探究外籍英語教師對於國中學生英語口語流暢性之影響

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系碩士論文 Master’s Thesis Department of English National Taiwan Normal University. 探究外籍英語教師對於國中學生英語口語流暢性之影響. Native Speaker Teacher’s Influence on EFL Junior High School Students’ Speaking Fluency. 指導教授：吳美. 貞博. 士. Advisor: Dr. Mei-Zhen Wu 研究生：李乃文 Student: Nai-Wen Li. 中華民國一百零六年七月 July 2017.

(2) 中文摘要引進外籍英語教師進入台灣的英語教學可成，已成為各級學校與機構之常態，而外籍英語教師的往往被認為能增進英語學習者的口語能力，例如：口語流利度等。然而，過去台灣的研究多半未涉及外籍英語教師對於學習者口語表現的影響，且鮮少由研究以實測的方式驗證外籍教師是否增進口語的流暢性。有鑑於此，本研究旨在研究外籍英語教師對於國中生英語口語流暢性的影響。在學期初以及學期末，研究者對於來自國中兩個班級的學生施測，欲透過朗讀文章與看圖說故事等題型，比較學生是否在期末時顯著增進英語口說的流利度。此外，研究者亦進入外籍教師的課堂觀察，確實地記錄外籍教師的教學策略、手法與活動，以了解其教學影響學生口語的可能情形。本研究發現，國中生的口語流暢度在期末有明顯的增進。舉例而言，學生在口語速度上明顯加快，多數學在朗讀與看讀圖說故事作答字數上有明顯增加，且減少了句子當中暫停的頻率。此外，課堂觀察也顯現出外籍教師的教學型態給予學生發表意見的機會，且期末學生亦增加與外籍教師的互動。本研究期待能給予課程規劃與設計者更深入了解外籍教師對於學生的實際影響。關鍵字：外籍英語教師、國中生、英文口語流暢性. i.

(3) ABSTRACT Incorporating native English teachers (ETA) in Taiwanese EFL context has been considered a valuable means to improve learners’ speaking skills, and their influence on students of various levels and backgrounds was often discussed. However, research which empirically investigated ETAs’ impact on junior high school students’ speaking fluency is scant, and little literature has been published on the how ETAs teach students in junior high schools in Taiwan. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore how native English teachers’ teaching influenced junior high school students’ speaking fluency in one semester. Students from two junior high school classes were recruited; a pretest and a posttest was administered at the beginning of the semester and the end. The results of the test were analyzed in terms of their perceived fluency, rate of speech, amount of speech, and the frequency of pauses. The results of the study showed that students’ speaking fluency was averagely improved after receiving the training of native English teachers. The quantitative results revealed that students’ significantly accelerated their rate of speech in the posttest, and their amount of speech increased. The data of class observation also suggested that teachers’ teaching style allows students to participate in the discussion in class, and students’ interaction with the ETAs increased at the end of the semester. To conclude, this study may be of importance in evaluating the actual improvement of junior high school students’ speaking fluency base on empirical evidence, as well as in revealing effective teaching strategy employed in ETAs’ classes. The results may benefit schools or institutions which intend to employ ETAs in normal classes. Key words: native English teacher, speaking fluency, junior high school student ii.

(4) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe a huge debt of appreciation to a number of people that were kindly helped me or encouraged me throughout the process of this research. This thesis would not have been completed without the assistance and support. First and foremost, I am very thankful to Dr. Mei-Zhen Wu, my advisor, who always generously gave me guidance and spent much discussing with me about the structure of the main idea. My work has greatly benefited from the constant discussion and her constructive feedback. The exploratory study was difficult and elusive, which also required lots of time and work. Fortunately, Dr. Wu not only constantly encouraged me and gave me different perspectives and constructive feedbacks. I would like to appreciate the great help from my committee members, Dr. YiChien Lee and Dr. Shiau-Ping Tian attended my oral defense and proposed some valuable suggestions. They unselfishly helped me to clarify the argument and shaped the main idea again through the discussion. In the defense, I also realized how to contextualize and elaborate those arguments. I would also thank my awesome friends, especially Charles, who helped me get through the statistical problems. He answer my bunch of questions patiently. I could have done the result without his professional assistance. I am also grateful to Fiona, who gave me so many practical suggestions that enable me to continue my study. Not only did she read my outline and provide me with fantastic aspects, but also listen to my practice of oral presentations for several times. Besides, I want to give thanks to I Ming and Igance. They have been so supportive and reminded me of every important deadline. I also owe a great debt to my fiancé, Jason, who has been nothing but wholeiii.

(5) heartedly supportive of me and help me in every possible way you could. Your warmhearted personality motivated me to complete the thesis. I would have not graduated without your support. It’s been so lucky to have your company in my life. I also want to show the gratitude to my parents, who have been financially and spiritually supportive of me. I appreciated that you have been very tolerant to my bad temper when I felt anxious in the process of writing thesis. I finally made it and it was all because of your love, support, care and understanding. Finally, I want to give a special thanks to Fulbright. They gave us better understanding about the ETA program in Taiwan and provided us with their precious experiences about cooperating with foreign teachers.. iv.

(6) TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... 3 LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................... 4 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION ........................................................................... 5 1.1 Background and Motivation ............................................................................ 5 1.2 Purpose of the Study ........................................................................................ 9 1.3 Significance of the Study ................................................................................. 9 CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................. 12 2.1 Background of NEST ..................................................................................... 12 2.1.1 Teachers’ Perception towards Their Teaching .................................... 13 2.1.2 Students’ Perceptions towards NEST ................................................. 14 2.1.3 NEST’s Impacts on Students’ Speaking Competence......................... 16 2.2 Speaking Fluency ........................................................................................... 18 2.2.1 Defining Fluency ................................................................................ 18 2.2.2 Measurement of Fluency..................................................................... 20 2.3 Research Questions ........................................................................................ 23 CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY ................................................................... 24 3.1 Participants ..................................................................................................... 24 3.2 Raters ............................................................................................................. 24 3.3 The Speaking Test .......................................................................................... 25 3.4 Data Collecting Procedure ............................................................................. 27 3.5 Quantitative Analysis ..................................................................................... 28 3.5.1 Analyzing Perceived Fluency ............................................................. 28 3.5.2 Analyzing Temporal Variables ............................................................ 30 3.6 Qualitative analysis ........................................................................................ 34 1.

(7) 3.6.1 Classroom Observations ..................................................................... 34 CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ................................................. 35 4.1 Perceived Fluency .......................................................................................... 35 4.2 Rate of Speech ............................................................................................... 40 4.3 Amount of Speech .......................................................................................... 42 4.4 Pauses in Speech ............................................................................................ 47 4.4.1 Unfilled Pauses ................................................................................... 47 4.4.2 Filled Pauses ....................................................................................... 49 4.5 Classroom Observations ................................................................................ 51 4.5.1 ETAs’ Teaching Styles ........................................................................ 51 4.5.2 Leaners’ Reactions .............................................................................. 54 CHAPTER FIVE CONCLUSION ............................................................................... 59 5.1 Major Findings of this Study ......................................................................... 59 5.2 Limitation of the Study .................................................................................. 62 5.3 Future Research ............................................................................................. 64 REFERENCE ............................................................................................................... 65. 2.

(8) LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Foreign Residents in Taiwan ............................................................................. 8 Table 2 The First Section of GEPT Rating Scheme (Fluency, Pronunciation, and Pitch) ................................................................................................................ 29 Table 3 Perceived Fluency in The passage-reading Task ............................................ 35 Table 4 The Correlation Coefficient between the Variables ........................................ 36 Table 5 Perceived Fluency in The storytelling Task .................................................... 37 Table 6 The Correlation Coefficient between the Variables ........................................ 37 Table 7 Rate of speech in The passage-reading Task................................................... 40 Table 8 Pretest versus Posttest: The passage-reading Task......................................... 40 Table 9 Rate of speech in the storytelling Task ............................................................ 41 Table 10 Pretest versus Posttest: The Storytelling Task .............................................. 41 Table 11 Amount of Speech in The Passage-reading Task ........................................... 43 Table 12 Amount of Speech in The Storytelling Task ................................................... 44 Table 13 Frequency of Unfilled Pauses in The passage-reading Task ........................ 47 Table 14 The Pretest Versus Posttest: Frequency of Pauses ........................................ 48 Table 15 Frequency of Unfilled Pauses in The Storytelling Task ................................ 48 Table 16 The Pretest Versus Posttest: Frequency of Pauses ........................................ 48. 3.

(9) LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. The Interface of PRAAT………………………………………………….33. 4.

(10) CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background and Motivation Since the economic globalization, English has been widely used and become an international language. Crystal (2000) estimated that over one-quarter of the world’s population use English as their first language; furthermore, the growing needs of English affect many Asian countries’ education policy. For example, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan have started the English education at the elementary level. In teaching English, the focus on EFL has shifted from grammar translation to communicative approach since the demands of communicative skills and capability have increased tremendously in recent years. While the speaking aspect of language is becoming increasingly important, EFL learners are still blamed to be reticent speakers even in the classroom (Burnkart, 1998). Chang (2011) criticized that owing to the limited class durations and an excessive number of pencil-and-paper tests, elementary school students might not be able to develop their speaking skills but are inclined to be frustrated by setbacks from scores and give up on English learning. Yang and Chang (2008) also mentioned that elementary school students should make more efforts to develop their communicative skills. Bulter (2004) stated that the grammar and translations have been the focus in EFL learning context; therefore, the teaching and training of communication skills is relatively insufficient. Even though the government emphasized that teachers in elementary school should focus on oral communication, which level of the language proficiency a teacher should attain to teach speaking remains unclear. Using a selfevaluated questionnaire to understand teachers’ perceptions under this current policy in Asian countries, Bulter’s (2004) results manifested that the majority of teachers in 5.

(11) Korea, Japan, and Taiwan perceived their proficiency levels to be lower than the minimum levels they thought to be necessary to teach English. Clearly, the gap between the education policy and teachers’ perception of their proficiency existed. Based on this reason, incorporating a native English speaking teacher in EFL learning contexts could possibly be an option to fill the gap. Due to the concern over nonnative English teachers’ speaking proficiency, Asia countries have begun to recruit foreign teachers to co-teach with local teachers. Inviting foreign teachers to school system to teach English has thus been a common act in Asian area. Take Hong Kong for example, their government has introduced experienced foreign teachers to teach in school since 1987, and they implemented Primary Native English Teacher Scheme (PNET) to build authentic learning environment in primary school. In Japan, similarly, the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET) helped government to recruit the foreign teacher assistants. The English Program in Korea (EPIK) also invited English native speakers to improve their English teaching and learning. The plethora of studies investigated the effectiveness of this program and proposed the native speakers’ contribution to the language teaching. These studies include various evaluation reports on students’ attitudes towards foreign teachers, the perspectives from native speaker teachers towards their teaching, and the recommendation for these schemes (Crump, 2007; P Griffin & Woods, 2013; Patrick Griffin, Woods, Storey, Wong, & Fung, 2006; Patrick Griffin et al., 2007; Wu & Ke, 2009). As for Taiwan, a native–speaking English teacher (hereafter NET) scheme for inviting native speaking teacher to co-teach with local teacher in schools has been launched as well. In 2008, one of non-profit organization of scholarly exchange provided the public school with English Teaching Assistantship (hereafter ETAs). The 6.

(12) native speakers from United States were recruited to co-teach with Local English Teacher (hereafter LETs) in public schools for 17 weeks. ETAs would design lesson plan and discuss with these LETs about the needs of students. Before the ETA program in Taiwan, many bilingual kindergarten and private language institutions have already recruited native speakers to be instructors. In the investigation of the foreign residents in Taiwan (population categorized by economic activities), the population of foreign teachers has steadily increased. With the growing number of foreign English teacher in private schools and institution, the government also started to cooperate with local institution, recruiting native English-speaking teachers to teach in public school. The number of foreign workers have gradually increased since 1999, which was made to manifest in Table 1 below:. 7.

(13) Table 1 Foreign Residents in Taiwan Population of 15 Years and Over by Emconomical Activities Year (Month). Sub-. Miss-. Foreign. ionary. Labor. Engineer Teacher. Un-. Inactive Under 15. Others. Total. Trader. Employed Person. Years. 八十八年 1999. 333,171. 3,834. 1,890. 2,876. 1,848. 280,160. 11,042. 2,303. 28,730. 6,015. 八十九年 2000. 382,833. 4,049. 2,020. 3,812. 1,907. 308,122. 16,969. 2,561. 42,880. 5,356. 九十年 2001. 379,048. 4,053. 2,269. 4,435. 1,925. 287,337. 16,140. 3,022. 59,376. 4,615. 九十一年 2002. 395,090. 4,987. 3,416. 5,976. 2,014. 288,878. 13,797. 4,043. 71,588. 10,661. 九十二年 2003. 395,366. 4,034. 3,145. 5,958. 2,048. 283,239. 13,563. 3,976. 79,126. 9,918. 九十三年 2004. 413,660. 4,207. 3,319. 6,831. 1,921. 288,898. 14,820. 4,342. 89,050. 9,796. 九十四年 2005. 420,526. 3,878. 3,117. 6,630. 1,800. 297,287. 16,533. 3,957. 86,900. 9,177. 九十五年 2006. 419,788. 3,197. 2,500. 6,185. 1,804. 306,418. 16,031. 3,329. 79,517. 8,452. 九十六年 2007. 425,110. 3,752. 2,407. 6,009. 1,775. 321,804. 15,576. 2,917. 69,728. 8,059. 九十七年 2008. 410,053. 3,474. 2,072. 5,655. 1,729. 316,177. 17,863. 2,444. 59,903. 7,332. 九十八年 2009. 396,514. 3,665. 1,920. 6,106. 1,613. 306,408. 20,024. 2,145. 54,177. 7,186. 九十九年 2010. 411,922. 3,783. 2,004. 5,923. 1,573. 325,572. 21,428. 1,959. 49,195. 6,880. 一〇〇年 2011. 458,930. 4,467. 2,148. 6,748. 1,687. 367,666. 23,935. 1,998. 49,833. 7,276. 一〇一年 2012. 477,523. 4,411. 2,027. 6,421. 1,673. 388,842. 24,008. 1,783. 48,120. 6,398. 一〇二年 2013. 518,886. 4,613. 2,192. 6,044. 1,800. 428,897. 24,625. 1,757. 48,709. 6,223. 一〇三年 2014. 623,373. 4,438. 2,422. 6,937. 1,901. 526,578. 27,950. 2,236. 50,636. 6,260. 一〇四年 2015. 632,115. 4,662. 2,416. 6,606. 1,638. 533,869. 29,413. 2,460. 50,739. 5,728. With a view to fostering English education in Taiwan, the government and numerous private language learning centers seemed to believe that native speaker teachers might help students improve their English ability. In this light, if the effectiveness of these programs is closely investigated, the results can benefit a wide 8.

(14) range of schools and institutions by helping them gain a better insight into operation and improve their current condition. In the present study, the influence of English Teaching Assistant (ETA) program would be the focus. 1.2 Purpose of the Study English Teaching Assistant (ETA) program has recruited the graduated American university students to co-teach with Local English Teachers (LETs) at elementary schools and junior high schools. The program first started in Northern Taiwan in 2003 and then expanded to other area. The annual report and evaluation mentioned that the host colleges, learners, and even ETAs themselves benefited much from this program. According to informal interview with learners and LETs, most of them gave positive comments on the visiting of ETAs. However, there is still a lack of literature examining the actual impact of ETA in terms of four skills of language ability. The present study, therefore, aims at discussing how the presence of English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) in junior high school classrooms influenced learners’ English speaking in terms of fluency. Instead of the interviews and observations offered by the organization, this study investigated the improvement of learner’s oral fluency through empirical methods. Students’ oral performance were recorded and scored by native and nonnative raters so as to reveal the difference of their perceived fluency. Furthermore, their recordings were quantitatively analyzed based on salient frequency indicators including rate of speech and pauses. Through an objective and evidence-supported approach, this study seeks to provide an insight into the actual effectiveness of ETAs on junior high school students’ English speaking fluency. 1.3 Significance of the Study This study carries the significance of assessing students’ improvement in English speaking fluency from an empirical approach, and the unique context of this study can 9.

(15) reveal the actual effectiveness of incorporating NESTs in regular junior high schools at weekly intervals. In addition, this study can, hopefully, provide empirical evidence for ETAs, LETs, and policy makers to plan future curriculum or implement new programs in Taiwanese EFL context. To begin with, NESTs have been largely incorporated in Taiwanese EFL context, ranging from primary school, junior high school, senior high school, to higher education. The advantages of employing NESTs have been widely discussed from the aspects of acculturation, authentic native input, learning motivations, willingness to speak and so forth. The literatures concerning the performance of oral fluency, nonetheless, have very little empirical support. A number of studies looked into students’ attitude towards NESTs and NESTs’ perception of their own teaching, while very few researchers tapped into the question of English speaking fluency. Even though some learners expressed their positive expectation and feedback towards NESTs, their actual enhancement in oral fluency remained largely unknown. A discrepancy, therefore, could exist between students’ perception and their actual improvement. On the other hand, while NESTs in primary schools have received much research interest over the past decades, a limited number of studies target NESTs in public junior high schools. The current situation makes the exploration of NESTs’ influence on junior high school students an essential task. Secondly, students in Taiwan usually exposed to NESTs for different lengths of time every week. Some Taiwanese students study English with NESTs throughout every class at school, some may resort to crams schools or private tutors for a few hours every week, while some can only meet NESTs for an hour or two every week. In the current Taiwanese education system, it is not possible to hire NESTs as the 10.

(16) teachers for regular classes in public school. Many junior high or high schools thus incorporate NESTs in one of the English classes weekly, which means students are receiving only 50 minutes of training from NESTs every week. While numerous studies researched the presence of NESTs in Taiwan, seldom did any researcher revealed whether one hour of NESTs’ teaching at weekly interval may actually benefit learners’ English ability. In such a limited time, how NESTs efficiently help their students remained arguable. This study, therefore, occupied this gap by looking into the students who received NESTs’ training once a week throughout a semester. This may hopefully indicate whether junior high schools should incorporate NESTs for such a short period of time is beneficial for students. Last but not least, the results of the current study can provide policy makers and people in charge of ETA programs valuable insight into foreign teachers’ actual contribution to students’ English speaking fluency. In addition to the perceived fluency rated by experienced school English teachers, this research also includes objective and accurate calculation of the rate of speech, filled pauses during speech, and silence. Through dual approach of analysis, this study minimize bias from teacher raters and can offer a more precise data for analysis. The policy makers can know students’ improvement in oral fluency better, and thus design future curriculum based on the implications. They can train these ETAs different teaching skills or set different teaching objectives with regard to speaking. Teaching materials and in-class activities can be reviewed based on the findings of this study. Furthermore, the cooperation between ETAs and LETs can also receive attention.. 11.

(17) CHAPTER TWO LITERATURE REVIEW The purpose of this study is to investigate junior high school learners’ improvement in terms of English speaking fluency after receiving weekly training from ETA throughout one semester. In this chapter, relevant research background, rationale, definition, and previous empirical studies would be critically reviewed. This chapter is structured as follows: In the first section, the background of NEST is presented, including NESTs’ perception on their teaching and students’ attitude towards NESTs. The impact of NEST on students’ speaking would also be presented. In the second section, the rationale of English speaking fluency would be discussed, in which the definition of fluency and its measurement will be provided. At the end of this chapter, research questions would be presented. 2.1 Background of NEST In the 1990s, the focus of research consisted in the characteristics of NEST and NNEST. In the comparison of NEST and NNEST, Canagarajah (1999) stated that NESTs could be excellent English teacher in EFL learning context because of their unique cultural information, while NNESTs were suitable for ESL context because of their multicultural experiences. A large number of studies, however, pointed out that using the dichotomy to examine NS and NNS teacher was inappropriate. The literatures were divided into three parts. The first part discussed the legitimacy of the dichotomy of native speaker or non-native speaker and raised the worry about language imperialism and nationalistic view about language learning. (Nayar, 1994). The second part of research focused on World Englishes and the indigenization of language. Some researchers considered English as a lingua franca and addressed the importance of learning the 12.

(18) English varieties (Modiano, 2005). The third part of literatures proposed that the contextualization should be taken into the considerations (Higgins, 2003). Although the major researchers argued against the native and non-native dichotomy, some researchers considered that the distinction still existed. The distinctions were reflected in both group of teachers’ self-perceptions. In Moussu’s (2006) study, the results manifested that most NNESTs agreed they understand students’ learning difficulties and their needs. However, they considered that they had foreign accent and they lacked knowledge of idioms and cultural references. On the contrary, NESTs appeared to be more confident in their language skills. Whether the native and nonnative dichotomy is proper remains open to debate, while previous studies enabled to gain an insight into how NEST and NNEST positively influenced students’ English ability. To further discuss the issue, three strands of literature are presented in this section. The first strand describes NESTs’ perception and self-image concerning their teaching; and it was followed by a brief review of students’ perception of both NEST and NNEST. The third strand of studies focused on the students’ progress in terms of their speaking under the teaching of NEST and NNESTs. In the following section, research concerning teachers’ perception towards their teaching would be reviewed. 2.1.1 Teachers’ Perception towards Their Teaching The distinction of native and non-native teacher have been discussed for a long time. However, the debates about the controversial issues have been inconsistent, for instance, defining a native speaker, proposing the advantages, and disadvantages of teachers based on their first language. Nevertheless, Medgyes (1999) reminded us that professional considerations of teacher should be the focus rather than disputing about 13.

(19) the birth or mother tongue. Medgyes (1999) assumed that the gap of language competence between NESTs and non-NESTs might give rise to different teaching styles. To validate the presumption, 220 NESTs and non-NESTs among ten countries have been surveyed through the questionnaire. The most common difficulties and uncertainties that non-NEST encountered were the aspects of language use, including pronunciation, fluency, idiomatic English. Over a half of respondents agreed that different teaching styles existed between the NESTs and non-NESTs, while the differences were left unanswered in this study. Á rva and Medgyes revisited the claims in The Non-native Teacher (Medgyes, 1999) and examined the unanswered questions by comparing the interviews with NESTs and non-NESTs with their video-recorded lessons. Some assumptions were confirmed in this follow-up study such as the fact that Native were good listeners and showed high interest in students’ opinions. During the class, they expressed in a more economical way and succeeded in getting students to speak up. The main issue in this study was that researcher found the discrepancy between the “perceived behavior” and “actual behavior.” To sum up, there might be a mismatch between the teachers’ perception and their actual teaching in the class. 2.1.2 Students’ Perceptions towards NEST In the book of The Non-native Teacher, Medgyes (1999) claimed that the nonnative teacher could hardly achieved native teacher’s language competence, but their chances to be successful language teacher are equal. However, their different levels of language competences might result in the discrepancies in teaching styles (Á rva & Medgyes, 2000; Medgyes, 1999; Seidlhofer, 1999). In Medyges’ (1999) study, the data were collected merely from questionnaire surveys and interviews of two groups of instructors, while students’ perceptions were not investigated. In order to understand whether students’ perceptions or attitudes toward NEST correspond to 14.

(20) teacher’s perception of themselves, Benke and Medgyes’s (2005) then carried out another study to answer the question. They surveyed 422 Hungarian learners with lower intermediate level of proficiency, who had had more than one-year experiences of being taught by native and non-native teachers. The result of the study suggested that the NNESTs tended to assign a lot of homework and correct errors more often. The NESTs, instead, put the primary focus on speaking skills and they were happy to improvise during the class. They were also more interested in students’ opinions and more capable of getting their students to speak up. As shown in the questionnaires, more than a half of the students claimed that native speaker teacher can teach speaking skills and conversation more efficiently. Similar finding can be found in research conducted by Storey et al. (2001), which indicated that local English teacher tended to use textbook-based teaching and set more homework for students. Contrastively, the classes of native English teacher was more activity-based. During the activities, more chances to use English were given to complete the task due to the need of communication. In addition to having more chances to speak in classes, learners also expressed positive comments on Native speaker teacher. In Barratt and Kontra’s (2000) study, they surveyed students and native speaker teachers’ colleges and asked them to free write their positive and negative comments on NEST. Students gave positive comments on teacher’s authenticity. For example, student reported that NEST helped them understand the subtle differences of language usage. Secondly, they were encouraged to use more English because NESTs were unable to speak leaners’ mother tongue. Some students felt more motivated to speak up and some even regarded it as a good chance to force themselves to communicate using target language. In summary, English learners generally agreed that NESTs not only provided 15.

(21) them with wider vocabulary, authentic pronunciation but also gave much more information about culture (Benke & Medgyes, 2005; Kontra, 2000; Storey et al., 2001). They also suggested that NESTs granted them more opportunities to communicate in English in class compared to non-native speaking counterparts (Benke & Medgyes, 2005). While these findings lead to the assumption that NESTs could be more suitable teachers of English in terms of speaking, little empirical evidence was revealed to establish a direct correlation between learners’ perceptions and their actual performance in English speaking. In other word, whether there was a discrepancy between learners’ teacher preference and the genuine improvement of their speaking ability has not been given the attention it needs. As relatively little is known about the improvement of learners after receiving instruction from NESTs, studies which addressed this area should be reviewed. 2.1.3 NEST’s Impacts on Students’ Speaking Competence In the previous section, literatures of NEST program, administration, bureaucratic complications with foreign teachers, and learners’ perceptions have been discussed. There remains a need for analyzing foreign educators’ actual impact on students’ speaking performance, which could be revealed through assessments on speaking ability. In this section, the work on how and what can students benefit from native English speaking teacher was thus reviewed. In terms of speaking performance, a few studies shed light on NESTs’ influence on learners’ improvement in pronunciation (e.g., Levis, Sonsaat, Link, & Barriuso, 2016; Li & Zhang, 2016). Levis, Sonsaat, Link, and Barriuso (2016) investigated whether students’ performance and improvements of pronunciation may be affected by their English teachers’ first language status. The participants at similar proficiency level, which referred to the pronunciation in English, were recruited from a 16.

(22) community university, ten of whom were assigned to NEST’s class and eight to NNEST’s class. The participants’ then received a pretest before their seven-week pronunciation lessons taught by either NEST or NNEST. After the lessons, they received a posttest. The content of pretest and posttest consisted of sentence reading tasks and narrative tasks. Their performance was rated by college students from introductory linguistics and writing classes. Their results indicated that the rating of two groups’ accentedness and comprehensibility had no significant difference; namely, both groups’ performance improved in the posttest. The researchers concluded that the impact on students’ improvement of accentedness and comprehensibility did not vary according to teachers’ language backgrounds. Students could still acquire correct pronunciation from NNESTs, who comprised a majority of pronunciation instructors and understood the procedure and challenges of English learning (Levis, Sonsaat, Link, & Barriuso, 2016). The findings of Li and Zhang’s (2016) research also coincided with their study, and they further proposed that NEST enabled Chinese English learners to improve significantly in pronunciation while NEST did not. Their experiment involved two phases, in which 30 undergraduates received pronunciation instruction from NEST for two months and were then taught by NNEST for the same span. A pretest was administered on the participants before all the lessons, and a middle test was applied in after the first two months (NEST); the posttest was conducted after the second part of the lessons (NNEST) ended, and the test scores were analyzed through one-way ANOVA. Their results revealed that in the first phase, NEST’s instruction of pronunciation failed to significantly enhance students’ accentedness and comprehensibility; the second phase, unexpectedly, NNEST significantly increased students’ scores on accentedness and comprehensibility. A final conclusion was drawn 17.

(23) that NNEST’s instruction on pronunciation was preferable in their context, which might result from the fact that NEST’s teaching might not be intelligible to the students in the program (Li & Zhang, 2016). In brief, although students might show preference for NEST to be their teacher (Li & Zhang, 2016), the overall improvement of their pronunciation suggested the suitability of NNEST to teach pronunciation. To sum up, due to the scarcity of research in this area, whether NESTs and NNESTs influenced students’ improvement differently was still elusive. A few researchers (Levis, Sonsaat, Link, & Barriuso, 2016; Li & Zhang, 2016) tapped into NESTs’ influence on students’ pronunciation and claimed that they may not be more suitable than non-native counterparts simply owing to their first language status. The noteworthy part of their study, nonetheless, is that students still showed preference for NEST without hesitation in the interview, and whether their preference motivated learners to learn English and improve their speaking skills can be an object of study. Furthermore, the quantitative approach of their studies, in which scores of students’ interviews and narrative tasks were calculated, might not thoroughly reflect the slight progress of learners’ speaking ability. The above reasons implied that a qualitative analysis could be designed to provide insight into this issue. In this light, the purpose of this exploratory research is to examine learners’ improvement in terms of their English speaking performance under the instruction of NESTs, and both quantitative and qualitative methods would be adopted. The results could lead to a better understanding of the genuine effectiveness of incorporating NESTs in Taiwanese junior high school EFL context. 2.2 Speaking Fluency 2.2.1 Defining Fluency Lennon (1990, 2000) mentioned the speaking fluency includes two senses. 18.

(24) The broad sense of fluency referred to the common parlance, which meat that speakers were able to have a high command of a language. In the narrow sense, fluency was viewed as one of descriptors of oral proficiency when examining speakers’ language skills in the language assessment. Fluent speaker should have “native-like rapidity”. The concept of fluency was still vague in this description. Even among teachers, the words describe fluency may be still confusing and covering different aspects of fluency in research (Riggenbach, 1991; Schmidt, 1992; SchmittGevers, 1993; Freed, 1995). To differentiate the features of fluency, Fillmore (1979, 2000), identified four kinds of fluency and varied among native-speakers. The first feature is “disc-jockey fluency”, referring to the “ability to fill time with talk”. The second is the “ability to talk in coherent, reasoned and semantically dense sentences.” Instead of focusing on the rate of speech, it emphasized the quality of a sentence. The third is the “ability to have appropriate things to say in a wide range of contexts”. Considering to the topics or situation of interlocutors, speakers’ fluency might perform differently. The last is the “ability…to be creative and imaginative in language use. Speakers may pre-edit the language in a creative way. Fillmore took different aspects of fluency into considerations, including the speed, speaking context, and the individual differences. Another aspect of fluency was regarded as an underlying process of production. Schmidt (1992) considered fluency as the “automatic procedural skill”. The speaking activities are a “interpersonal and psychomotor control.” (Bygate, 1998). A fluent speaker should not pay much effort or attention on speech production. Lennon (2000) further revised the definition of fluency in the later work. He claimed that fluency is “the rapid, sooth, accurate, lucid, and efficient translation of thought or communicative intention into language under the temporal constraints of on-line processing”. From a cognitive perspective, 19.

(25) Segalowitz (2010) listed three types of fluency. The first type is cognitive fluency, referring to the underlying processing, which is similar to Lennon’s definition. The second type is the utterance fluency which means the temporal variables, such as speech rate, pauses, or mean length of runs. These are the quantifiable and observable features in the speech production. The third type is perceived fluency, which referred to listener’s impressions or perceptions of speakers’ utterance. It is crucial to differentiate the different senses of fluency. When the researcher invite the raters to give the judgements on the candidate’s performance, they are measuring the aspect of perceived fluency. The perceived fluency could be strongly affected by the utterance. Neither perceived fluency nor utterance fluency may represent the whole concept of fluency. 2.2.2 Measurement of Fluency Both the definition of fluency and its measurement have drawn considerable research interest. In the research of fluency, Koponen and Riggenbach (2000) researcher suggested different perspectives to look into the fluency. One way to examine the speech is through the temporal variables that are identifiable and quantifiable features. Möhle (1984) proposed that the temporal variables might be the indicators to assess leaners’ fluency, such as speech rate, frequency, locations or length of silences and hesitations, mean length of speech runs, distributions of filled pauses repetitions and self-corrections. The pattern or the distribution of variables might be different between the native and non-native speakers. Some researchers took the phonological aspects of fluency (Hieke, 1984; Wennestrom, 2000). Some studies explored that the influence of formulaic speech in developing fluency of L2 learners. (Ejzenberg, 2000; Towell, 1996). Numerous studies took different approaches to establish the components of 20.

(26) fluency. Some research studied the disparities between fluent speakers and non-fluent speakers (Ejzenberg, 2000). Other studies examined compared the hearer-based judgement with the temporal variables (Riggenbach, 1991; Rekart & Dunkel, 1992). In several variables, the speech rate and the mean of length were often adopted and considered to be a strong indicator of fluency (Ejzenberg, 2000; Lennon, 1990). Freed (1995) also reported that raters agreed that rate of speech was a salient indicator in judging fluency. The speech rate calculating the number syllables produced per minutes. The mean length of runs means the average number of syllables of in speech production between pauses (Freed, 1995). In the research of pauses, the pauses might possess different functions in the sentences. Except for being regarded as a dysfluency marker, pauses might be a “juncture pauses” or possess the rhetorical function (Chafe, 1980; Lounsbury, 1954). There was the chance that the pauses results from the hesitations, which could be hardly tolerated by listeners (Butcher, 1980). According to Riggenbach (1991), the “unfilled pauses” could be a great predictor of the nonfluency of L2 learners. Lennon (1990) investigated a wide range of measures to identify the quantifiable variables that could be the most influential on the perceptions of listeners. The number of participants was small in this exploratory study. Four L2 subjects received the German-English translation class for 23 weeks. They were shown a six-picture sequence and asked to retell the story in the pretest and posttest. He found that the three variables: pruned words per minute, filled pauses per T-Unit and percent of Tunits followed by pause were significantly different across four subjects. One of subjects improved in different set of variables, which showed that the variations existed in the individual differences. We have note that the results came from the small sample groups, whether the remaining variables were necessary or not might 21.

(27) need to be reexamined with larger group samples. Compared to the elicited data in monologue in Lennon’s study, Riggenbach (1991) suggested that the study should add the naturalistic data, such as conversations. This data allowed the researchers to observe the “conversational fluency” that contained some other features only appeared in dialogue, for example, the repair initiation. Both studies adopted dual approach by inviting raters to judge learners’ fluency and analyzed the temporal variables in speech production. The relations between the utterance fluency and perceived fluency was correlated. Ejzenberg (2000) reminded that researchers should take both “speaker-based” and “listener-based” sides to evaluate the fluency. However, to what degree of fluency or what kinds of exact descriptors of fluency would affect listeners’ perceptions remains unclear. Though the fluency was the focus of this study, accuracy should be taken into account. As for the listeners’ perceptions, accuracy still affect fluency and judgement, and even sometimes has larger influence than other temporal variables (Kormos & Dénes, 2004). In this study, we also contained accuracy into the study and see whether or not the accuracy was correlated to the judges’ scores in the judgement of fluency. The present study would adopt three variables: rate of speech and frequency of pauses and accuracy. In the following section, the research questions would be proposed.. 22.

(28) 2.3 Research Questions To fulfill the purpose of the present study, three research questions in the following were addressed in this study: 1.. Did ETA influence students’ oral production in terms of perceived fluency?. 2.. On the aspect of fluency, did ETA influence students’ oral production in terms of temporal variables?. 3.. How did ETA influence students’ oral production in the classroom?. 23.

(29) CHAPTER THREE METHODOLOGY In this study, both quantitative method and class observation were employed. The information of the participants, the speaking test, and data collecting procedure of the present study are introduced below. The quantitative analyzing procedures are also presented at the end of in this chapter. 3.1 Participants The participants of this study were drawn from two classes in a public junior high school in Taipei city. The classes were normal class grouping, which consisted of students with different levels of proficiency. The original number of students from two classes were thirty. Five of thirty students were removed from the study for being absent either on the pretest or the posttest. After pruning, the selected participants were 25 students. All learners were in the seventh grade, whose age ranged from 10 to 12. These learners took five English classes a week. In one of these classes, an English Teacher Assistant (ETA) would accompany them in class. The ETAs were bachelor degrees of different majors. Although they were not the English teachers in America, they all received teacher training before the service in school. They would discuss with English teachers about what students need and design the lesson plans for the class. 3.2 Raters In this study, the perceived fluency of students’ oral production was targeted. In order to generate the scores of perceived fluency, two native speaking judges were recruited for this study. The first rater is an American and had more than seven years of English teaching 24.

(30) experiences. She taught in private junior school English teacher in municipal Taipei city. The second rater is a South-African who has graduated from a TESOL program and served as an English teacher for 5 years. Though the two raters were inexperienced, Derwing and Munro (2015) reported that the judgment on speaking performance has no significant difference between the experienced and inexperienced raters. In this study, only native English speaking teachers were recruited as raters but not the ones who shared the same L1 with the students. Taiwanese raters were not recruited because their similar linguistic background to students might cause rater effect, which makes them more tolerant of students’ speaking performance (Carey, Mannell, & Dunn, 2011; Xi & Mollaun, 2009). In Carey et al. (2011), they found that the speaking score has been remarkably influenced by accent familiarity. Winke, Gass, and Myford (2013) lended support for those previous works above. Their study converged to indicate that raters who shared the same linguistic backgournd with examinees would be lenient in assigning scores. Based on these concerns, the pool of raters were native English speakers. 3.3 The Speaking Test In this study, a speaking test was designed to investigate learners’ performance of speaking with the presence of English teaching assistant. The speaking test was adapted from the simulated standard test for young learners. It is designed to evaluate learners’ ability to handle social functions such as greeting people, asking and answering questions, discussing what to do at school, or making and accepting offers. According to the Ministry of Education (MOE), the required proficiency of junior high school students in Taiwan must reach the elementary level in GEPT, which can be aligned with A2 of CEFR (CEFR, 2001). However, the speaking test on the elementary level of GEPT can only evaluate the test-takers’ ability to read aloud 25.

(31) simple passages and engage simple dialogues in certain situations that are familiar to the test-takers rather than evaluating the ability to handle social functions. Therefore, the standardized test which can be aligned with CEFR A2, was chosen for the study. In order to evaluate learners’ fluency, the section of reading a passage was added to the speaking test. The speaking test is comprised of two parts: (1). In the first part of the test, the participants were required to read a passage. in two minutes. This task, reading a passage, carries great strength in that it can minimize the influence of other linguistic factors which could possibly have an impact on the assessment of speaking fluency (Cucchiarini, Strik & Boves, 1999; Riazantseva, 2001; Cucchiarini, Strik & Boves, 2002). For instance, the rating of the fluency would not be impacted by students’ different levels of grammar and vocabulary knowledge since the sentences will be consistent in all these aspects (Cucchiarini, Strik & Boves, 1999). This kind of tasks has been widely employed by previous researchers on oral fluency since there may be no other factors that distract raters (Cucchiarini, Strik & Boves, 1999). In this task, the students are required to read five the sentences and a paragraph. All the students were banned from rehearsing before the test, and the intact utterances would be recorded for further analysis. In the second part, the participant would tell a story based on a comic strip. The comic strip was comprised of five pictures. In the first Participants were expected to tell a story illustrated by picture in details. The storytelling task suggested by Lennon (1990) was included in this study. In order to avoid the impact of interaction, say, “the para- and nonlinguistic information” or turntaking, the monologue in narrative tasks were thought to be more appropriate for this study. Using pictures as elicitation devices was similar to the task of 26.

(32) describing cartoon series in Riazantseva (2001)’s work. Compared with the spontaneous speech, these narrative prompts were more structural with limited vocabularies and semantics. Instead of regarding fluency as context-independent, Riggnebach (1991) proposed that the fluency should be analyzed in the context of conversation, especially when studying the hesitation phenomena. However, the topics in the unplanned and unstructured conversation might vary from learner to learner, which could affect speaking performance. Furthermore, the reliance on the context in the conversation might make the fluency difficult to analyze. The conversation among interlocutors was also a dynamic and unpredictable interaction. The reliability and validity of test result could be compromised (Brown, 2003). The reason why speaking test consisted of two different task types was that speakers’ performance might vary in different tasks. With different cognitively demanding, speakers could possibly get higher scores in reading passage than the spontaneous speech (Cucchiarini, Strik, & Boves, 2002). Different task types allowed the researcher to observe the fluency in different stages of the development of fluency. Cucchiarini, strik, and Boves (2002) highlighted the need to select the variables meticulously according to the task type of speaking materials. Although the two different task types in this study were evaluated by the same set of temporal variables, these set of variables highly correlated to perceived fluency and could be strong indicators in predicting fluency of beginner and intermediate learners. 3.4 Data Collecting Procedure The data collection procedures could be divided into three stages. At the beginning of the school year, the speaking test designed for this study was administered in these two classes. Each participant was required to record their 27.

(33) answers individually, and the data were compiled by the researcher. During the school year, all participants took one English class taught by the English Teacher Assistant every week for six months. At the end of the school year, the learners had taken 18 English classes taught by ETA, and the exact speaking test was administered again as the posttest in this week. Subjects reported that they could hardly remember the content and the task in the pretest, which suggested that the results might not been influenced by the learning effects caused by the repeating the identical tasks. The data were collected and given scores by two raters. Before rating, the inter-rater reliability for the two native speaker rates was 0.69, which was considered to be acceptable. The average scores rated by these two teachers were then calculated and analyzed in order to reveal a difference. Aside from the scores, the recordings were transcribed to facilitate the calculations of T-units and the rate of accuracy. The quantitative analysis of rate of speech, frequency of silences, were also conducted to help gain a deeper insight into ETA’s influence on the participants’ speaking. The details of the analysis were provided in the following section. 3.5 Quantitative Analysis 3.5.1 Analyzing Perceived Fluency To answer the first research question regarding the impacts on students’ oral production in terms of fluency, the raters were assigned to evaluate students’ perceived speaking fluency. The raters would assess students’ pretest, which was administered at the beginning of the semester, and the posttest, which was executed at the end of the course. They would be required to give the global rating on students’ fluency based on a rating scheme. The rating scheme of the speaking test in elementary level of General English 28.

(34) Proficiency Test (hereafter GEPT) was adopted to rate the speaking test designed for this study. The rating scheme in GEPT includes two parts, the first of which focused on students’ fluency, pronunciation, and pitch; the second part targeted accuracy, grammar, vocabulary and appropriateness. Owing to the scope of this study, only the first part of the rating scheme would be adopted. The first part of the rating scheme of GETP was presented in the following table: Table 2 The First Section of GEPT Rating Scheme (Fluency, Pronunciation, and Pitch) Level. Description. 5. Correct pronunciation and pitch. Communicate fluently and naturally like a native speaker. 4. Mostly correct pronunciation and pitch. Communicate fluently.. 3. Some errors in pronunciation and pitch. Communicate little slowly but still understandable.. 2. Many errors in pronunciation and pitch. Communicate slowly with some pauses and curb communication.. 1. Most erroneous pronunciation and pitch. Communicate very slowly. Pauses with fear. Unable to be understood.. 0. Silences. Based on the rating scheme, the two raters would give an individual score for each. section of the test, and the results were compiled and summarized in Microsoft Excel. In order to indicate whether students’ perceived fluency has significantly improved after receiving the lessons taught by ETA, Paired t-tests were performed. If the pvalues were significant at the level of 0.05, students’ perceived performance was considered to be significantly improved. 29.

(35) 3.5.2 Analyzing Temporal Variables To answer research question two, which was in regard to the difference of the temporal variables of students’ oral fluency, several indicators were chosen for detailed analysis. The present study incorporated Lennon’s (1990) research framework and Riggenbach’s (1991) research model of the temporal variables concerning speaking fluency. These two researchers have been prominent in this field in that they help gain better insights into which temporal variable could better predict the overall performance of fluency as perceived by raters. Their definition and powerful indicators of fluency have be widely employed in later studies which investigated speaking fluency from a theory-based method and through empirical evidence. Based on their works, Lennon (1990) and Riggenbach (1991) have proposed several indicators which could better represent participants’ fluency perceived by others. These indicators included (1) rate of speech, (2) amount of speech, and (3) filled and unfilled pauses. The reason these indicators could be generalized to the presents study is that they are suitable for analyzing participants’ oral fluency in the form of speech test. Previous studies which adopted these indicators explored the oral fluency of EFL or ESL learners, which made them also applicable for the present study. Furthermore, they could be utilized here also because they evaluate oral fluency on the basis of objective labeling and calculation, which could generate empirical evidence for quantitative research. The details of these indicators would presented in the following: (1). Rate of speech: In the light of rate of speech, Lennon’s (1990) model. and definition were chosen in this study. In the present study, the rate of speech was defined as “the number of words per minute,” which is consistent 30.

(36) with that stated in Lennon’s (1990) study. In his study, the words he counted only involved “pruned words,” exclusive of self-corrected words and those addressing to the examiner. Among the twelve variables Lennon (1990) employed to investigate participants’ oral fluency in his study, he specifically concluded that “pruned words per minute” was an effective temporal component which could be used to measure perceived fluency. This study would thus incorporate his model for measurement. To more accurately calculate students’ rate of speech , a specific condition in Riggenbach’s (1991) study was also implemented in this study, in which she formulized that any silence (unfilled pause) which exceeds three seconds will only be counted as three second. For instance, an unfilled pause which extends to the length of 10 seconds would only be counted as three seconds in this study. In this way, a more representative counting of the rate of speech could be attained (Riggenbach, 1991). (2). Amount of speech: The amount of speech is defined as the total. number of words or semantic units (Riggenbach, 1991), and this variable reflects students’ total articulation of correct words. When analyzing the rate of speech, the increase in the amount of speech actually contributed greatly to the rise in speech rate. The concept of amount of speech is very similar to that of rate of speech, but only the amount of speech could reveal participants’ improvement in articulating more ideas and details in their speech. For example, a student who utters 60 words in 60 seconds and a student who utters 10 words in 10 seconds and remains silent afterwards may have similar rate of speech, while the latter obviously convey more ideas in his speech. In this light, by looking into 31.

(37) amount of speech as an independent indicator, participants who contain more meaningful expressions in their speech could be specified. The increase in speech content could in turn be deemed progress of their speaking fluency (Riggenbach, 1991). This indicator was thus adopted in this research. (3). Frequency of pauses: In response to the analysis of frequency of. pauses, both filled pauses and unfilled pauses were taken into consideration in this study. According to Lennon (1999), he specifically stated that filled pause was a salient indicator to determine the dysfluency of participants’ speech. Riggenbach (1991), on the other hand, claimed that unfilled pauses could be a significant fluency indicator. Such results were similarly verified in Freed’s (1995) research, in which native raters were found to judge participants’ with faster speech rate and fewer pauses as more fluent speakers. The present study would target both kinds of pauses as a means to reveal participants’ progress after receiving the training of ETA throughout a semester. In the present study, filled pause suggests nonlexical words, which do not comprise lexical information. Based on Lennon’s (1999) study, he termed these fillers as hesitation markers. They were mostly realized as “uh” and “er” in the recordings. Furthermore, in order to precisely distinguish filled pauses, this kind of fillers which exceeded the length of 0.2 seconds were taken into account. Unfilled pauses, on the other hand, were unambiguously composed of pure silence. In accord with filled pauses, the silence which is over 0.2 seconds was considered as unfilled pauses (Lennon, 1999). In order to analyze the temporal variables mentioned above, the recordings were quantitatively analyzed through an audio editing program which is called PRAAT. This specific program has been widely employed to analyze and compare the 32.

(38) recordings of participant’s oral speech in a number of previous studies which target language fluency (De Jong, Steinel, Florijn, Schoonen, & Hulstijn, 2013), so it is looked upon as an effective and accurate tool for the analysis of speech. After all the recording files were imported into this audio editing program, and they would be transformed into visually accessible sound wave diagrams. These files would then be annotated and edited, revealing the number of words that are included in a single test section of a participant. The interface of the program of PRAAT was shown below in figure 1:. Figure 1 The Interface of PRAAT. 33.

(39) 3.6 Qualitative analysis 3.6.1 Classroom Observations In order to investigate the third question to see how the ETAs influence students’ speaking performance, classroom observations were conducted to record students’ behavior and interactions with the teacher. The objective of this classroom observation was to discover the pattern between ETA-leaners interactions, ETA’s teaching styles, their behaviors that encouraged learners to speak up, or the activities that enables students to use more English in the classrooms. The first class in the beginning of semester and the last class at the end of the semester were videotaped. The rest of classes observations were sound recorded in order not to disturb the class.. 34.

(40) CHAPTER FOUR RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The purpose of this study is to investigate junior high school learners’ improvement in terms of English speaking fluency after receiving weekly training from ETA throughout one semester. In this chapter, quantitative results would be presented respectively, and intact samples would also be provided to allow for detailed explanation and discussion. The data of class observation will be included in the end of this chapter, followed by a summary of our findings. 4.1 Perceived Fluency The first research question tackles students’ improvement in fluency after receiving the training from ETA for one semester, and in this section, the scores of the perceived fluency offered by the raters were listed below. For passage reading section, the results of the perceived fluency were listed in Table 3 as follows: Table 3 Perceived Fluency in The passage-reading Task Perceived Fluency. Overall. Pretest. Posttest. M. SD. M. SD. 2.537. 1.307. 2.759. 1.059. Based on Table 3, it could be observed that the mean of perceived fluency in the passage-reading task has increased from 2.537 to 2.759, suggesting that their perceived fluency was enhanced in the posttest. The standard deviation, on the other hand, decreased from 1.307 to 1.059, which implied that the difference between the participants was lessened; that is, the group of participants were considered more homogeneous after receiving training. For the second task, storytelling, the difference of perceived scores in pretest and those in posttest test was shown below: 35.

(41) Table 4 Perceived Fluency in The storytelling Task Perceived Fluency. Overall. Pretest. Posttest. M. SD. M. SD. 2.388. 1.295. 2.648. 1.223. According to the table 4, it was clear that the participants increased their perceived fluency on the average. The mean score of perceived fluency has increased from 2.388 to 2.648. The standard deviation, nevertheless, did not show an obvious difference in this task. In sum, the results only suggested that their oral fluency was perceived to be better at the end of the semester. While referring to the overall improvement of fluency as perceived by the raters, it was interesting to reveal that the temporal indicators employed in this study contributed to the judgement of perceived fluency perceived fluency, as proposed in Lennon’s (1990) and Riggenbach’s (1991) studies. The increase in speech rate has been deemed a significant indicator of improvement of fluency, and the findings of this study showed that most students increased their speech rate in passage reading section. Similarly, reducing the frequency of pauses was an indicator of improving perceived fluency (Lennon, 1999), which was also confirmed in the results of the participants’ frequency of pauses. In sum, it could thus be assumed that rate of speech and the frequency of pauses distinctively influenced the perceived fluency in this study. To affirm whether the correlation between the indicators and perceived fluency could be established, a correlation test was conducted on all the variables in this study, and the results are presented in the Table 4 below:. 36.

(42) Table 5 The Correlation of Variables in The passage-reading Task Rate of Speech. Frequency of Pauses. 0.779. -0.269. 0.774. -0.110. Rater 1 Posttest Perceived Fluency Rater 2 Posttest Perceived Fluency The results of the correlation test showed a clear and strong correlation between the rate of speech and perceived fluency. With the correlation coefficient being 0.779 and 0.774, rate of speech is highly correlated with perceived fluency. As for frequency of pauses, it was slightly negatively related to the perceived fluency. As for the storytelling task, to understand the variables that contributed to the enhancement of oral fluency, a correlation test was also conducted to confirm the relationships between perceived fluency and rate of speech and frequency of pauses. The results were presented below: Table 6 The Correlation of Variables in The storytelling Task Rate of Speech. Frequency of Pauses. 0.608. -0.163. 0.642. -0.163. Rater 1 Posttest Perceived Fluency Rater 2 Posttest Perceived Fluency The results pointed out that rate of speech is highly correlated with fluency, and frequency of pauses was slightly associated with fluency. However, aside from the indicators which have already been known to contribute to the perception of fluency, another salient improvement noticed in the tests was accuracy. Since this study focused on ETA and their impacts on speaking fluency, the 37.

(43) rating of accuracy was beyond the scope of the study. However, when analyzing the answers of the participants, many representative samples could specify that students increase their accuracy in the pretest. The progress of accuracy was made manifest in an example from the storytelling test below: One day a girl and a boy (2.0) and (.6) to house (2.1) / they are (.6) going a one house (2.1) /they looking for a thing (.6) / and (.9) their (.4) on they need water (.) / and they (.) get help (1.2) /they get out and find a new swimming pool (1.0) / they are play very happy (4.8) / and everyday they are going to new (1.0) swimming pool. (Sample 01 pretest) In the example above, the speaker had a hard time completing an error-free sentence, but numerous grammatical mistakes and awkward meaning could be seen. The speaker, contrarily, uttered much more accurate speech in the posttest as follows: One day the boy and the girl (.7) are going to play/ (.4) and they (.4) going to their house (.3) / but their no one in house (.5) / they go to the kitchen (1.1) but (.7) the thing is broken / and they’re (.3) all in the yard and meet her meet their mother (.4) /Mother said (.6) / we have a swimming pool (2.6) / you can go into (1.0) swimming pool / and (.4) play with (1.1) swim (.7) water (.1) / I will (1.1) make juice water and some snakes (.) / Have fun. (Sample 01 posttest) As observed above, the speaker better conveyed the message and produced more accurate speech. Without quantitative empirical evident, it would be too wild a claim that accuracy affects the judgement of accuracy, while previous research claimed that the accuracy of speech may affect the judgement of fluency (Kormos & Denes, 2004). Kormos and Denes (2004) claimed the following in their study: 38.

(44) Our research suggests that accuracy also plays an important role in fluency judgements and sometimes overrides the effect of temporal factors on listeners. The correlations between the temporal and linguistic variables also reveal that accuracy is positively related to temporal variables that are influential in fluency judgements. (Kormos & Denes, 2004, p. 160) Based on the above, it could be suggested that speaking accuracy could be significantly positively correlated to perceived fluency. Namely, when giving score of fluency, raters still took accuracy into account unconsciously. For example, in passage reading task, the rating might be controlled by the exact wordings on the test, suggesting that they might consider the correct wordings as the norm. When students could not complete all the words on the test or make multiple mistakes in their utterance, the raters might judge the speakers to be nonfluent since their accuracy was inferior. To summarize, this section focused on the difference of the means of perceived fluency in pretest and posttest. The results indicated that most students increased their perceived fluency in the posttest, with an exception of class 703 in storytelling task. To further analyze the reasons why students were perceived more fluent, a correlation test pointed out that accuracy strongly influenced raters’ judgement of fluency in passage reading task, while it was not significantly associated with fluency in storytelling task. Furthermore, the increase in speech rate was highly correlated with perceived fluency. More details of speech rate would be provided in the following section.. 39.

(45) 4.2 Rate of Speech The second research question is concerning participants’ temporal variables in speaking fluency, and three effective indicators were adopted in this study. Firstly, students’ acceleration in their speech rate is targeted in this section, and the figures of the pretest and posttest are presented. The results of the rate of speech in the passage-reading task was presented as follows: Table 7 Rate of speech in The passage-reading Task Rate of Speech. Overall. Pretest. Posttest. M. SD. M. SD. 58.505. 35.222. 66.555. 26.582. Based on Table 7, it can be observed that the mean of the posttest exceed that of the pretest. On average, the participants could only articulate 58.505 words per minute in the pretest of the passing reading task, but they could reach as many as 66.555 words per minute in the same section in Posttest. This result highlights the progress made by students in their rate of speech. In order or verify if a significant progress existed between pretest and posttest, a pair T-test was conducted. The results were presented below: Table 8 Pretest versus Posttest: The passage-reading Task Rate of Speech. Number. t. p. df. Overall. 27. -1.828. .079. 26. * = significance at p <.05 As observed in Table 8, the mean of the overall rate of speech did not have a statistically significant difference in the posttest scores at the 0.05 level of significance, which in turns indicated that these participants did not significantly increase their rate of speech in posttest. 40.

(46) As for the rate of speech in the storytelling task, telling a story based on the pictures, the results of pretest and posttest were shown below: Table 9 Rate of speech in the storytelling Task Rate of Speech. Overall. Pretest. Posttest. M. SD. M. SD. 51.410. 29.094. 68.692. 47.625. Based on the Table 9, the majority of students increased their rate of speech in the posttest. Generally, speaking, all the students could only produce around 51.410 words in one minute before taking the classes, while they were able to utter up to 68.692 words per minute on average in the posttest. The results showed that most students increased their speech rate in storying telling. To further disclose whether their progress was significant, a pair t-test was utilized, and the results are presented below: Table 10 Pretest versus Posttest: The Storytelling Task Rate of Speech. Number. t. p. df. Overall. 27. -2.387. .025*. 26. * = significance at p <.05 The t-test analysis indicated a significance between the means of pretest and posttest for the overall speech rate at the 0.05 level of significance. The revealed that students had higher rate of speech when telling a story in the posttest. For the passage-reading task, some students maintained the same amount of speech while the time of articulation decreased. For the storytelling task, most students’ speech rate has improved in the post-test, where one of the students strikingly improved her speech rate in the posttest by adding a larger number of words. Though she took longer durations, her speech rate has noticeably increased. 41.