Learners’ Perceptions of Difficulties in Orally Producing English Sentences

Conference: The Southeast Asian Conference on Education (SEACE2023)
Title: Learners’ Perceptions of Difficulties in Orally Producing English Sentences
Stream: Foreign Languages Education & Applied Linguistics (including ESL/TESL/TEFL)
Presentation Type: Virtual Presentation
Authors:
Harumi Kashiwagi, Kobe University, Japan
Min Kang, Kobe University, Japan
Kazuhiro Ohtsuki, Kobe University, Japan

Abstract:

Many English learners in Japan find themselves struggling to speak English because they have few opportunities to use English in a truly immersive setting. To address this challenge, we have developed a prototype system for English-speaking practices. Our research suggests that Japanese students seem to feel difficulty when orally using words and phrases fluently, even if they know them through their linguistic knowledge. We need to clarify how difficult students deem the oral production of the respective words and sentences to identify the specific language items that pose challenges. This study examines learners' perceptions of the difficulty of orally producing English sentences fluently. We administered pre- and post-practice questionnaires on the subjective difficulty levels of 60 English sentences to 71 Japanese university students. The results indicate that the average scores of 43 sentences were significantly lower, 14 sentences showed no significant differences, and the average scores of the remaining three sentences had slightly increased. The results of the questionnaires suggest that students need oral experience in using inanimate subject sentences, causative verbs, phrasal verbs, and relative pronouns. Although further investigations are needed, it can be expected that learners' subjective perception of difficulty both in the pre- and post-practice questionnaires indicates which language items are orally easy to handle and which are not. Furthermore, by focusing on specific grammar and construction, and controlling for the length of target sentences, we hope to examine the role of the subjective evaluation of learners’ difficulties in producing spoken English.

Virtual Presentation

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