Overcoming Procrastination: English Language Teachers’ and Learners’ Suggestions

Abstract

Procrastination pervades the long and taxing process of foreign language learning and working against it is crucial. This study attempted to elicit and investigate the strategies and solutions from English teachers and learners which can help in dealing with procrastination over weekly assignments, term projects, and preparing for exams. To achieve this aim, suggestions were sought from 46 English teachers who had at least three years of teaching experience. Out of a total of 384 suggestions, higher-frequency ones were listed and solutions and strategies in related literature were sifted through to draw up a 21-item Likert-type questionnaire, which sought the reaction of English learners to the teacher-suggested strategies. A revised version was distributed among 97 English learners comprising 65 females and 32 males, whose ages ranged from 17 to 29 years. The English language teachers believed that to help students abandon their procrastination, they should encourage them with extra points for duly completed assignments, check the progress of projects, and give quizzes and exams during the term atop of other strategies. The most frequently endorsed strategies by the English learners included: adjusting the quantity of assignments to learner’s ability, selecting attractive and diverse assignments, teacher’s proper guidance and providing sample projects to reduce anxiety; and identifying the most important topics and disregarding unnecessary contents.