The Relationship Among Iranian Advanced EFL Learners’ Speaking, Writing, And Grammatical Competence

This study examined the correlation between advanced EFL students' syntactic knowledge ‎and their writing and speaking proficiency to determine whether students' syntactic ‎knowledge can influence their productive skills. A total of 50 advanced students aged ‎between 18 and 25 were chosen purposefully to take part in the study. Four tests, including a ‎placement test, a syntax test from Oxford University Press, a writing test, and one test for ‎speaking proficiency were employed to collect the required data. Because the data for this ‎study were quantitative, a correlational/descriptive design was chosen for the data to be ‎analyzed. The researcher then decided to find a correlation between the students' writing ‎and speaking scores and their syntax scores based on the obtained data. Both the t-test and ‎the Pearson correlation demonstrated that there is no real correlation between the syntactic, ‎speaking, and writing proficiency of the students. Further findings showed that there is no ‎difference between the relationship between syntactic knowledge and speaking proficiency ‎and the relationship between syntactic knowledge and writing proficiency. The implication ‎of this study is that grammatical competence is not a valid predictor for the proficiency of ‎students in writing and speaking courses. If a student’s grammatical competence is low, his ‎proficiency in writing and speaking can still be average or even above average depending on ‎the process of assessing these skills. Additionally, learners must understand that possessing ‎a strong grasp of grammatical knowledge does not inevitably ensure their ability to produce ‎language effectively in spoken or written form.‎