The Effect of Incidental Learning on the Comprehension of English Affixes by Arabic-Speaking EFL Learners: Acquisition and Application

Abstract

This study aims to examine the effect of incidental learning on the comprehension of 30 English affixes by 50 Arabic-speaking EFL learners in an attempt to determine which affixes are more easily comprehended. We adopt the experimental design of a pre-and post-test to measure the participants' knowledge of English affixes before and after the treatment, which involved taking part in the prediction of the meaning of English affixed words in context for one academic semester. To this end, we divided the 50 participants into two groups: treatment and control. We administered a 30-item multiple choice test as the pre-and posttest to determine whether the treatment helped the participants expand their knowledge of English affixes.

The effect of blended learning on the development of clause combining as an aspect of the acquisition of written discourse by Jordanian learners of English as a foreign language

“…Based on our understanding of the Jordanian teaching context and the level of our students taking into account their educational background and exposure to English, we selected students with a GPA of 3.00 or higher because we believed that this procedure might provide more reliable data (cf. Altakhaineh & Zibin, ; Zibin, , ; Zibin & Altakhaineh, ). We also intended to select a homogenous group in terms of academic level in an attempt to cancel any intervening factors in the results we obtain.…”

“…The participants in the treatment group were taught using blended learning method. Conversely, the control group was taught using the traditional face‐to‐face teaching method (see Altakhaineh & Zibin, ; Song & Sardegna, ). The aim of dividing the participants into two groups was to determine whether blended learning as a teaching method has any effect on the participants' acquisition of clause combining as an aspect of written discourse.…”

“…In order to assess the participants' knowledge of clause combining, we used a writing task as the pretest and the posttest (see Altakhaineh & Zibin, ). The same test was administered as a pretest and posttest to examine whether the treatment had helped the participants improve their knowledge of clause combining as an aspect of written discourse.…”

“…Following the administration of the posttest, an introspective session was conducted with both groups to gain more insight into their experience and whether blended learning has helped them in acquiring clause combining in English (cf. Altakhaineh & Zibin, ).…”

“…In this type of experiment, each group is tested twice, producing pairs of observations (Hsu & Lachenbruch, ). In particular, a pretest and a posttest are administrated in order to investigate the impact of a particular treatment on the performance of a group of participants (Altakhaineh & Zibin, ; Ionin & Wexler, ). A paired sample t ‐test is appropriate for the purpose of this study, because it measures the effect of a treatment on the performance of the participants in two groups on the development of clause combining as an aspect of the acquisition of written discourse.…”