The Effects of Discussion-oriented Classes on Students’ General Proficiency as well as their Attitude toward Learning English

Abstract

The study investigated the pivotal role of free-related discussions in EFL classes and its relevance to students’ general proficiency level as well as their impressions toward English. The researchers selected two groups of EFL learners to investigate the topic of the study. To this respect, the researchers used homogeneous sampling to select appropriate participants among the groups who took part in EFL classes in Muhammad Male English Centre (MEC) and Nasim Female English Centre (NEC) in Jahrom, Fars, Iran. Two groups of 45 pre-intermediate participants (one male and one female) aged 15-21, were selected for the study. To conduct the study, an open-ended attitudinal questionnaire and a semi-structured interview were utilized to collect data. Although, there were some subtle differences between male and female participants, the results of the open-ended questionnaire and the interview were in line with each other. The study revealed that almost all participants in in both male and female groups enjoyed discussions in classes comparing to their previous term(s) because of fun and friendly atmosphere, stress-free speaking, score free, motivation, speaking improvement, informative aspect of discussions, freeing from boring (sometimes restricted) topics in the books, various and motivating topics, peer learning as well as improved general proficiency level in language productivity.