TY - JOUR
T1 - Promoting EFL students’ accuracy and fluency through interactive practice activities
AU - McDonough, Kim
AU - Sato, Masatoshi
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding for this project was provided to the first author through the Canada Research Chairs program [grant number 950-221304] and to the second author by a Fondo National de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnólogico grant from the Ministry of Education of Chile [grant number 1160838; 1181533].
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, Adam Mickiewicz University Press. All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/6/1
Y1 - 2019/6/1
N2 - This study examined the effectiveness of interactive activities at facilitating EFL students’ production of English relative clauses. Thirty-seven EFL learners in Chile carried out interactive activities designed to elicit relative clauses. Pre- and posttests were used to examine whether carrying out the activities facilitated the students’ production of relative clauses. All interactions were audio-recorded and the transcripts were analyzed to determine how accurately and fluently the students produced relative clauses before, during, and after the practice activities. Whereas accuracy was defined as errors involving relative clause formation, fluency was operationalized in terms of the number of pauses, false starts, and self-corrections that occurred within relative clauses. The results showed that the students produced significantly more accurate relative clauses on the posttest; however, their production of dysfluencies remained unchanged. Implications for the use of interactive activities are discussed.
AB - This study examined the effectiveness of interactive activities at facilitating EFL students’ production of English relative clauses. Thirty-seven EFL learners in Chile carried out interactive activities designed to elicit relative clauses. Pre- and posttests were used to examine whether carrying out the activities facilitated the students’ production of relative clauses. All interactions were audio-recorded and the transcripts were analyzed to determine how accurately and fluently the students produced relative clauses before, during, and after the practice activities. Whereas accuracy was defined as errors involving relative clause formation, fluency was operationalized in terms of the number of pauses, false starts, and self-corrections that occurred within relative clauses. The results showed that the students produced significantly more accurate relative clauses on the posttest; however, their production of dysfluencies remained unchanged. Implications for the use of interactive activities are discussed.
KW - Accuracy and fluency
KW - Efl
KW - Interactive activities
KW - Skill acquisition theory
KW - Structural priming
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85070814363&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.14746/ssllt.2019.9.2.6
DO - 10.14746/ssllt.2019.9.2.6
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85070814363
SN - 2083-5205
VL - 9
SP - 379
EP - 395
JO - Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching
JF - Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching
IS - 2
ER -