EFL Learner's Use of Evaluation in Oral and Written Narratives

Abstract

This study was an attempt to discover the variation in lived narratives of Iranian EFL learners in terms of narrative evaluation in oral and written experienced stories. To this end, 125 oral and written narratives as told by Iranian EFL learners were elicited. Fifty narratives were collected in the classroom, 25 were extracted on the interview, and the other 50 were elicited through a written task. Qualitative analysis was utilized to scrutinize the collected data. The study mostly relied on the Labovian model of evaluative categories to compare oral and written stories. The findings of the study indicated that the differences between the written and oral stories were due to the medium of narratives; both types of stories were similar in terms of evaluative pattern. It was reckoned that the differences between EFL stories and English native narratives were mostly affected by the participants' English language proficiency.

Keywords

• efl narratives
• qualitative analysis
• evaluation
• proficiency
• interview
• stories