Speaking in a foreign language is considered to be a challenging aspect of language learning that demands competence and mastery in learning any foreign language. Vocabulary learning verifies to play an important role in oral communication. However, literature lacks the studies where both English as a foreign language (EFL) students and teachers' views are obtained to provide analyses of the situations in which learners are not showing desired results in speaking. The current study explores the problems of lack of vocabulary that Saudi EFL students face with special focus on their speaking proficiency. It aims to seek EFL teachers' opinions on the extent to which lack of vocabulary has influence on EFL students' performance in listening, and conversation classes, and in expressing their ideas and feelings, and especially in speaking skill. A questionnaire was used for the responses from the students and an interview for the teachers to reveal their perceptions about the vocabulary hindrance in speaking skills. 20 EFL instructors and teachers of Preparatory Year Program (PYP) section of a public university and 110 EFL students participated in this study. The analysis of the data showed that both teachers and learners indicated that lack of vocabulary is one of the major factors in students' inability to speaking English. In the current study, among many other suggestions it is proposed that the inclusion of mobile assisted language learning could be useful way of developing vocabulary for spoken proficiency of Saudi EFL learners.
The book Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative and Mixed Methods Approaches by Creswell (2014) covers three approaches— qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods. This educational book is informative and illustrative and is equally beneficial for students, teachers and researchers. Readers should have basic knowledge of research for better understanding of this book. There are two parts of the book. Part 1 (chapter 1-4) consists of steps for developing research proposal and part II (chapter 5-10) explains how to develop a research proposal or write a research report. A summary is given at the end of every chapter that helps the reader to recapitulate the ideas. Moreover, writing exercises and suggested readings at the end of every chapter are useful for the readers.
Abstract;Student Teams Achievement Divisions (STAD) has been considered as an important cooperative learning strategy in progressive pedagogy. A number of studies have supported the use of STAD in different subject areas and in different socio-cultural contexts. However, it is still an underresearched area in countries like Saudi Arabia where English is taught as a Foreign Language. This quasi-experimental study was conducted in Unaizah Community College, Saudi Arabia. Both the experimental group and the control group were tested on 2000-word vocabulary test. A vocabulary test was prepared and administered by the researchers at the beginning of the experiment as a pre-test. The experimental group was taught with Student Teams Achievement Divisions (STAD) strategy whereas the control group was taught with traditional whole-class instruction method. The treatment was carried out for two weeks. At the end of the experiment, the same vocabulary test was re-administered as a post-test. Independent samples t-test was used to analyze the data using SPSS 21. Results showed that there was a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in favor of the experimental group (p= 0.002 < 0.05).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.