Factors predicting EFL students' L2 (English) speaking ability

This paper reports on a study which investigated how four variables of L1 speaking ability, L2 proficiency, speaking strategies and extroversion/ introversion personality style might predict L2 speaking ability. To this end, 47 freshman students (13 male and 34 female) majoring in English Literature in one of the Iranian universities participated in the study. The participants were tested for their Ll speaking and their L2 proficiency and filled out two questionnaires. The first questionnaire was a speaking strategy questionnaire and the second one was a personality style (extraversion/introversion) questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed using multiple regression and it was found that the four predictor variables, i.e. Ll speaking ability, L2 proficiency, speaking strategies and extroversion/introversion personality attr ibutes, jointly predicted 42% of the variance in L2 speaking ability. Moreover, it was found that among the four predictor variables included in the study, three variables of Ll speaking ability, L2 proficiency, and personality style were individually able to significantly predict L2 speaking ability. Implications of the study are discussed in the paper.