The Impact of Procrastination on the Decoding Skills of Iranian EFL Learners

Procrastination is a complex psychological behavior that affects language learners to different degrees. Since it is a major source of stress, its effect on EFL/ESL learners can be significant. On the other hand, while practice is undeniably necessary to improve Decoding Skills in FL/SL contexts, it requires strict time management which is contradictory with procrastination. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of Procrastination on the Listening and Reading ability of EFL learners. First, 150 undergraduate students were given a pre-test of Listening and Reading (IELTS test), then they were asked to answer a questionnaire to determine their procrastination. The participants were divided into an experimental group (N=120) and a control group (N=30). After the pretest, 15 sessions were held to teach the Listening and Reading skills to the participants.Meanwhile, several different tasks were given to each one as homework. On the 15th session, a posttest of Decoding Skills (IELTS Test) was administered. The findings suggest that an increased focus on procrastination control has a significant impact on procrastinators, and can help to improve the Listening and Reading ability.

Keywords:

Procrastination , SL/FL Context , IELTS Test , Decoding Skills