THE JOURNAL OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY AND PRACTICE
Year:2011 | Volume:4 | Issue:1 (8)|Papers Count:10

Lexicalization-patterns, the way words are mapped onto concepts, differ from one language to another. This study investigated the influence of first language (L1) lexicalization patterns on the processing of second language (L2) words in sentential contexts by both less proficient and more proficient Persian learners of English. The focus was on cases where two different senses of a polysemous word in Persian are realized by two independent words in English. For example, Persian uses ‘ماه’ to refer to both ‘moon’ and ‘month’ in English. In the present study, the researchers examined the processing of English translations (moon, month) of polysemous Persian words such as ‘ماه’ in a semantic anomaly judgment task. The participants who were two groups of more proficient and less proficient Persian learners of English were presented with two types of anomalous sentences: anomalous test sentences in which one of the two English words (e.g., month) was used in a context where the other word (e.g., moon) was appropriate (e.g., “A pleasant thing to watch at night is a full month”) and anomalous control sentences in which the same word was used in a context where neither of the two words was appropriate (e.g., “A pleasant thing to eat at night is a full month”). The participants were asked to judge, as quickly and accurately as possible, whether the final word could complete the sentence meaningfully (YES response) or whether the final word was semantically unacceptable (NO response). The participants’ reaction time (RT) for correct No responses and their error rates were recorded using DMDX, a psycholinguistics experimentation software package. Using two General Linear Model Repeated Measures, a main effect of sentence type was obtained in the analysis of both RT and errors. Also, there was an interaction between sentence type and proficiency level in the analysis of both RT and errors. The results are discussed in terms of the activation of the semantic specifications of L1 translation equivalent of L2 words.

One of the promises of web-based education is to help students take control of their learning pace as the basic requirement of language learning is being life-long. The purpose of the present study was to find out which of the e-tools -- weblogs, wikis, or podcasts -- can better help EFL learners excel in their writing skill. To this end, 156 Iranian sophomore students majoring in English and studying at Islamic Azad University, Abadeh and Shiraz Branches and the Zand Institute of Higher Education were selected based on random sampling as participants. As the design of the study was a pre-experimental one, there were three experimental groups involved but no control group. Before the instruction, the participants were given an essay writing test, whose results were used to divide them into three groups. Two of the groups received in-class instruction and were assigned out-of-class activities through weblogs and wikis. The third group received the instruction through podcasts. The treatment lasted for two and a half months and at the end, another essay writing test was given to all groups. A two-way ANOVA for the comparison of the participants' gain scores indicated that using the tools available on the Internet could lead to improvement in the EFL students writing abilities, and gender was not a determining factor. The study reveals the fact that web tools, in general, and blogs, wikis, and podcasts, in particular, can foster EFL students’ writing skills and teachers can use them as supplements in their language instruction.

The effect of error feedback on the accuracy of output task types such as editing task, text reconstruction task, picture cued writing task, and dictogloss task, has not been clearly explored. Following arguments concerning that the combination of both corrective feedback and output makes it difficult to determine whether their effects were in combination or alone, the purpose of the present study is to document the role of teachers’ feedback in improving the accuracy of linguistic form in output tasks and in acquiring target form. To this end, this study compared three groups of Iranian intermediate learners (N=93), one with direct grammar feedback, the other one with indirect grammar feedback and the last one with no grammar feedback. In terms of the target form uptake from first to subsequent text reconstruction tasks, the analysis of the data obtained within ten treatment sessions indicated that the participants, who received written corrective feedback compared to those who did not, progressed significantly from the first to the subsequent output tasks. In terms of learning, the learners who had the opportunities for receiving feedback performed significantly better than those in non- feedback condition on the production and recognition post- tests although explicit feedback rather than implicit feedback led to greater learning of target form on the production test, but no significant differences were found in relative efficacy of the two written corrective feedback types as far as the result of the recognition test was concerned.

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of two multi-step oral-revision processes as feedback providing tools on Iranian EFL learners’ argumentative writing achievement. The participants taking part in this study were 45 Iranian EFL students who were randomly assigned into three groups. The participants of the groups were given three argumentative writing assignments, each assignment demanding three separate drafts. In the control group, the participants revised their essays in response to teacher's written feedback, while the participants of the two experimental groups experienced oral revision talks with their teacher or a peer. Two sets of quantitative and qualitative data were collected: Argumentative essays written at the beginning and the end of the semester and interviews. The results of the quantitative aspect of the study revealed the significant outperformance of the two experimental groups. Moreover, the data provided through interviews revealed some differences in terms of the effectiveness of feedback between the two experimental groups. The participants of the peer-led group reported more awareness of the rhetorical structures and an ability to revise surface errors. While, the teacher-led group reported more global writing concerns like content, organization of ideas, and discourse. The obtained results point out that the mutual co-construction of participation roles and certain combinations of negotiation and scaffolding let the teacher provide a supportive conversational environment and assistance in accordance with the proficiency of learners of the teacher-led group to promote greater learner participation.

The assessment of listening abilities is one of the least understood, least developed and, yet, one of the most important areas of language testing and assessment. It is particularly important because of its potential wash-back effects on classroom practices. Given the fact that listening tests play a great role in assessing the language proficiency of students, they are expected to enjoy a high level of construct validity. The present study was dedicated to investigating the construct validity of three different test formats, namely, multiple-choice, gap filling on summary (also called listening summary cloze), and fill-in-the-blank, used to evaluate the listening comprehension of EFL learners. In order to achieve the purpose of the study, three passages with relatively similar readability levels were used for the construction of 9 listening tests, that is, each appeared in three formats. Following a counter-balanced design, the tests were administered to 91homogeneous EFL learners divided into three groups. The statistical analysis of the results revealed that the multiple-choice test enjoyed the highest level of construct validity. Moreover, a repeated measure one-way ANOVA demonstrated that the fill-in-theblank task was the most difficult with the MC test as the easiest for the participants.

Following previous studies reporting a beneficial effect for pre-task planning on learners' task performance, the present research takes into account the possible effects of directing learners' attention to meaning and form of language on their written production while they have one- and five-minute strategic planning time. The study randomly categorized 48 intermediate learners of English into six groups and asked them to undertake a narrative task under form focused, meaning focused, and unguided planning conditions each with one or five minutes of strategic planning time. Their performances were analyzed by a set of fluency and accuracy measures whose results were put into one-way ANOVA. As for the comparison under one-minute planning condition, form focused planners outperformed the other two groups in both measures. Similar results were obtained under the five-minute planning condition. The results also showed that five-minute planning condition enhanced the learners' fluency of production more than their accuracy, unlike one-minute planning condition. It is proposed that the form focused planning condition better promotes writing processes than meaning focused and unguided planning conditions; besides, the longer the planning time is, the more fluency is fostered whereas the shorter the planning time is, the more accurate the learners' production would be.

This study aims to represent the developing status of pronunciation teaching and presents the current perspectives on pronunciation learning and teaching, coupled with innovative approaches and techniques/activities. It is argued that pronunciation teaching methodologies have changed over decades since the Reform Movement. The exact status of teaching pronunciation appeared first in the Audio Lingual Methods and continued in the Communicative Language Teaching methods; however, the ways of teaching pronunciation have explicitly a long history. In this study, the researcher scrutinizes the most influential factors in pronunciation learning, the knowledge of which can by and large facilitate both the teaching and the acquisition of pronunciation. Next, the focus of the article will be placed mainly on pronunciation intelligibility as a more realistic purpose of pronunciation pedagogy and instruction. Additionally, the article discusses a number of suggestions for teaching pronunciation and indicates that the teaching of pronunciation can be made more effective and facilitative in the EFL classrooms by offering some state-of-the-art teaching approaches to pronunciation convenient to EFL environment, along with a set of diverse techniques/activities. Finally, the study outlines the current innovative approaches and gives new insights into pronunciation instruction.

The present study was an attempt, in the first place, to observe whether there was any significant relationship among teachers’ critical thinking, self-efficacy, and perception of effective teaching. Moreover, the researchers tried to examine which variable a better predictor of perception of effective was teaching. To this end, the measures of the critical thinking ability of 143 EFL teachers were obtained using Honey’s (2000) Critical Thinking Questionnaire (adopted from Naieni, 2005). Also, their sense of efficacy was estimated utilizing Tschannen-Moran and Hoy’s (2001) Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale. Moreover, their perception of effective teaching was determined employing Bell’s (2005) Effective Teaching Questionnaire. The results revealed a statistically significant relationship between both critical thinking and self-efficacy of teachers and their perception of effective teaching. However, only two of the components of critical thinking, namely analysis and evaluation, were correlated with perception of effective teaching. Also, critical thinking components had a significant relationship with perception of effective teaching components. Additionally, it was found that there was a positive relationship between all components of self-efficacy and perception of effective teaching and its components. Finally, the regression analysis showed that self-efficacy was a better predictor of teachers’ perception of effective teaching in comparison with critical thinking though the margin of difference was not that large. This study has implications for the EFL teacher preparation and education programs.

The demands of the changing world impose on learners the need to become autonomous readers. This places a responsibility on the shoulders of the teachers to develop an approach to teaching reading which will help readers become independent strategic ones. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of teaching reading strategies on the development of reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. An experimental design was adopted to accomplish this investigation. To do so, two intact classes of 35 students were selected. Then to find out the homogeneity of the participants, Oxford Placement Test was administrated to both classes’ among whom 60 students who scored above 47 were selected as homogeneous and were assigned to two experimental and control groups. The students in the experimental group participated in 10 sessions and were taught two strategies of reading comprehension: activating background knowledge and contextual strategies. At the same time, the materials in the control group were taught through conventional methods of reading and translating the texts into Persian. In the 10th session, the post-test was administrated to both groups. The results of the t-test confirmed the positive effect of reading strategies instruction on the development of reading comprehension ability. These findings may furnish language teachers with the empirical evidence that capitalizing on the students' awareness of the strategies and helping them to use these strategies will significantly develop their reading abilities.

Questioning practice constitutes one of the typical and fundamental interactional tools in L2 teaching. Much L2 research on teacher questions has been quantitative studies focusing on identifying question types and their roles in language acquisition and meaning negotiation. However, by drawing on conversation analysis within a sociocultural perspective, this study examines qualitatively how EFL teacher questions can scaffold learning processes. The data were collected through videotaping EFL classroom interaction. Eleven sessions of seven intermediate-level teachers in private language schools were recorded. Through the microanalysis of the transcribed data, the study found that EFL teachers vary in their structuring of unfolding question-answer sequences and that only a small number of teacher questions tended to provide learning opportunities. Four question types providing scaffolded assistance were identified: simplifying questions, marking questions, prompting questions and asking-foragreement questions. This study contributes to understanding how the interactive nature of the questions teachers pose can shed light on the connection between teachers’ practices and students’ learning across unfolding sequence. It argues that teacher questions are more than elicitation techniques; they are mediational interactional tools to assist participation and comprehensibility. Some examples illustrating these communicative moves of questions and their scaffolding functions are provided. The implications for teacher education are also discussed.