How to incorporate qualitative analysis into experimental research — Why Japanese students studying in the UK did not improve their fluency?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36505/ExLing-2010/03/0013/000133Keywords:
fluency, speech rates, dysfluency markers, pauses, sociocultural elementsAbstract
This study investigated the longitudinal improvement in fluency of three Japanese participants who studied at a graduate school in the UK. In addition to quantitative analysis of videotaped conversations focusing on core components of fluency, such as speech rates, dysfluency markers and pauses, qualitative analysis, including protocol analysis and journal analysis, were also employed to discuss why they did not improve in fluency as originally expected. The analyses revealed that these participants did not have as many chances to communicate with native speakers as originally expected, and that a sociocultural factor of being excessively afraid of making mistakes might be a reason that prevented their natural improvement.
References
Chafe, W.L. 1982. Integration and involvement in speaking, writing, and oral literature. In Tannen, D. (ed.) Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy, 35-53. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Lennon, P. 1990. Investigating fluency in EFL: A quantitative approach. Language Learning, 40(3), 384-417.
Schmidt, R. 1992. Psychological mechanisms underlying second language fluency. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 14(4), 357-385.
Shea, D.P. 1994. Perspective and production: Structuring conversational participation across cultural borders. Pragmatics, 4(3), 357-389.
Skehan, P. 1998. A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2010 Misa Fujio (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
