Comparative effectiveness of teaching formulaic sequences and academic vocabulary on complexity, accuracy and fluency of EAP speakers
Comparative effectiveness of teaching formulaic sequences and academic vocabulary on complexity, accuracy and fluency of EAP speakers

Summary/Abstract: The present study aimed to compare effectiveness of two pedagogical interventions for enhancing aspects of L2 oral performance in an EAP program. For five weeks, two groups of EAP students received focused vocabulary instruction as part of their syllabus. One group explicitly learned and practiced formulaic sequences (FS) used in spoken academic context and the other, academic vocabulary (AcaVoc). Participants’ oral performance was tested on three occasions and examined in terms of three aspects of speech: accuracy, complexity and fluency. Results showed that the FS group significantly outperformed the AcaVoc group in terms of L2 oral fluency, while the AcaVoc group outperformed the FS group in terms of L2 oral complexity. On the other hand, there was no significant differences between the two groups in terms of L2 oral accuracy. The participants’ use of the target items in posttest was also found to be associated with their L2 oral performance. The findings of this study can contribute to our understanding of how explicit learning of academic vocabulary and formulaic sequences shape the quality of L2 learners’ oral performance in academic speaking tasks.

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