A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON RESPONSES TO THE ENGLISH EXAM OF THE MOCK COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT PROGRAM FOR INTERMEDIATE ACHIEVERS IN THE NINTH GRADE IN THE URBAN AND RURAL AREAS IN SOUTHERN TAIWAN

• Main Authors: WU, CHIA-CHEN, 吳佳真
• Other Authors: CHANG, YE-LING
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/2xwf9c

碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 英語學系 === 107 === This study aims to compare the responses to the English Exam of the Mock Comprehensive Assessment Program (EEMCAP) for intermediate achievers in the ninth grade in the urban and rural areas in southern Taiwan. To achieve the study purpose, 120 intermediate ninth graders were recruited. Sixty of them were from the junior high schools in urban areas in Kaohsiung, and the others were from the junior high schools in rural areas. All of them answered the questionnaire, A Questionnaire on the Student Responses to the English Exam of the Mock Comprehensive Assessment Program, and 20 of them participated in the interview. The data were collected and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Four major findings of the present study are summarized as follows: 1. There are four significant differences in the urban and rural student responses to the internal and external motivations in taking EEMCAP. In addition, the higher mean scores of the rural student responses show that the rural students possess more positive responses to the internal and external motivations in taking EEMCAP than the urban students do. The rural students care more about their peer groups' feelings and opinions in taking the EEMCAP than the urban students do. In addition, more rural students than urban students agree that they join the EEMCAP in order to set up targets for themselves. Most rural students’ top reason for joining the EEMCAP is to understand their English abilities. Furthermore, when taking the EEMCAP, the rural students care about their competitiveness more than the urban students do. 2. There is no significant difference in the urban and rural student responses to their performance on English vocabulary, grammar, reading, and listening categories of the EEMCAP. However, with higher mean scores in taking the EEMCAP, the urban students show more positive responses to their test performance, including English reading, picture listening, and dialogue listening questions than the rural students do. Nevertheless, the rural students are more positive to their performance on English word and phrase, and grammar and cloze questions in taking the EEMCAP than urban students do. 3. There are two significant differences in the urban and rural student responses to the factors for the test achievement in taking EEMCAP. In addition, the higher mean score of the urban students show that more urban students than the rural students contribute their good performance on the EEMCAP to their good luck. As for this internal factor for the test achievement, the urban students show more positive attitudes toward their good luck during the exams than the rural students. As for the external factors for the test achievement, the rural students possess more positive responses to their teachers' instructions than the urban students do. 4. Both of the urban and rural students express that their top difficulty is to read lengthy English reading passages and articles with low English reading comprehension. In addition, the speed of the listening tests is too fast for both groups to think and to answer the English listening questions. To deal with the difficulties, both of the urban and rural students suggest that teachers and examination organization of EEMCAP reduce lengthy reading passages as well as articles. Furthermore, they hope to slow down the speed of the English listening tests. Based on the findings in the present study, some pedagogical implications are proposed for junior high school English teachers and the test organizations. EFL teachers may create some learning activities, such as grouping and Q&A, and apply some learning strategies, such as predicting and brainstorming, to increase students’ learning motivation. In addition, students may learn some English listening strategies, such as predicting the content from the pictures and catching the key words and points. They can also figure out the listening content and think over to choose the right answers in the English listening tests. With motivation, positive self-esteem, and effective learning strategies in English learning, students have a great chance to learn English well. Furthermore, the test organizations, they may be aware of the moderate difficulty of the EEMCAP and the necessity of cutting down some lengthy reading articles as well as passages of the EEMCAP. They may also be aware of the need in appropriate time for an English listening test. They may take graph on statistical questions in English listening and reading tests of the EEMCAP.