7.1 Results of the questionnaire study
7.1.2 Descriptive statistics
Table 10 Internal reliability coefficients and the number of components extracted after the application of correction methods in the main study
SCALES NO. OF
COMPONENTS
CRONBACH ALPHA
NO. OF ITEMS COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE
Linguistic competence / Vocabulary 1 .618 3
Linguistic competence / Grammar 1 .782 4
Spoken discourse competence 1 .548 3
Written discourse competence 1 .662 3
Actional competence 1 .691 3
Sociolinguistic competence 1 .485 5
Strategic competence 1 .502 3
CONTACT VARIABLES
Direct spoken contact 1 .804 5
Direct written contact 1 .702 3
Indirect contact 1 .610 4
Cultural contact 1 .733 5
Table 11 Final scales of the communicative competence components
FINAL SCALES
Linguistic competence / Vocab
Q1 I consider getting the correct pronunciation important.
Q15 I think getting the correct spelling in English is crucial.
Q20 I would like to know as many English expressions as possible.
Linguistic competence / Grammar
Q4 I think it is important to be able to speak English in a grammatically correct way.
Q11 I think it is essential to know English grammatical rules.
Q12 I like grammar practice exercises.
Q16 For me it is important to use English tenses correctly.
Spoken discourse competence
Q3 It is important for me to be able to make myself understood in English.
Q17 I understand even those speakers of English who talk fast.
Q21 I can easily use the words and expressions I learnt in spoken communication.
Written discourse competence
Q5 I think it would be useful to learn about different essay structures in the English lessons.
(eg. argumentative, descriptive)
Q23 For me it is important to learn how to write a formal letter in English.
Q30 For me it is important to learn how to write emails in English.
Actional competence
Q7 I think it is necessary to be able to give directions in English.
Q19 I think it is important to use the appropriate forms of greeting with different people.
Q22 I think it is useful to know how to make a phone call in English.
Sociocultural competence
Q2 I think it is useful if we learn the differences between formal and informal style.
Q9 I think it is important to use expressions that do not appear in the coursebook.
Q13 For me it is important to be able to recognize different English dialects.
Q24 I think it is useful to learn slang expressions in the language class.
Q29 I think it is essential to use the appropriate register in different situations.
Strategic competence
Q6 When a word or expression does not come to my mind, I use circumlocution.
Q14 When I don’t understand a word, I try to guess its meaning on the basis of the context.
Q25 When I cannot express something in English, I try to say it in a different way.
The descriptive statistics results for the communicative competence variables showed the degree of importance secondary school students attached to the elements of
the construct. In the case of the contact variables, they indicated the frequency of different types of contact with the target language community. The standard deviation values demonstrated the degree of agreement in the participants’ opinions. The mean and standard deviation values for the scales are shown in Table 12.
Table 12 Mean and standard deviation values of the scales
SCALES MEAN STANDARD
DEVIATION
COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE
Linguistic competence / Vocabulary 4.45 .54
Linguistic competence / Grammar 3.71 .72
Spoken discourse competence 4.05 .57
Written discourse competence 3.71 .79
Actional competence 4.14 .68
Sociocultural competence 4.06 .50
Strategic competence 4.23 .63
CONTACT VARIABLES
Direct spoken contact 2.60 .92
Direct written contact 2.21 .99
Indirect contact 2.72 .78
Cultural contact 3.00 .82
The participants of the survey were in general agreement about the vital importance of Vocabulary (M=4.45, St. dev=.54) in the teaching and learning process.
Additionally, they were also in unison in regarding Strategic competence (M=4.23, St.
dev=.63) and Actional competence (M=4.14, St. dev=.68) to be key factors in achieving successful communication. These values suggest that the spoken aspect of the language is more important to secondary school students. The results of the coursebook analysis are thus reiterated, which also demonstrated the predominance of oral activities in the three EFL coursebooks under investigation. Moreover, the findings are also in
accordance with the teacher participants’ opinions, who also claimed that they tended to pay more attention to the spoken aspect of the English language.
The mean values of the scales also indicated that the perceived importance of Grammar (M=3.71, St. dev=.72) and Written discourse competence (M=3.71, St.
dev=.79) was the lowest. However, standard deviation values suggested that there were considerable variations among the participants. Again, the findings are in accordance with the results of the previous phases of the research. Considering grammar, most of the teacher participants openly declared that they were inclined to place less emphasis on this aspect of the language, claiming that EFL coursebooks paid much attention to the teaching of grammar. The fact that Written discourse competence scored the lowest also echoed the results of the coursebook analysis, which revealed that Written discourse competence tended to be a rather neglected aspect of communicative competence. Besides, the low mean values for Grammar and Written discourse competence might originate in the Hungarian tradition of language teaching, where grammar and linguistic correctness was still perceived to be overemphasized. This observation had also been mentioned by Anna in the interview.
Considering the mean values and standard deviation of the contact variables included in the study, two important remarks should be made. First, the mean values of the scales indicated that the participants of the study were not in frequent direct contact with the target language community, neither Spoken (M=2.60, St. dev=.92), nor Written (M=2.21, St. dev=.99). Indirect contact and cultural contact were reported to be slightly more frequent (M=2.72, St. dev=.78; M=3.00, St. dev=.82, respectively).
However, the standard deviation values revealed that there were considerable variations among the respondents.
A rank order of the participants’ preferences concerning the individual components of communicative competence is provided in Figure 7 to supplement the descriptive values of the scales. The fact that the two sub-components of discourse competence, Spoken discourse competence and Written discourse competence, received very different rankings seems to justify the teacher participants’ inability to find the proper place for discourse competence as a complex component in their rank orders.
Figure 7 Rank order of the perceived importance of the components of communicative competence
The mean values of the communicative competence scales were compared with the help of paired samples t-tests to reveal significant differences (p<0.05). See Table 13 for the results of the t-tests.
4.45
4.23 4.14 4.06 4.05
3.71 3.71
0 1 2 3 4 5
Table 13 The results of paired samples t-tests between the communicative competence scales
MEAN STD.
DEVIATION t-value p
vocabulary - strategic .21 .68 4.62 .00**
vocabulary - actional .30 .64 6.78 .00**
vocabulary - sociocultural .38 .57 9.87 .00**
vocabulary - spoken discourse .39 .65 8.93 .00**
vocabulary - grammar .73 .75 14.16 .00**
vocabulary - written discourse .73 .81 13.12 .00**
strategic - actional .08 .74 1.62 .10
strategic - sociocultural .16 .64 3.77 .00**
strategic - spoken discourse .18 .56 4.62 .00**
strategic - grammar .51 .95 7.82 .00**
strategic - written discourse .51 .92 8.18 .00**
actional - sociocultural .08 .58 2.10 .03**
actional - spoken discourse .09 .74 1.95 .05
actional - grammar .42 .82 7.58 .00**
actional - written discourse .43 .73 8.61 .00**
sociocultural - spoken discourse .01 .56 .31 .75
sociocultural - grammar .34 .74 6.73 .00**
sociocultural - written discourse .34 .75 6.73 .00**
spoken discourse - grammar .33 .89 5.42 .00**
spoken discourse - written discourse .33 .91 5.34 .00**
grammar - written discourse .00 .86 .07 .94
The results of the paired samples t-tests comparing the mean values of the scales revealed four groups within the components of communicative competence in terms of their perceived importance.
The most important component was revealed to be Vocabulary (M=4.45, St.
dev=.54), which scored significantly higher than the subsequent components. The second place was occupied by Strategic competence (M=4.23, St. dev=.63) and Actional competence (M=4.14, St. dev=.68), between which scales no significant difference was observed. Similarly, no significant difference was revealed between Sociocultural competence (M=4.06, St. dev=.50) and Spoken discourse competence
(M=4.05, St. dev=.57) .The last position in the rank order was filled by Grammar (M=3.71, St. dev=.72) and Written textual competence (M=3.71, St. dev=.79), again with no significant difference between the mean values.
Two sub-groups, male and female respondents, were compared with the help of independent samples t-tests to reveal potential differences between the mean scores of the scales, and thus between the perceived importance of the components of communicative competence. See Figure 8 for a comparison of the preferences of male and female participants.
Figure 8 Comparison of the mean values of communicative competence scales with reference to male and female participants
Significant difference was observed between male and female participants’ preferences in the case of the Written discourse competence on the p<0.01 level. Furthermore, in the cases of Vocab and Sociocultural competence, significant differences were demonstrated on the p<0.05 level, with higher mean values for the female sub-sample in each of the three cases.
Considering Written discourse competence, the lower mean values in the male
4.36
4.14 4.04 4.02 3.98 3.93
3.52 4.52
4.30 4.22
4.07 4.13 4.01 3.87
0 1 2 3 4 5
Linguistic competence /
Vocab
Strategic competence
Actional competence
Spoken discourse competence
Sociocultural competence
Linguistic competence /
Grammar
Written discourse competence MALE FEMALE
favourable attitude to writing tasks in general and the written aspects of the English language. In the case of the other components, though significant differences were only detectable in the case of Vocab and Sociocultural competence, Figure 8 indicated that there is a generally less positive attitude to the components of communicative competence among the male participants.
Independent samples t-tests were employed to reveal potential significant differences between students who learn English as the first foreign language (L2) and those for who it is the second foreign language (L3). Figure 9 shows the mean values for the scales within these two sub-samples.
Figure 9 Comparison of the mean values of communicative competence scales with reference to English as first (L2) or second (L3) foreign language to learn
The results of the t-tests revealed significant differences between L2 and L3 students in the mean values of almost all the scales, with the exception of Vocabulary and Grammar, which were considered equally important and insignificant, respectively, within the two sub-samples. However, considering the other five scales, L3 students attributed significantly less importance to the components, which is in accordance with
4.4
3.7
4.1
3.8
4.2 4.1 4.3
4.5
3.5 3.8
3.4
4.0 3.9 4.0
0 1 2 3 4 5
Linguistic competence /
Vocab
Strategic competence
Actional competence
Spoken discourse competence
Sociocultural competence
Linguistic competence /
Grammar
Written discourse competence L2 L3
Csizér’s (2003) findings, who had also indicated the negative influence of the second foreign language on the attitude to the first in a sample of Hungarian 8th graders.
To sum up, descriptive statistical figures revealed that the attitudes of the coursebooks and the teacher participants were in line with how the student participants perceived the concept of communicative competence. The mean values and standard deviations of the scales indicated that the respondents of the survey had a generally favourable attitude to the oral components of communicative competence, namely Vocab, Strategic competence and Actional competence (in the respective order of preference). However, the participants attached comparatively less importance to Written textual competence and Grammar, which are considered to be the written facets of the language, though considerable variations were observable in these two scales.