Browsing by Subject "proficiency"
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(2023)Foreign language anxiety (FLA) is a phenomenon affecting language learners on all proficiency levels. FLA can, for instance, cause avoidance behavior, increase unwillingness to communicate, and impede language learning. The purpose of this thesis was to gain information about the prevalence of FLA among Finnish upper secondary school EFL learners and study the connection between FLA and selected variables (gender, age, age of onset of English acquisition, foreign countries visited, living abroad, number of L1s, course grade, and self-perceived proficiency). The aim was also to look for student perceptions on the anxiety-provoking nature of a variety of classroom activities. A questionnaire was created to meet the objectives of this study. The questionnaire included sections on background information and the chosen variables, a Finnish translation of the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) by Horwitz et al. (1986), and finally, a section measuring how often different English classroom activities cause anxiety among the respondents. The sample comprised a total of 304 upper secondary students from seven different schools in Finland. The participants’ FLA scores were calculated from the FLCAS results. The relationship between the students’ FLA levels and chosen variables was analyzed with t-tests and correlation analyses. Student perceptions on how often different classroom activities provoke anxiety were analyzed by comparing the average points given to each activity. The results of this study show that 40% of the students experienced low levels of anxiety in learning English, 40% fell to the medium-anxiety category, and one-fifth experienced high levels of anxiety. In this sample, females experienced considerably more FLA than males. The variables that were shown to have a connection to higher levels of FLA were older age, not having lived abroad, having only one L1, low average school grade, and low self-perceived proficiency. Age of onset of English acquisition and number of foreign countries visited did not have a connection to FLA in this sample. Classroom activities that were considered the most anxiety-provoking were presentations and activities where students need to speak in English in front of the whole group without preparation. Reading aloud was also considered very anxiety-provoking in the high-anxious group. Pair and small group exercises were perceived less anxiety-provoking than teacher-centered whole group activities. Based on the findings of this study it would be recommended for foreign language teachers to take into consideration students’ anxiety in foreign language learning. Even though language learning can be inherently anxiety-provoking, causing unnecessary anxiety can have impeding effects on learning. By utilizing methods that do not contribute to anxiety, teachers can create a relaxed and less threatening classroom atmosphere and consequently, make language learning more enjoyable.
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(2022)Speaking fluently is an important goal for second language (L2) learners. In L2 research, fluency is often studied by measuring temporal features in speech. These features include speed (rate of speech), breakdown (use of silent and filled pauses), and repair (self-corrections and repetitions) phenomena. Fluent speakers generally have a higher rate of speech and fewer hesitations and interruptions than beginner language learners. In this thesis, phonetic fluency of high school students’ L2 Finnish speech is studied in relation to human ratings of fluency and overall proficiency. The topic is essential for the development of automated assessment of L2 speech, as phonetic fluency measures can be used for predicting a speaker’s fluency and proficiency level automatically. Although the effect of different fluency measures on perceived fluency level has been widely studied during the last decades, research on phonetic fluency in Finnish as L2 is still limited. Phonetic fluency in high school students’ speech in L2 Finnish has not been studied before. The speech samples and ratings used in this thesis are a part of a larger dataset collected in the DigiTala research project. The analyzed data contained spontaneous speech samples in L2 Finnish from 53 high school students of different language backgrounds. All samples were assessed by expert raters for fluency and overall proficiency. The speech samples were annotated by marking intervals containing silent pauses, filled pauses, corrections and repetitions, and individual words. Several phonetic fluency measures were calculated for each sample from the durations of the annotated intervals. The contribution of phonetic fluency measures to human ratings of fluency and proficiency was studied using simple and multiple linear regression models. Speech rate was found to be the strongest predictor for both fluency and proficiency ratings in simple linear regression. Articulation rate, portion of long silent pauses, mean duration of long silent pauses, mean duration of breaks between utterances, and rate of short silent pauses per minute were also statistically significant predictors of both fluency and proficiency ratings. Multiple linear regression models improved the simple models for both fluency and proficiency: for fluency, a model with a combination of articulation rate and the portion of long silent pauses performed the best, and for proficiency, a model with a combination of speech rate and mean duration of short silent pauses. Perceived fluency level is often affected by a combination of different phonetic fluency measures, and it seems that human raters ground their assessments on this combination, although some phonetic fluency measures might be more important on their own than others. The findings of this thesis expand previous knowledge on phonetic fluency in L2 Finnish and can benefit both language learners and teachers, as well as developers of automatic assessment of L2 speech.
Now showing items 1-2 of 2