The use formulaic language by English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in oral proficiency exams

Abstract

This study investigates in what ways EFL learners use formulaic language that is taught in their curriculum through course books when taking oral proficiency exams with multi-task and whether there is a relationship between their formulaic language use and their scores of fluency and overall proficiency. The study was carried out with 190 EFL learners with different proficiency levels at Bülent Ecevit University, the School of Foreign Languages. In order to examine the ways of formulaic language use by the participants, a content analysis of the course book was carried out so as to determine the target formulaic language list with the frequency of occurrence of each expression in the book. After that, a content analysis of the video recordings of oral proficiency exams was performed to see the students’ formulaic language use and the results of the two content analyses were compared in order to draw conclusions. In order to relate the students’ formulaic language use to their fluency and overall proficiency, the scores that the students have received for fluency and their proficiency scores at the end of the academic year were taken into consideration. The results of the content analyses conducted by counting the number of the occurrence of each expression in the book and their accurate use by the participants revealed that the students mostly used the formulaic expressions in the book accurately while they also used expressions that are not included in the book. The data gained through the analysis of the relationship between formulaic language use and fluency and overall proficiency revealed a statistically significant relationship between the related variables implying that they are interconnected concepts. These findings suggest that the students use formulaic language taught in their curriculum through course books and their formulaic language use is related to their fluency and overall proficiency. In light of these findings, the study sheds light on the future teaching practices for formulaic language and it offers implications for stakeholders such as instructors, administrators, curriculum and material developers in order to design curricula, develop materials and teach classes.