EFL Learners’ Private Speech, Logical Reasoning, and Language Achievement: A Path Analysis Approach

Vygotsky’s Socio-Cultural Theory stimulated lines of research seeking its effect on second/foreign language learning. The current research makes an endeavor to ignite the relationship between one of the central aspects of this theory, that is to say, private speech (PS), with logical reasoning (LR), and language achievement (LA) of Iranian EFL learners. This association is based on a dynamic interaction between reasoning power and learners’ PS as well as the association of each of these constructs with their academic achievement. To attain the purpose of the study, a total of 200 advanced EFL university learners from different Universities in Iran completed the questionnaires. The participants were asked to do three parts of tasks (i.e., Deduction (D), Inference Making (IM), and Evaluation of Arguments (EA)) in “Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal” (W-GCTA) designed by Watson and Glaser (2010). Furthermore, they were requested to answer a “Self-verbalization Questionnaire”. The Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was run to analyze the model based on the data. To determine the incongruities detected in the model, each individual path demonstrating the causal relationships was scrutinized. The data supported the theoretical expectation of an association between using learners’ LR and PS. Subsequent data analyses also indicated that the learners’ PS is positively correlated with the three elements of reasoning and also it has a great predictive power for them. Besides, the three components of reasoning strongly and positively predict the students’ LA. Finally, it can be concluded that the PS is indirectly and positively correlated with LA.