The Effects of Self-directed vs. Coaching Based Practice Using a Shadowing Task on Enhancing EFL Learners Listening and Speaking Skills

The role of the teacher is shifting from teaching to coaching, that is, from an instructor to a facilitator. This study attempts to explore the potential effect of one-to-one face-to-face coaching in L2 learning. The present study compared the effects of self-directed vs. teacher coaching based shadowing practice on EFL learners’ listening and speaking performance. The participants in the research were 61 Korean EFL college students. Throughout the 15-week semester, every learner in Group 1 conducted one-to-one coaching based practice. The teacher diagnosed each learner’s strengths and weaknesses in terms of pronunciation, stress, intonation, chunking, and vocabulary. On the other hand, the learners in Group 2 carried out self-directed practice. Data were elicited from a pretest, a posttest, and a questionnaire survey. The results indicated that both self-directed practice and coaching based practice had positive effects on the posttest scores. However, Group 1 (coaching based practice group) made greater improvement than Group 2 (self-directed practice group) showing a medium effect size. The results concerning the learner perception on practice showed that the learners in both groups perceived practice to be helpful for improving their language proficiency. The learners in Group 1 reported that teacher coaching based practice was particularly helpful for understanding the contents better. In regards to the learner perception on the effect of shadowing, the results indicated that shadowing was significantly helpful for improving their L2 proficiency, especially speaking, listening, and pronunciation. The overall results of this study suggest that implementing one-to-one face-to-face coaching can be a helpful strategy to maximize the effects of language practice. Furthermore, the results from the questionnaire survey showed that learners found practice outside the class to be beneficial for improving their L2 proficiency. The learners perceived that teacher coaching was particularly helpful for promoting their interest and participation in L2 learning. The findings also indicated that shadowing can help learners practice listening and speaking more effectively.