Sources of college EFL learners' self-efficacy in the English public speaking domain
Introduction
Following the political reforms of the late 1970s, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education in China has witnessed a sharp increase in popularity (Fang, 2018). However, Chinese EFL learners have been reported to generally attain lower proficiency in speaking—in contrast with reading—in English (Wei & Su, 2015). This, Wei and Su argued, may be due to, among other things, an uneven instructional emphasis across language skills in traditional education in China (the instructional support for speaking skills is limited even for the native languages). In the context of globalization and China's policy of enhancing communication and trading channels with the outside world (Fang, 2018), the new college English curriculum reform in China highlights the role of the English language in international exchange and modernization, emphasizes the promotion of students' speaking abilities, and promotes English instruction in colleges to support the country's international aspirations (The Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education, 2007). These political reforms and educational needs laid the foundation for the emergence of English Public Speaking (EPS) curricula in China, further fueled by such events as China's entry into the World Trade Organization, the hosting of the Olympic Games, and three popular national EPS competitions: the 21st Century Cup, the China Central Television Cup, and the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press Cup. These events and the rise of information technology have showcased to the public the power of public speaking on the (inter)national stage, gradually leading to the establishment and flourishing of college-level EPS courses in China.
Lucas (2013) defined EPS as English speeches delivered with the purpose of strategic communication, in a clear, consistent, and convincing way. EPS can be viewed as a specialized discourse, particularly in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) settings (Shih, 2010). According to Paltridge and Starfield (2013), the fundamental goal of ESP teaching is to help learners acquire and use English to achieve academic, professional, or occupational goals, thus requiring that ESP courses target the specific needs of the learners, focusing on “the language, skills, and genres appropriate to the specific activities the learners need to carry out in English” (p. 2). ESP speaking, in particular, aims at “providing appropriate, tailor-made instruction,” addressing pragmatics, specific contexts, and matters of cross-cultural awareness (Feak, 2013, p. 49). Consistent with ESP tenets, EPS incorporates a variety of speeches for specific purposes ranging from academic presentations at conferences and seminars to professional presentations in business, cultural, and political settings. The primary goal of the EPS course is to assist students in demonstrating content and speech genre expertise, with a consideration for intercultural communication (Han & Yin, 2016). Thus, the EPS course draws on genre analysis approaches (analyzing texts for structural and linguistic features that aid in realizing the speaker's intent) and instructionally focuses on a range of speech types (e.g., introductory, informative, persuasive). Students are taught to deliver information to the audience in a communicative, comprehensive, and engaging way (Morton, 2009). In other words, reflecting the demands of the 21st century, the EPS course differs from the traditional EFL speaking curricula by integrating multiple disciplines, including second language acquisition (SLA), linguistics, rhetoric, communication, and psychology.
To date, however, EPS-focused research remains limited. A number of studies explored EPS from a teaching perspective, examining ways to instructionally support EPS skills development, using such pedagogical approaches and tools as blended learning (Ibrahim and Yusoff, 2012, Shih, 2010), Toastmaster clubs (Sun, 2008), and TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talks (Li, Gao, & Zhang, 2016). Other studies indicated that the development of EPS skills can facilitate critical thinking and intercultural communicative competence (e.g., Jing and Li, 2009, Lucas, 2013), which are considered major 21st century skills for success in education, life, and work. None of these studies, however, examined EPS from the learner perspective to consider potentially powerful contributions of learners' individual differences in EPS performance. One such variable—the development of which is at the heart of the present study—is self-efficacy.
An indispensable component of social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986), self-efficacy has been defined as people's beliefs in their personal abilities to accomplish a certain task with desired outcomes (Bandura, 1997). Research has linked higher self-efficacy beliefs with positive learning behaviors (Schunk, 1989, Schunk, 2003), higher motivation (e.g., Prat-Sala & Redford, 2010), and, ultimately, higher academic achievement (e.g., Pajares, 1996; see Honicke & Broadbent, 2016). This is demonstrated by studies documenting how self-regulated learning—with regard to the use of learning strategies, goal setting, responses to challenges, and effort investment—functions in learner agency (e.g., Schunk and Ertmer, 2000, Zimmerman et al., 1992; see also Rose, Briggs, Boggs, Sergio, & Ivanova-Slavianskaia, 2018). Within the field of SLA, in particular, a growing body of research has indicated that self-efficacy predicts language performance (e.g., Anyadubalu, 2010, Mills et al., 2006, Mills et al., 2007), is associated with a number of important learning behaviors (e.g., Magogwe and Oliver, 2007, Mills et al., 2006, Mills et al., 2007), and can be instructionally impacted (e.g., Ching, 2002, Graham and Macaro, 2008; see Mills, 2014).
Given the significant role that self-efficacy plays in learning processes, as well as in learning outcomes, understanding how self-efficacy is developed is of the essence. Furthermore, research in other academic domains (see Usher & Pajares, 2008) has documented substantial variations in how self-efficacy is developed in relation to other student characteristics (e.g., gender, prior learning experiences). These variations may inform different teaching and learning practices fostering learners' positive self-efficacy beliefs. Thus, considering a possibility of interactions with student background characteristics noted in the literature, the present study seeks to investigate the contribution of theoretically defined sources of self-efficacy (discussed next) to EFL learners' EPS self-efficacy development, an area that is still understudied in our field (Zheng, Liang, & Tsai, 2017).
Section snippets
A typical EPS course
An EPS course is most typically offered as a semester-long (16–18 week) elective course to college-level EFL learners; the class meets once a week for about 90 min. Given the popularity of EPS courses and the comparatively limited teacher resources, some (not all) universities set English proficiency requirements (i.e., a minimum required proficiency score on the standardized College English Test Band 4 is set at 425 [out of 710 points]; this indicates an above-average English proficiency).
Methods
The purpose of this study is to investigate the degree to which four sources of self-efficacy predict EPS self-efficacy among Chinese college EFL learners and the degree to which the effect of these sources is influenced by learners' background characteristics, such as prior EPS course experience, gender, and academic major. Four research questions guided this study:
- 1)
What are, overall, the relative contributions of sources of self-efficacy to EPS self-efficacy among Chinese college EFL learners?
- 2)
Results
Prior to the main analyses, assumptions associated with missing data and normality were tested. The expectation-maximum method was used to impute missing (5%) data (i.e., using observed values to predict missing values, Newman, 2014). Given the skewness and kurtosis values, the data met the requirement of normal distribution. The descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations among variables were reported in Appendix C.
Discussion and pedagogical implications
EPS courses have increasingly gained in popularity in the EFL curriculum due to globalization and an ever-increasing need for advanced EPS skills, especially among college students. “Instructionally capitalizing on self-efficacy offers a potentially powerful tool for improving EPS instruction” (Zhang et al., 2018), which first necessitates a better understanding of factors that contribute to self-efficacy development. This study examined the extent to which each of the theoretically
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank Dr. Nigel Harwood and the anonymous English for Specific Purposes reviewers for their insightful comments and edits. Any shortcomings of the study are our sole responsibility.
Xue Zhang is a doctoral candidate in the Language, Literacy, and Technology PhD program at Washington State University. Her research interests focus on examining English public speaking skills' development among adult EFL learners from a cross-disciplinary perceptive, integrating the domains of second language acquisition, psychology, and communication.
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Xue Zhang is a doctoral candidate in the Language, Literacy, and Technology PhD program at Washington State University. Her research interests focus on examining English public speaking skills' development among adult EFL learners from a cross-disciplinary perceptive, integrating the domains of second language acquisition, psychology, and communication.
Yuliya Ardasheva is an assistant professor in ELL/bilingual education at Washington State University. Her research focuses on the contributions of individual differences to second language development and the interplay between second language and academic development. She has published her work in TESOL Quarterly, Language Learning, and Review of Educational Research.