The importance of variables such as learning styles and learning strategies are becoming significant predictors used to improve second and foreign classroom teaching and learning. Clearly, knowing and understanding L2/FL learners’... more
The importance of variables such as learning styles and learning strategies are becoming significant predictors used to improve second and foreign classroom teaching and learning. Clearly, knowing and understanding L2/FL learners’ learning style preferences would help them target and adapt certain language strategies and therefore lead to positive attitudes towards learning the language. To date, there have been few empirical studies of the relationship between learning styles and learning strategies at tertiary level and in particular in the Saudi context. With this in mind, the present small scale study, using a longitudinal design, aimed to examine primarily choices of learning styles and learning strategies by an adult learner of English as a second language. This single case study triangulates quantitative and qualitative data, using published questionnaires, strategy inventories and a retrospective structured interview. The major results showed that learning styles had an impa...
To date there has been little empirical research exploring the effect of explicit, instructional learning by listening on the acquisition and retention of vocabulary, both receptively and productively. To address this issue, the current... more
To date there has been little empirical research exploring the effect of explicit, instructional learning by listening on the acquisition and retention of vocabulary, both receptively and productively. To address this issue, the current study observed the learning of two groups (one control and one experimental) of a total of 40 adult learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in a tertiary classroom setting in respect of orthography, grammar and form-meaning knowledge, tested via receptive and productive measures. All participants were administered a pretest, an immediate posttest, and a delayed test over 4-week intervals. The results indicated that a large proportion of target words were learned both receptively and productively through instructional listening involving several aspects of vocabulary, i.e. orthography, grammar and form-meaning. In acquisition and retention tests the members of the experimental group demonstrated significantly more knowledge about the target wo...
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The present study seeks to contribute to our knowledge of the effectiveness of reading in the incidental learning of collocations. The study also addresses the question whether out-of-class exposure such as watching TV, listening to radio... more
The present study seeks to contribute to our knowledge of the effectiveness of reading in the incidental learning of collocations. The study also addresses the question whether out-of-class exposure such as watching TV, listening to radio or music, reading English books and using social media plays a significant role in the learning of collocations. The research participants were 46 Arabic-speaking young adult EFL learners. They were asked to read a modified text containing 10 pseudo-word collocations and to verify that all were unfamiliar to them. One week later, they read a text containing the actual 21 target collocations, which had been selected on the basis of appearing in instructional materials and a reference corpus, as well as of frequency. Participants were then asked to complete a meaning-recall cloze test in the form of a gap-filling task in which the 21 target collocations were embedded in sentences. Subsequently they were administered a self-report survey about any inc...
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Learning vocabulary is undeniably a key requirement for being successful in language learning. The lexicon therefore is an integral part of writing successful compositions, without which they become rather meaningless. In spite of this... more
Learning vocabulary is undeniably a key requirement for being successful in language learning. The lexicon therefore is an integral part of writing successful compositions, without which they become rather meaningless. In spite of this dynamic link, research in this field seems rather lacking in many shapes and forms; partly because of the inextricable link between vocabulary and reading and partly because of the relationship between learners’ communication strategies and vocabulary use to the extent current research overshadows that in vocabulary use in writing. This paper aims to classify the problems writers of English as a Foreign Language face, adopting a model proposed by Hemmati (2001) which follows Chomsky’s distinction between performance and competence errors. A study was carried out with thirty-one final year English students who were asked to write an argumentative essay, followed by oral retrospective interviews on their writing of the essay. The frequency of certain le...