Naslov
Students’ Assessment of Difficulty and Preferences Regarding L2 Language Skills

Autori
Mikulec, Alenka ; Subotić, Siniša

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Poglavlja u knjigama, ostalo

Knjiga
UZRT 2018: Empirical Studies in Applied Linguistics

Urednik/ci
Geld, Renata ; Letica Krevelj, Stela

Izdavač
FF Press

Grad
Zagreb

Godina
2020

Raspon stranica
150-162

ISBN
978-953-175-843-7

Ključne riječi
foreign language (L2), language skills, difficulty and liking assessments

Sažetak
Development of the basic language skills is considered an important aspect of language acquisition, which can significantly be affected by learners’ perceived competence and attitudes. Contradictory findings regarding the difficulty of language skills have been reported in literature (Berman & Cheng, 2010 ; Ishag et al., 2015 ; Jordan, 1997 ; Usó-Juan & Martinez-Flor, 2006 ; Zergollern- Miletić, 2007). It is even less known to which degree language skills’ difficulty is related to corresponding learners’ negative attitudes towards them. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine how strongly the perceived difficulty is related to subjective dislike of language skills. Eighty-three female university students, whose L1 is Croatian, and L2 English, made difficulty and dislike/preference assessments (using 5-point Likert scales) for these L2 language skills: reading out loud, silent reading, listening, speaking, and writing. Listening and silent reading were considered the most preferred (M=3.75 and M=3.41) and the least difficult (M=2.08 and M=1.84), while speaking and writing were considered the most difficult (M=3.70 and M=3.66) and the least preferred (M=2.57 and M=2.54). The average correlation for the difficulty and preference assessments was: ρ=-.46 (SD=0.13). The more difficult the skill is perceived to be, the more students dislike it, to a moderate degree, which is to be expected. However, the largest (and significant: Z=-3.02, p- corrected=.03) difference in correlations between difficulty and preference was found for the two most difficult skills: the association was the lowest for writing (ρ=-.29, p=.009) and the highest for speaking (ρ=-.65, p<.001). Writing and speaking are both similarly difficult and disliked, but perceived difficulty of speaking is much more tightly related to its dislike in comparison to writing. This is a novel finding and implies that the processes underlying these assessments are probably different. We suggest that personality and individual differences are the factors to be taken into consideration in follow-up studies.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija

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