Communication Barriers That Junior and Senior Elt Students Experience in the Process of Learning a Foreign Language

COMMUNICATION BARRIERS THAT JUNIOR AND SENIOR ELT STUDENTS EXPERIENCE IN THE PROCESS OF LEARNING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE Orhan KOCAMAN ABSTRACT Communication is a crucial aspect so as to communicate with other people in an effective way and it is also an important and indispensable tool for people to understand, convey opinions or messages. Effective communication is an essential component for education especially for teaching and learning a foreign language. Learners easily interact with other people in their mother tongues but they meet challenges while speaking in a foreign language. Thus, the present study focuses on communication barriers that junior and senior ELT students experience in the process of learning a foreign language. With regard to this aim, the data were collected from 36 undergraduate students by means of semi-structured interview, focus group interview and an open ended question “write the communication barriers that you experience in the process of learning a foreign language” and the findings were analysed through categorical content analysis, in the form of themes and subcategories. In addition, the data were supported with the results of the previous studies. The findings revealed that students experience emotional, language, perceptional and cultural barriers in the process of learning a foreign language. Among these barriers the most strongly felt emotional barriers are anxiety 36% (n=13) and motivation 22% (n=8), the most strongly felt language barriers are native language 22% (n=8) and vocabulary knowledge 22% (n=8), and the most strongly felt perceptional barriers are material 17% (n=6) and teacher 33% (n=12). As for cultural barriers, no significant results were obtained. Other major findings indicate that English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners suffer from poor motivation, lack of world knowledge, and the effects of native language on foreign language. As for cultural barriers, no significant results were not obtained.