This study aimed to investigate the relationship between listening assessment task types, time on task, and the use of listening strategy by Iranian EFL learners. For this purpose, a group of 44 Iranian EFL students (Males and Females, 14 to 25 years old) selected through convenience sampling from an English language institute in Sanandaj participated in this study. Then, they were randomly assigned into four experimental groups. In one group, note-taking was considered the listening assessment task, while in the second group oral reproduction was specified as the assessment task for assessing listening comprehension. After that, each group was further subdivided randomly into a shorter time-on-task group (20 minutes) and a longer time-on-task group (40 minutes). Next, all groups completed Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal, and Tafaghodtari’s (2006) Meta-cognitive Awareness listening Strategy Questionnaire. A two-way ANOVA was run to examine the effects of both listening assessment task type and time on task on listening strategy use among the four groups. The results revealed that the students in the oral reproduction task with high time on task group significantly showed higher preferences for choosing Planning-Evaluation, Mental Translation, and Problem-Solving strategies and those in the note-taking with low time on task group preferred the Directed-Attention strategy, while those in the note-taking with high time on task group preferred Person-Knowledge strategy.

This study addresses a significant knowledge gap in understanding the effects of task-specific enjoyment and anxiety conditions on the language mindset of Iranian EFL learners in a listening course. Using a quasi-experimental design, 75 male high school students were divided into three groups: a task enjoyment (TE) group, a task anxiety (TA) group, and a control group. The TE group participated in a low-stakes, autonomy-based listening task designed to foster enjoyment, while the TA group completed a high-stakes, evaluative listening task intended to induce anxiety. Data were collected using standardized instruments, including the Foreign Language Enjoyment Scale (FLES), the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), and the Language Mindset Inventory (LMI). A series of T-tests and ANOVA were conducted to analyze pre- and post-test scores across the three groups. Results showed that the TE group experienced significantly higher levels of task enjoyment and subsequently developed significantly stronger growth-oriented beliefs regarding overall linguistic intelligence and second language learning compared to both the TA and control groups. Conversely, the TA group exhibited significantly higher anxiety levels and a shift toward more fixed language mindsets. No significant differences were found between groups regarding beliefs about age sensitivity in language learning. These findings highlight the importance of considering task-related emotions in language teaching and suggest that fostering enjoyment through autonomy-supportive tasks can promote a growth mindset, while anxiety-inducing tasks may reinforce fixed beliefs about language learning.

Background and Aims: Postural control of the kinetic variable of motion plays an essential role in maintaining stability in daily activities. Dual tasks for studying balance or postural control are accompanied by cognitive tasks. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of listening task complexity and offline learning on postural control. Methods: Twenty-eight employees with an age range of 30-40 years from Alzahra University of Tehran (PBUH) were selected by available sampling and based on inclusion criteria and divided into three groups with different training distributions of 2 minutes, 15 minutes, and 24 hours with three levels of difficulty (easy, medium, and difficult). Each group performed three blocks of six attempts with each attempt time of 35 seconds, the interval between attempts of 20 seconds, and the time interval between blocks depending on the division of the group: 2 minutes, 15 minutes, and 24 hours with three difficulty levels. Findings were analyzed using a combined factor analysis of variance with repeated measures of three groups (mass, 15 minutes, and 24 hours) and three task levels (easy, moderate, and difficult) and the Bonferroni post hoc test. Results: Findings showed that the main effect of homework difficulty level and practice distribution was significant (P=0. 001) and in the retention stage, there was a significant difference between the mean frequency power in the anterior-posterior direction in the low difficulty listening group and the high difficulty listening group. In the listening task, the interactive effect of task difficulty level in the distribution of practice was not significant. In the memorization stage, regarding the COP components (average frequency power in the anterior-posterior direction), the training group (24 hours), and in the listening task with an easy complexity level, the best condition was posture control, and in the training group (2 minutes) and in the listening task with difficult complexity level, the weakest condition was control posture. In the listening task with a high level of difficulty, the 24 hour training group had better average COP components than the mass training group and the 15 minute training group. Conclusion: It seems that distance training over mass training along with the parameters of strengthening motor memory increases cognitive effort and motivation. According to Hacken, Kelso, and Bondes hypothesis (progress-regression), educators should include homework in teaching instruction and from simple to difficult in the curriculum.

This study was an attempt to examine the contribution of metacognitive strategies to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' listening comprehension performance and their metacognitive awareness. Fifty seven out of sixty eight EFL students were selected to participate in this study after their performance on Oxford Placement Test. The participants were then randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. After signing a consent form, both groups sat for the Preliminary English Test as their pretest. After filling in the Metacognitive Awareness listening Questionnaire (MALQ), the students in the experimental group received five sessions of listening practice and strategy training using The Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) Model (1999). The students in the control group, however, did not receive any instruction about strategies. After the strategy training the learners in both groups took another version of the PET as their posttest, and the experimental group filled in the MALQ again. Two types of tasks, namely, selection and completion were used to measure the participants’ listening comprehension after the treatment. Several paired samples t-tests and an ANCOVA were conducted. The results indicated that the experimental group outperformed the control group in the listening tasks. The experimental group's metacognitive awareness improved dramatically after the strategy training. Meanwhile, the students performed significantly better in the selection tasks than in the completion tasks. Teachers are advised to allocate part of their teaching time to strategy training. Material developers should also take into consideration using task types because the performance of students may vary in different task types.

The present study was conducted to investigate the effects of implementing three forms of assessment namely, summative, formative and dynamic assessment on Iranian freshmen's listening ability and listening strategy use to fulfill the purposes of the study, 140 freshmen from Garmsar university and jame-elmi karbordi university who were majoring in English translation were selected. They formed randomly three experimental groups. Each group experienced a certain type of assessment. To study the effects of the assessment types, the learners took five teacher-made listening tests. Moreover, to observe any development in the learners' level of listening strategy use a questionnaire based on O' Malley Chamot and Kupper (1989), Young (1997) and Goh (2000, 2002) was used. The results indicated that the learners in dynamic group not only could outperform the other groups in terms of listening ability, but they also used more listening strategies.

1. Introduction Learning a foreign language is a very complex process that depends on various elements such as student, teacher, teaching method, etc. Among these elements, however, the element of teaching method plays a decisive role in the state of education, and it influences the other elements as well. Therefore, it is very important to use a practical and effective teaching method. One of the methods that has been proposed in recent decades and has received much attention in foreign language teaching is the task-based teaching approach. This approach, as a new approach that stems from the communicative approach in language teaching, is based on tasks/ a task. In defining a task, Ellis (Ellis. 2004. p. 9-10) refers to a set of essential features and believes that,a task is a work plan (1),the main focus is on meaning,has real processes in the use of language,can include any of the four language skills,involves cognitive processes,and it has a very clear communicative result. Therefore, it can be said that the main purpose of this teaching method is to increase language learners’,communicative ability through tasks that are based on meaning and reality. In this method language is taught in three stages of pre-task, during task and post-task. 2. Materials and methods Although this approach has been regarded as a highly effective and practical approach in foreign language teaching, its effectiveness in teaching Arabic listening skill, which is a basic skill in learning Arabic language and which requires a practical and effective method of teaching and learning, has not yet been investigated. Therefore, this study, with the aim of facilitating the learning process and increasing language learners’,listening comprehension ability, intends to empirically examine the effectiveness of the task-based approach in enhancing language learners' listening comprehension. To this end, first, the topic has been analyzed and examined theoretically and its basic principles have been explained thoroughly. After that, to measure the effectiveness of this approach in teaching listening skill, the approach has been implemented practically. To implement this teaching model, first an educational booklet which consisted of 10 lessons along with their audio files was prepared to be used in the implementation stage of this teaching method. The booklet was designed in accordance with the main principles of task-based approach. In the next step, 30 undergraduate students of the University of Tehran were randomly selected and 15 of them were randomly placed in the control group and the other 15 in the experimental group. Of course, due to the absence of a number of students in the post-test, the statistical sample of the present study was reduced to 13 people in each group. Prior to implementation of the project, to ensure the homogeneity of the groups, an identical pre-test was administered by a third party to both groups under the same conditions. After ensuring the homogeneity of the groups, the experimental group was taught for 16 two-hour sessions (which is equivalent to one academic semester) according to this approach, using the teaching package that was developed. At the end of the teaching sessions, an identical post-test was administered by a third party to both groups under same conditions. Finally, the test results of both groups were investigated using version 26 Of SPSS software. 3. Results and discussion The data of this study were analyzed by conducting both descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics such as frequency, mean percentage, and standard deviation and the inferential statistic of t-test were used. An examination of the descriptive statistics showed that the mean score of the experimental group in the post-test was higher than in the pre-test. However, there was no significant change in the mean score of the pre-test and the post-test of the control group. Also, t-test results showed that the P value in the control group was above (0. 05) and the difference was not significant. Nevertheless, the P value in the experimental group was less than (0. 05) which shows that the difference in performance of the participants in this group was significant and real. The independent variable (teaching listening skill based on TBLT approach) has significantly caused a remarkable growth in the dependent variable (the extent of the enhancement in the Arabic listening comprehension ability). 4. Conclusion The research hypothesis that claims a positive and significant effect of task-based approach on the development of the language learners’,listening comprehension was confirmed. In addition, according to the research data, it can be explicitly claimed that the task-based teaching model that is based on interaction and that emphasizes the real activities similar to what the language learner encounters in real situations, can be regarded as one of the effective methods for increasing language learners' listening comprehension ability in teaching listening courses to Arabic language students in the laboratory.

Enamored with the ambition of providing a more nuanced picture of learners’ underlying potential and future-in-the-making, Vygotsky spearheaded an innovative assessment procedure more aptly known as Dynamic assessment (henceforth DA) which serves simultaneously as an evaluative and instructional practice to diagnose learners’ specific areas of difficulties and to promote those which are in the state of ripening (Vygotsky, 1978; Poehner & Lantolf, 2005; Poehner, 2009). DA currently in vogue in developmental psychology is getting prolifically utilized by the interested scholars in adjacent disciplines (Lantolf, 2001; Poehner, 2005; Anton, 2008; Ableeva, 2008) with the goal in mind to revitalize the potential applications of Vygotsky’s Socio-cultural Theory (SCT) of mind and his revolutionary concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) for the assessment of learners’ linguistic abilities. This study, more evocative of Vygotsky’s SCT perspectiveon human’s mental functioning, was designed to test the feasibility of dynamic assessment as anassessment and instructional procedure to diagnose and promote the listening abilities of interpreting students in classroom context. Poehner’s (2009) recently introduced group-based (G-DA) and concurrent format of DA served as the theoretical basis for the construction of our assessment procedures. Concurrent and interactionist G-DA protocols were collected over a time span of eight weeks of instruction. Microgenetic and qualitative excerpts of G-DA protocols are provided to illustrate the effects of G-DA interactions on the students’ listening abilities. The results indicated that the G-DA instructions can better diagnose the students’ sources of difficulties at the time of listening to the news broadcasts and help promote those which are in the state of maturation. The G-DA interactions had the function of moving the entire class forward in its ZPD while co-constructing ZPDs with individual students within the social microcosm of the classroom context. Finally it is argued that the G-DA has the potential to serveas an innovative teaching and assessment procedure to enhance the students’ listening abilities in interpreting classes.

In the response phase the most important step is to assess disaster after occurrence. By disaster assessment, we can obtain all the needed information for controlling, decision-making and also disaster planning. Lack of disaster assessment causes you to make unsuitable decisions based on limited or inadequate data which leads to imperfect disaster response. According to IFRC, disaster response operation will have an unsuitable function without disaster assessment. This paper presents the principles and concepts of disaster assessment.

Background and Aims Despite more than four decades of research, no conclusive evidence has been established regarding the effect of gender on dichotic listening. This study sought to determine whether increasing the difficulty of the listening task could reveal gender-related differences in dichotic performance.Methods This comparative observational study included 25 men and 25 women, aged 1835 years, all right-handed students with normal hearing. Three randomized lists of dichotic digits were presented under three task conditions: free recall, precued directed recall, and postcued directed recall. Performance for the right and left ears, as well as the magnitude of the ear advantage, was compared between male and female participants.Results Analysis of ear advantage revealed that the mean ear advantage in the postcued directed recall task was significantly greater in females (8.9±6) than in males (5.4±4) (P<0.05). In contrast, no significant gender differences were observed in mean ear scores or ear advantage under the free recall or precued conditions.Conclusion Although male and female participants performed similarly in the free recall condition, task difficulty appeared to influence outcomes. Under more demanding conditions, females reported more digits from the dominant ear and fewer from the non-dominant ear, resulting in a larger ear advantage compared with males. These findings may be partly explained by gender differences in general anxiety levels, which tend to be higher in females.

This study aimed to investigate Engineering students’ perceptions, problems, and preferred tasks about academic listening. The participants were 199 Iranian undergraduate students of Engineering at the Iran University of Science and Technology. The instruments were a questionnaire with 40 items and an interview with 3 open-ended items. Considering learners’ attitudes, both male and female learners were aware of the importance of academic listening for their success and found listening comprehension exciting. With regard to problems, both male and female learners reported that insufficient vocabulary, speed of speech, poor quality of recordings, long texts, and unfamiliar topics were their major listening problems. The findings also revealed that listening to news reports, listening to academic interview, listening to academic discussion, listening to announcement, and listening to conversation were the male students’ preferred tasks, while listening to academic interviews, listening to seminars and presentations, listening to academic discussion were the female students’ preferred tasks.