Effects of Autonomy, Self-Assessment on Speaking Fluency andAccuracy of Intermediate EFL Learners

The objective of current investigation was to examine the effects of autonomy and self-assessment on speaking fluency and accuracy of intermediate English learners, who were studying Top Notch I & II at a language school in Isfahan. To cover this purpose, the researcher selected 56 intermediate EFL learners through convenience sampling method and randomly assigned them into two groups of experimental group (EG) and control group (CG), 28 learners each. Administered speaking test and autonomy questionnaire were as the pretest. One of the differences between the control and experimental groups was the way they were assessed. The experimental group received treatment on self-assessment and they were given instructions to self-assess their speaking using self-assessment report sheets. At the beginning of the training the teacher provided support to each step taken by the learners in the EG and as the learners became more and more proficient, the teachers’ support became less to make the learners more autonomous and independent. The CG learners underwent their traditional speaking classes devoid of self-assessment autonomy support. After a 12-session intervention, the two groups received the speaking and autonomy questionnaire as the posttest. The results of the study revealed that EG learners significantly outperformed their counterparts in the CG with respect to both fluency and accuracy. The findings suggest that L2 teachers can improve the learner’s speaking fluency and accuracy if they pave the way for them to become more autonomous and encourage them to practice self-assessment.

Keywords:

Autonomy , Self-assessment , Speaking accuracy , Speaking fluency