Assessing the Effects of Ability Grouping on EFL Student English Listening and Reading Proficiencies

Grouping students of similar ability for English instruction has become a common practice in higher education in Taiwan. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether EFL college students of different abilities are able to make significant progress in their language performance in homogeneously grouped classes over time. The sample was 122 freshmen who had been assigned to different levels of English classes after entering the university. Statistical methods were conducted to address the following research questions: (1) whether ability-grouped students’listening and reading proficiencies significantly improved over the one-year period after being grouped, (2) whether the overall English proficiency of homogeneously grouped EFL students significantly improved over time, and (3) whether there are significant level differences in students’ progress in English listening, reading, and overall proficiency scores over the duration of the study. The findings indicate that students at all ability levels attain significantly higher English proficiency scores over time, except for the reading proficiency scores for the high-ability group. Both the timing and level effects are highly significant on students’ progress in English reading and listening performance.