Variable beliefs about the need for accuracy in the oral production of German: an exploratory study

Abstract

This study explores how learner variables interact with beliefs about the need for morphosyntactic, lexical, phonological, and pragmatic accuracy in oral foreign language production for four purposes: comprehensibility and pleasantness (respectively) to native speakers (NSs), a course grade of A, and a sense of personal accomplishment. Three-hundred-and-forty-nine first-, second-, and third-year American college learners of German rated 19 items representing different features of German on four 5-point Likert scales, for a total of 76 ratings. Females, students whose primary motivation was the intellectual challenge, and to a lesser extent, high achievers, were particularly concerned with accuracy although these groups associated the need for accuracy with different purposes. Experiences with NSs, either abroad or resident in the learners' home country, exercised only a modest influence and, against expectation, were associated with a diminished belief in the need for accuracy when speaking with NSs and mostly, but not exclusively, an increased belief in the need for accuracy so as to achieve a sense of personal accomplishment. Response patterns associated with the variable of time abroad only partially overlapped with those associated with the variable of experience with NSs (which could be on site), suggesting that the context in which authentic experiences happen makes a difference. Moreover, learners with very short times abroad gave distinctly different responses from those who had been abroad for somewhat longer periods or not at all. Learners who said that in class they focus on grammatical and lexical accuracy did not report more stringent beliefs about the need for accuracy in these areas.

Exploring the effects of automatic speech recognition technology on oral accuracy and fluency in a flipped classroom

“…errors in word order, missing elements), phonology (e.g. pronunciation, stress and intonation), and pragmatics (Chavez, 2014; Rezaee et al, 2019). In terms of the conceptualization of fluency, Segalowitz (2010) proposed that from a research perspective, fluency was three‐dimensional, including cognitive fluency, utterance fluency and perceived fluency.…”

Language learning motivation and gender: The case of Poland

“…Recent research data indicate that female learners tend to score higher than male learners on different measures of language achievement, such as accuracy in oral production (Chavez, ), general English proficiency test (Główka, ), judgements of accents in terms of likeness to native speakers (Polat, ), lexical availability (Fernandez Fontecha, ), and vocabulary production tests (Jimenez Catalan, ). Further, Chavez's () review of studies looking at gender and achievement confirmed that females outperformed males in placement tests and were graded more highly, although she also concluded that “as far as assessments in experimental settings are concerned, the female advantage is much less clear” (Chavez, : 67).…”

Age and Gender Effects on Motivation and Attitudes in German Learning: The Polish Context

“…Many studies on differences in motivation to learn foreign languages have shown stronger motivation among female than male learners. A slightly higher level of motivation among girls than boys has been established by research in different countries, including Canada (Kissau, 2006;Kissau et al, 2010), China (Ahåt, 2013), the United Kingdom (Williams et al, 2002), Hungary (Dörnyei et al, 2006), Korea (Kim & Kim, 2011), Poland (Okuniewska et al, 2010), Sweden (Henry, 2009), Turkey (Öztürk & Gürbüz, 2013;Polat, 2011) and the United States (Brantmeier et al, 2013;Chavez, 2014). Males were less motivated than females when learning various languages, for example English (Dörnyei et al, 2006;Henry, 2009;Kim & Kim, 2011;Ahåt, 2013;Öztürk & Gürbüz, 2013), French (Williams et al, 2002, Kissau, 2006Dörnyei et al, 2006), German (Williams et al, 2002, Dörnyei et al, 2006Chavez, 2014), Hebrew (Okuniewska et al, 2010), Italian (Dörnyei et al, 2006), Kurdish (Polat, 2011), Russian (Dörnyei et al, 2006) and Spanish (Kissau et al, 2010;Brantmeier et al, 2013).…”