Pakistan is among the countries where number of English language users is on rapid growth. Despit... more Pakistan is among the countries where number of English language users is on rapid growth. Despite English has been an influential language in Pakistan since its independence, learners face difficulties in almost every area of English language learning: Listening, reading, writing and speaking referring to just basic skills of English language. This study focuses on one of the four basic skills: Writing. It measures levels of writing anxiety of Pakistani undergraduate students while writing essays on various topics in English. In this study,418 students participated which represents both public and private sector universities. Cheng (2004) SLWAI’s instrument was adopted to answer the research questions. Data analysis revealed that majority of the total participants, 61.48 percent has average level of English language writing anxiety. On the other hand,19.38 percent of the total participants at undergraduate level face high level of English language writing anxiety. Minimum 19.14 percent of the total participants belong to low level of English language writing anxiety. It is interesting to note that both participants from the private and public sector universities experienced average level of writing anxiety. Consequently, English Language Teachers have to adopt/adapt those writing approaches and modify their methods of writing instruction which could help learners decrease their writing anxiety.
Pakistan is among the countries where number of English language users is on rapid growth. Despit... more Pakistan is among the countries where number of English language users is on rapid growth. Despite English has been an influential language in Pakistan since its independence, learners face difficulties in almost every area of English language learning: Listening, reading, writing, and speaking referring to just basic skills of English language. This study focuses on one of the four basic skills i.e. 'Writing'. It measures levels of writing anxiety of Pakistani undergraduate students while writing essays on various topics in English. In this study, 418 students participated which represents both public and private sector universities. Cheng (2004) SLWAI's instrument was adopted to answer the research questions. Data analysis revealed that majority of the total participants, 61.48 percent has average level of English language writing anxiety. On the other hand, 19.38 percent of the total participants at undergraduate level face high level of English language writing anxiety. Minimum 19.14 percent of the total participants belong to low level of English language writing anxiety. It is interesting to note that both participants from the private and public sector universities experienced average level of writing anxiety. Consequently, English Language Teachers have to adopt/adapt those writing approaches and modify their methods of writing instruction which could help learners decrease their writing anxiety.
Oral communication and presentation skills are the most demanding and crucial skills to individua... more Oral communication and presentation skills are the most demanding and crucial skills to individuals, especially professionals; however, the ESL settings reveal these as deficiencies in students who are acquiring tertiary education. The major factor responsible is the fact that these skills are neither consciously nor systematically taught and learnt, despite the fact that these courses are being essentially taught at all academic and professional programmes. This paper presents a study that makes use of a systematic instructional strategy using process approach enabling students to consciously focus all components of the presentation activity from the planning to delivery stages thereby enhancing their presentation skills and ensuring quality outputs. The empirical study was carried out a public sector professional university with twenty seven participants who volunteered for the study. Following a systematic implementation of the process strategy, the participants’ perceptions about the experience and its impact were collected using a questionnaire which drew evidence that stated that the students found the strategy beneficial in reducing their anxiety and fear, and enhancing their interest and overall performance.
Code-Switching is generally defined as a shift from one language to another by the speaker during... more Code-Switching is generally defined as a shift from one language to another by the speaker during the speech. It is a common linguistic phenomenon in Pakistani classrooms. It is considered to have both positive and negative impact. This exploratory study investigated the perceptions of Pakistani students towards teachers' code-switching during English lectures at tertiary level. Students have different attitudes towards code-switching of teachers in classroom. There is a need to investigate whether it is beneficial or malevolent to switch between two codes in an English classroom and how the students view this alternation between codes. The researchers employed 5-point Likert scale questionnaire along with 12 open ended questions to investigate the perceptions of the students towards code-switching of English language teachers during lecture. The findings of the study revealed positive attitude of the students towards teachers' code-switching, however some of the students were of the view that code-switching by teachers restricts their exposure to English.
This paper investigates the levels of oral communication anxiety of undergraduate engineering stu... more This paper investigates the levels of oral communication anxiety of undergraduate engineering students in Pakistan. The data was collected from four departments of the university. McCroskey (1978) oral Communication Apprehension (OCA) Survey Instrument was adopted for this study. The questionnaire was translated into Urdu (National Language of Pakistan) to make it clear to respondents. The data analysis revealed 18% of the sample had a high level of oral communication apprehension, 66% faced an average level of oral communication apprehension and 16% were in a low level of oral communication apprehension. This study also discloses that there is no significant difference in levels of oral communication apprehension of male and female. Further the study reports and compares levels of oral communication anxiety of the students to whom English is the second language and to whom English is the third language (both in foreign language context). Finally, the study concludes that although the majority of the undergraduate engineering students face an average level of writing anxiety, however, with attention and guidance they can be brought to low level of writing anxiety category.
Pakistan is among the countries where number of English language users is on rapid growth. Despit... more Pakistan is among the countries where number of English language users is on rapid growth. Despite English has been an influential language in Pakistan since its independence, learners face difficulties in almost every area of English language learning: Listening, reading, writing and speaking referring to just basic skills of English language. This study focuses on one of the four basic skills: Writing. It measures levels of writing anxiety of Pakistani undergraduate students while writing essays on various topics in English. In this study,418 students participated which represents both public and private sector universities. Cheng (2004) SLWAI’s instrument was adopted to answer the research questions. Data analysis revealed that majority of the total participants, 61.48 percent has average level of English language writing anxiety. On the other hand,19.38 percent of the total participants at undergraduate level face high level of English language writing anxiety. Minimum 19.14 percent of the total participants belong to low level of English language writing anxiety. It is interesting to note that both participants from the private and public sector universities experienced average level of writing anxiety. Consequently, English Language Teachers have to adopt/adapt those writing approaches and modify their methods of writing instruction which could help learners decrease their writing anxiety.
Pakistan is among the countries where number of English language users is on rapid growth. Despit... more Pakistan is among the countries where number of English language users is on rapid growth. Despite English has been an influential language in Pakistan since its independence, learners face difficulties in almost every area of English language learning: Listening, reading, writing, and speaking referring to just basic skills of English language. This study focuses on one of the four basic skills i.e. 'Writing'. It measures levels of writing anxiety of Pakistani undergraduate students while writing essays on various topics in English. In this study, 418 students participated which represents both public and private sector universities. Cheng (2004) SLWAI's instrument was adopted to answer the research questions. Data analysis revealed that majority of the total participants, 61.48 percent has average level of English language writing anxiety. On the other hand, 19.38 percent of the total participants at undergraduate level face high level of English language writing anxiety. Minimum 19.14 percent of the total participants belong to low level of English language writing anxiety. It is interesting to note that both participants from the private and public sector universities experienced average level of writing anxiety. Consequently, English Language Teachers have to adopt/adapt those writing approaches and modify their methods of writing instruction which could help learners decrease their writing anxiety.
Oral communication and presentation skills are the most demanding and crucial skills to individua... more Oral communication and presentation skills are the most demanding and crucial skills to individuals, especially professionals; however, the ESL settings reveal these as deficiencies in students who are acquiring tertiary education. The major factor responsible is the fact that these skills are neither consciously nor systematically taught and learnt, despite the fact that these courses are being essentially taught at all academic and professional programmes. This paper presents a study that makes use of a systematic instructional strategy using process approach enabling students to consciously focus all components of the presentation activity from the planning to delivery stages thereby enhancing their presentation skills and ensuring quality outputs. The empirical study was carried out a public sector professional university with twenty seven participants who volunteered for the study. Following a systematic implementation of the process strategy, the participants’ perceptions about the experience and its impact were collected using a questionnaire which drew evidence that stated that the students found the strategy beneficial in reducing their anxiety and fear, and enhancing their interest and overall performance.
Code-Switching is generally defined as a shift from one language to another by the speaker during... more Code-Switching is generally defined as a shift from one language to another by the speaker during the speech. It is a common linguistic phenomenon in Pakistani classrooms. It is considered to have both positive and negative impact. This exploratory study investigated the perceptions of Pakistani students towards teachers' code-switching during English lectures at tertiary level. Students have different attitudes towards code-switching of teachers in classroom. There is a need to investigate whether it is beneficial or malevolent to switch between two codes in an English classroom and how the students view this alternation between codes. The researchers employed 5-point Likert scale questionnaire along with 12 open ended questions to investigate the perceptions of the students towards code-switching of English language teachers during lecture. The findings of the study revealed positive attitude of the students towards teachers' code-switching, however some of the students were of the view that code-switching by teachers restricts their exposure to English.
This paper investigates the levels of oral communication anxiety of undergraduate engineering stu... more This paper investigates the levels of oral communication anxiety of undergraduate engineering students in Pakistan. The data was collected from four departments of the university. McCroskey (1978) oral Communication Apprehension (OCA) Survey Instrument was adopted for this study. The questionnaire was translated into Urdu (National Language of Pakistan) to make it clear to respondents. The data analysis revealed 18% of the sample had a high level of oral communication apprehension, 66% faced an average level of oral communication apprehension and 16% were in a low level of oral communication apprehension. This study also discloses that there is no significant difference in levels of oral communication apprehension of male and female. Further the study reports and compares levels of oral communication anxiety of the students to whom English is the second language and to whom English is the third language (both in foreign language context). Finally, the study concludes that although the majority of the undergraduate engineering students face an average level of writing anxiety, however, with attention and guidance they can be brought to low level of writing anxiety category.
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