The capacity to communicate in English expands opportunities for acquiring and enriching knowledge, extending social life, and interacting with more people from all over the world. However, due to a lack of expertise and confidence, students have difficulty expressing their ideas in the target language. The study aimed to ascertain EFL teachers' perceptions of the benefits and problems associated with enhancing students' speaking abilities through task-based language instruction (TBLT). The study employed a qualitative descriptive approach, involving an interview and the distribution of a questionnaire. The interview provided the primary data, while the questionnaire provided the secondary data. Ten English instructors from a school in North Sumatera were purposefully chosen for their experience utilizing TBLT to improve students' speaking abilities. The qualitative analysis of this study found that teachers had a favorable perception of TBLT implementation. They acknowledged that TBLT helps their teaching practice by encouraging students to engage in active practice and participation in completing communicative activities in the target language. However, difficulties arise in teachers' inventiveness in devising communicative assignments that match the students' requirements and expectations, given their diverse backgrounds and occupations.

Background: Studies examining narrative production skills in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have demonstrated variable and inconsistent results. This study aimed to investigate to what extent narrative difficulties in children with ASD reflect difficulties with language.    Methods: Accordingly, the spoken narrative skills of 16 children with ASD were compared with those of their 16 chronological age-matched (CAM) and 16 language-matched (LM) peers. A Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test was then used to examine the differences between groups in regard to NTC, NSG and SI variables .For other studied variables (NTW, number of T-units, ATL and total score), one-way analysis of variances (ANOVA) was also used.     Results: At the level of microstructure, the results showed that productivity (number of total words, total clauses, and T-unites) and syntactic complexity (average of T-unit length and subordination index) were predominantly similar in ASD and LM children. However, children with ASD scored lower than their CAM counterparts (P < 0.001). At the macrostructure level, we found that the total score of story grammar elements and the number of story grammars in the narrative production of children with ASD were lower than those in both CAM and LM children (P < 0.001).    Conclusion: The present study, thus, showed that creating a coherent narrative could be more demanding for children with ASD than productivity and syntactic complexity.

Background and Aim Phonological awareness skills, as part of phonological processing abilities, can predict the extent of success in acquiring written and reading skills. Phonological awareness skills are of concern in children with severe and profound hearing loss, which has been less studied in this population. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate these skills in Cochlear-Implanted (CI) children and compare them with their healthy counterparts. Methods & Materials The study population included 25 CI children and 25 healthy children, aged 4-6 years, who were monolingual Persian speakers. The selected CI and healthy children were selected from the Rehabilitation Center of Naqmeh and the Kindergartens in Mashhad, City, Iran, respectively. After selecting each participant, the test of phonological awareness was administered. To compare the mean scores of each subtest, the obtained data were analyzed in SPSS v. 21 using the Mann-Whitney U test. Ethical Considerations This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences (Code: IR. MUMS. REC. 1396. 263). Results The mean scores of CI children were significantly lower than that of their healthy peers in all phonological awareness subscales (P<0. 05). Conclusion The obtained data suggested that healthy children presented better performance than the CI children in the phonological awareness test. Poor phonological awareness skills in CI children seem to be associated with hearing deprivation before cochlear implantation; thus, it requires to speed up surgery at an early age and the implementation of an effective rehabilitation program.

Objectives: Word definitional skills (WDSs) were classified according to the quality of both semantic content and syntactic form. The aim of the present study was to investigate the syntactic development in WDSs in typically developing school- age children.Methods: In this cross-sectional and descriptive- analytical study, 150 of typically developing schoolage children participated by the multistage sampling method in the second to sixth grade from primary schools in 1, 7 and 17 municipal districts of Tehran. The definition skill was assessed with word definition task. The reliability was assessed by two independent values and the validity was determined by the content. The results were analyzed by the SPSS (22th version) statistical software and with the method of independent- samples T test, univariate analysis of variance and Tukey test.Results: The form analysis revealed that all children use phrase/clause or simple sentence, transitional form and Aristotelian form frequently, but by increasing the age, definitions were developed from simple syntactic structure into Aristotelian form, in fact mean score of the form in word definition was significantly increased by age (p<0.001).Discussion: Owing to the findings of this study, the development of word definitional skills in terms of form was developed from phrase/clause or simple sentence and transitional form responses into Aristotelian form. Also WDSs are closely related to academic success and the development of literacy.

Objectives: Reading impairments are the most prevalent problem at school. It is vital to have a valid and reliable test to assess the student’s reading skills. This study aims to develop the KHANA test as a valid and reliable test to evaluate reading skills in Persian-speaking students and study the accuracy, rate, and reading comprehension in different grades and genders Methods: This study included 87 students from second to seventh grade (75 typically developing students [TDS] and 12 students with reading impairments [SRI]). First, two preliminary parallel forms of student books, A and B, were prepared, both including 12 reading passages organized based on increasing difficulty as the student moved from one passage to the next. All the passages contain five comprehension questions. Then, the content and face validity, descriptive statistics, construct validity, and reliability, including test re-test, inter-rater, and the correlation between passages A and B were measured.  Results: Based on the results, all the passages and questions were valid. The passages can make significant differences in reading skills between different grades, while gender differences are limited. However, according to the test re-test analysis, the inter-rater reliability, and the correlation between the two passages, KHANA is a reliable tool and can discriminate SRI from TDS. Discussion: According to the results, KHANA seems a valid and reliable test to assess reading skills in Persian-speaking students from second to seventh grade.