is a companion paper to the previous study (Chun, 2015) on how to construct appropriate Data-driven learning (DDL) materials. As basic research for developing materials for low proficiency EFL learners, it presents the study by exploring high school teachers’ needs toward the materials, and is limited to appropriate numbers of citations when doing DDL activity in the classroom. Over the past decades, increased attention has been paid with regard to paper-based DDL materials for language learners. However, few studies suggest practical guidelines on how to develop the materials. This study particularly focused on teachers’ suggestions regarding an appropriate amount of concordance input, which is an essential factor in development of the materials. It followed 28 Korean high school teachers of English in order to analyze their needs regarding the developed materials. Data collected from the survey and follow-up interviews were used. Results reveal that teachers’ needs for numbers of citations were diverse and dependent on learning settings, e. g. for individuals or groups. They preferred more citations for group work and fewer for individual work. The study provides practical information for appropriate numbers of citations at least required for DDL activity in the secondary classroom.

The effect of language proficiency on the negotiation in peer review in EFL context

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of language proficiency level on using negotiation categories in peer feedback in EFL context. Thirty high and thirty low proficient EFL learners participated in this study and their audiotaped negotiations were transcribed and analyzed based on Mendonça and Johnson's (1994) category. In four categories of restatement, suggestion, grammar correction, and explanation of opinion which were generated by the writers and the reviewers, although reviewers dominated the negotiation in both high and low proficient groups, in low proficient groups, the difference between the writers and the reviewer was more significant. In comprehension check and explanation categories used mainly by the writers, there was a significant difference in explanation between high and low proficient groups, but no such difference was found in comprehension check. In request for explanation category used mainly by the reviewers, no significant difference was found between the reviewers in high and low proficient group. The study has pedagogical implication for writing classes as it suggests audience awareness, critical thinking, and realization of output hypothesis as the pedagogically beneficial result of negotiation. It also suggests peer feedback as an alternative to teacher feedback. Keywords: high and low proficient EFL learners, negotiation, peer feedback.

Visiting Involvement Load Hypothesis and Vocabulary Acquisition in Similar Task Types

“Involvement load hypothesis” in second language literature in spite of its inclusiveness has not yet provided a definite answer to vocabulary acquisition. This study investigated task-induced involvement suggested first by Laufer and Hulstijn (2001) in similar task types. In order to better examine the involvement hypothesis in incidental learning, applying Nelson Proficiency Test, 70 high proficiency EFL learners from two different English institutes in Isfahan, Iran, were randomly assigned to two experimental groups: gap-filling task completion and reading comprehension task completion. The two input task types had two and one involvement indexes, respectively. The results of repeated measures ANOVA considering the performance of the two homogeneous groups in pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest confirmed Laufer and Hulstijn’s (2001) involvement hypothesis in similar task types. The study suggests that teachers and language learners can use tasks with higher involvement indexes regardless of their type in order to improve their vocabulary acquisition.

The Relationship between Intelligence Ability Types and Learners Foreign Language Achievement

The current study set out to find out the relationship between language learners’ multiple intelligence abilities and their foreign language achievement. With regard to the above mentioned aim, 112 EFL learners participated in the research. Further, in this study, the researcher made use of the following measuring instruments: 1) the Persian version of McKenzie’s Multiple Intelligence (MI) Inventory; and 2) participants’ final term scores as the measure of their language learning achievement. Analyzing the data employing some independent -samples t-tests, it was explored that there was a statistically significant difference [t (104) = 2.100, p (two-tailed) =.035] in the mean of verbal intelligence scores of the low and high achievers, which was larger among the high achieving group. Accordingly, it can be concluded that higher achieving EFL learners have a higher verbal intelligence, implying that more proficient EFL learners may be more intelligent ‘verbally’ than their less proficient counterparts. Moreover, verbal and visual intelligences―with the highest mean scores― were the two mostly used types of intelligences by both high and low achieving groups.