An Investigation of the Relationship between Linguistic Features of Spoken English and English Learning Experiences of Armenian Learners of English

Abstract

The present study investigates therelationship between the learning experiences of Armenian nonnative speakers of English and the target linguistic features of their spoken English. The number of the participants of thestudy was 34, ofwhom 10 were American native speakers of English, and 24 Armenian nonnative speakersof English. Two instruments have been used for data collection:1) a structured interview to compile a corpus of native speakerand nonnative speakerspeech samples and 2) aquestionnaireto identify Armenian nonnative speakers’English learning experiencesin secondary, undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate schools, as well as private tutoring and self-study efforts.The results of the investigation show that nonnative speakers used the target linguistic featuresless frequently than native speakers did.Correlation analysis has shownthat such kindsof qualities of exposure as interaction with native speakers, listening and summarizing materials, doing debates and role plays and giving oral presentations significantly correlate with native like competence as separate independent variables. However, the results of the backward multiple regressions have identified thatonly native speakerinteraction in private tutoring experience hassignificant predictabilityof native like competenceof Armenian nonnative speakers of English.