Research Information System
Universal Journal of Educational Research, vol.5, no.1, pp.104-112, 2017 (Scopus)
This study aimed to investigate the beliefs ofEnglish as foreign language (EFL) learners about speakingin English and being a good speaker of English throughmetaphor analysis. A phenomenological approach wasadopted and 60 EFL learners completed a questionnairewith demographic questions and two prompts focusing onthe characteristics of a good English speaker (i.e., “Speaking English is like… because…” and“A good speaker of English is like… because…” ). For the first prompt about speaking English, 46 valid metaphors were determined, which were categorized under five conceptual themes. For the second prompts about being a good speaker of English, 27 valid metaphors were given, with six conceptual categories identified. Findings showed that learners mostly perceived speaking as a skill requiring much effort and also giving pleasure. They described a good speaker of English as someone who is fluent at speaking, universal, disarming, wise, privileged and hardworking. The conceptual categories were alsodescribed with the speaking achievement and these categories were found to be connected to the degree ofachievement. The findings gave insight into a better understanding of the speaking skill and what makes a goodspeaker of English for language educators.