Ambiguity Tolerance and Self-Rated English Proficiency of Adult Learners of English as a Foreign Language

Autor: HUANG, WEI-CHEN, 黃薇真
Rok vydání: 2019
Druh dokumentu: 學位論文 ; thesis
Popis: 107
Learning a foreign language can make EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners feel traumatic and uncertain when exposed to complexity or confusion. According to Ehrman (1999), for adult learners, the process of cognitive complexity and ambiguity from linguistic and cultural inputs might make them feel uncertain and incompetent in mastering a foreign language. This study aimed to explore the level of ambiguity tolerance of the adult EFL learners and relationships between AT and self-rated general and listening English proficiency. Ely’s (1995) “Second Language Tolerance Ambiguity Scale” (α= .92) was adapted. Descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlation analysis and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were utilised. The findings revealed that the adult EFL learners in northern Taiwan, in general, had a moderate level of AT (N = 218, X = 3.63, s = .75). Correlation results indicated a negative significant relationship between ambiguity tolerance and self-rated general proficiency (r = -.455, p < .001), and a negative significant relationship between ambiguity tolerance and self-rated listening proficiency (r = - .380, p < .001). ANOVA results showed that there were significant differences (p = .000) among the three stratified AT groups (Group H; High Tolerance, Group M; Moderate Tolerance, and Group L; Low Tolerance) in both self-rated general proficiency and self-rated listening proficiency. Also, High Tolerance group outscored the other groups in self-rated language proficiency. The findings are in line with previous literature that, with a certain level of ambiguity tolerance in L2 learning, EFL learners will achieve a higher language proficiency level. However, the findings that learners with moderate tolerance of ambiguity did not perceive their language proficiency better than those with high tolerance did not support some of the literature that moderate level of AT is optimal for L2 learners. It is, then, helpful for EFL instructors to know that ambiguity tolerance serves as an important role fostering EFL learners’ learning.
Databáze: Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations
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