Speaking and writing are the productive skills of language and share similar components. In other words, writing and speaking are clearly related activities, but the modes of production are different. In addition, among a number of personality variables in predicting English language proficiency, extraversion/introversion has been extensively studied. This quasi-experimental study aims at explo...

The Role of Lexical Properties and Cohesive Devices in Text Integration and Their Effect on Human Ratings of Speaking Proficiency Scott Crossley, Amanda Clevinger & YouJin Kim To cite this article: Scott Crossley, Amanda Clevinger & YouJin Kim (2014) The Role of Lexical Properties and Cohesive Devices in Text Integration and Their Effect on Human Ratings of Speaking Proficiency, Language Assess...

The application of zone of proximal development (ZPD), as a major tenet of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory (SCT, 1978), has recently been invited in the L2 learning/teaching profession. This study mainly examined whether Iranian EFL learners’ interactions in diverse ZPD-activated proximal contexts through the use of storytelling instruction could improve their oral (speaking) proficiency and at...

Yusuke Kondo Waseda University Abstract Language anxiety is one of the negative factors in second language acquisition. However, several studies produced inconsistent results and have not concurred in the subcategorization of language anxiety. These inconsistent results seem likely to be caused by socio-cultural differences. This present study investigated the applicability of language anxiety ...

This study investigated the effect of role play on improving speaking ability of Iranian pre-intermediate ESP learners. To this aim, the researchers examined the students’ speaking ability in two groups: the experimental and the control groups.24 males and femaleESPlearners at pre-intermediate level were selected by taking a pre-test. Then the participants of the current study were randomlydivi...

This study investigates whether working memory capacity (WMC) varies across languages and in the course of L2 speech proficiency levels. Following suggestions in Finardi and Weissheimer (2009) and Prebianca (2010), who found that WMC varied as a function of L2 speech proficiency, the present study assessed three proficiency levels (elementary, intermediate and advanced) and two languages (L1-Po...

BACKGROUND Spanish-speaking people represent more than 12% of the total population in the United States and are poised to become the largest minority group in the United States by 2015. Although researchers have studied pharmacist-patient communication for approximately 30 years, little emphasis has been placed on the interactions between pharmacists and Spanish-speaking patients. OBJECTIVES ...

research on multiword clusters (chunks) is based on the assumption that native speakers use plenty of chunks in their everyday language and they are considered as fluent speakers of language. therefore the present study was an attempt to investigate the impact of using chunks on speaking fluency of iranian efl learners. in the first phase of the study, the students of two intermediate classes s...

Recent research has shown that a properly designed ASRbased CALL system (Dutch-CAPT) was capable of detecting pronunciation errors and of providing comprehensible feedback on pronunciation. Since pronunciation is not the only skill required for speaking a second language, we explored the possibility of extending the Dutch-CAPT approach to other aspects of speaking proficiency like morphology an...