Rasoul Mohammad Hosseinpur; Zahra Parsaeian
Abstract
The upsurge of interest in the employment of instructional technologies in learning English has coincided with a growing interest in Online Informal Learning of English (OILE). Considering the under-explored area of speaking skill, the present study investigated the participants’ microgenetic development ...
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The upsurge of interest in the employment of instructional technologies in learning English has coincided with a growing interest in Online Informal Learning of English (OILE). Considering the under-explored area of speaking skill, the present study investigated the participants’ microgenetic development of speaking ability in terms of accuracy and fluency through informal participation in online activities. Through a stratified purposive sample selection, three adult male and female intermediate-level participants were selected and agreed to engage in some online informal activities such as emailing, watching online videos like TED Talks, participating in webinars, reading online news, etc. The participants’ microgenetic development were tested throughout the study in two-week-time intervals. The results of the audio recorded data highlighted the positive impact of the OILE activities on the development of the spoken accuracy and fluency. The results also suggested that each individual participant was on his/her own unique developmental trajectory and that accuracy and fluency development was not a linear process, and there was a trade-off between accuracy and fluency. The overall findings of the study suggested that learners’ speaking ability, particularly fluency and accuracy, can be enriched by interacting with online informal contexts. This study also confirmed that each learner is on his/ her own developmental trajectory. Learners’ developmental trends are various due to differing categorizations and entrenchments in their lives considering Usage-Based (UB) approach.
Saeed Shamsini; Ali Akbar Farahani Khomeijani
Abstract
This study attempted to look into the effect of increasing task complexity and the provision of recast in separate experiments on the EFL learners’ oral language production and their fluency and accuracy. For both experiments, oral narrative tasks were used (Heaton, 1975), adjusted in terms of ...
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This study attempted to look into the effect of increasing task complexity and the provision of recast in separate experiments on the EFL learners’ oral language production and their fluency and accuracy. For both experiments, oral narrative tasks were used (Heaton, 1975), adjusted in terms of complexity according to Robinson’s Triadic Framework along the +/- reasoning and the +/- few elements dimensions. For the effect of recasts, learners were provided with recasts when performing their oral narrative tasks. The obtained data were subject to repeated measures ANOVA and one-way ANOVA to provide answers to the research questions. Increasing the complexity of the oral narrative tasks led to high accuracy but low fluency, supporting Robinson’s (2011) prediction of the opposite resulting effects of raising task complexity on fluency in L2 production. The provision of recasts, on the other hand, influenced learners’ accuracy and fluency in their oral productions positively by implicitly focusing their attention on the form of their communication. And, comparatively, recasts and task complexity did not differ in terms of their contribution to oral accuracy and fluency, approving their special benefits for each dimension of oral production in isolation. Results are discussed in light of Robinson’s Cognition Hypothesis.Keywords: task complexity; corrective feedback; recast; oral production; accuracy; fluency
Leila Ahmadpour; Mohammad Hossein Yousefi
Abstract
The present study was an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) in comparison to lack of it in improving learners’ writing accuracy, fluency, and complexity. To this end, a total of 39 English as a foreign language learners took part in the study. In ...
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The present study was an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) in comparison to lack of it in improving learners’ writing accuracy, fluency, and complexity. To this end, a total of 39 English as a foreign language learners took part in the study. In the experimental group, learners were exposed to technologically enhanced writing practices through the Telegram application, where they were engaged in a collaborative writing task accomplished through interaction by the peers and the teacher as group members. The control group learners, on the contrary, wrote about the same topics on the paper without any collaboration from others. The results of statistical analysis revealed that although the writing fluency and complexity of experimental learners flourished in comparison to their control peers, the accuracy dimension followed a reverse pattern. In other words, control group learners were the ones who could improve their writing accuracy.The results are discussed in light of the assumption that synchronous interaction provides learners with more opportunities to write using a syntactically complex and fluent language which are in a trade-off relation with accuracy.
