Teaching English Language
Volume:8 Issue: 21, Spring and Summer 2014

Considering the status of ''washback'' in validity theory and research، Messick warns that، to establish test validity، one should not rely merely on washback، with all its complexity، but should instead probe test design properties (i. e.، authenticity and directness) and test-use characteristics likely to produce or intensify washback. Authenticity ensures that nothing essential is missing in the assessment of the focal construct، or minimal construct-underrepresentation. Similarly، directness deals with minimal construct-irrelevant variance. This study aimed to explore inadequate representation of L2 pragmatics in EFL curriculum and instruction of Iranian high schools as negative washback of construct-underrepresentation of this important dimension of communicative competence in the high-stakes National University Entrance Test (NUET). The participants were 100 EFL teachers، a sample of 220 pre-NUET students، and 50 post-NUET students in northwest، center، and southwest of Iran. A method-triangulation procedure was employed using questionnaires، observations، and semi-structured interviews. The results showed that the test''s construct validity is compromised، meaning that NUET is too narrow and deficient، fails to sufficiently sample pragmatic competence as an important facet of 2discrete-point lexico-grammatical knowledge. Further، the findings demonstrated intense negative washback on L2 teaching-learning processes resulting from using NUET scores for drawing high-stakes action inferences in Iran. The findings suggest that، to facilitate optimal positive washback and adequate sampling of the criterion domain in L2 education، NUET must strive to minimize construct-underrepresentation and construct-irrelevant variance in design.

The present study aimed at investigating the relationship among critical thinking, emotional intelligence and speaking ability of Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 100 learners majoring in English at private language institutes in Sanandaj were selected as the participants of the study. The participants filled out the Bar-On (1997) emotional intelligence questionnaire, took the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST) Form B, and sat an interview, the results of which were checked by Language Oral Ability Assessment checklist adapted from IELTS Speaking Skill Test. The results of the multiple correlation analyses revealed emotional intelligence, followed by critical thinking, correlated significantly highly with learners’ speaking ability. The results also revealed all components of emotional intelligence significantly correlated with learners’ speaking ability. The results further showed there was a significant positive relationship between critical thinking and emotional intelligence. Further analyses revealed that almost half of the components of emotional intelligence correlated significantly highly with critical thinking. The results of multiple regression analyses indicated that emotional intelligence was the strongest predictor of speaking ability followed by critical thinking. The results further indicated that among the components of emotional intelligence, assertiveness, social responsibility, and reality testing significantly predicted learners’ speaking ability.The results also showed among the components of emotional intelligence, only assertiveness significantly predicted learners’ critical thinking. The findings imply that learners who are emotionally intelligent and are critical thinkers are more capable in speaking skill. The results as well as the implications of the study are discussed in more detail in the paper.

It is mostly observed that textbooks are a key component in most language programs especially in the process of teaching and learning a second/foreign language. As a result, a number of studies have been carried out to evaluate English language teaching (ELT) materials. Trying to contribute to this growing body of literature, the present study was conducted to evaluate the eight most popular global textbooks which are taught in Iranian ELT institutes in terms of their task types according to Nunan’s (1999) classification of the tasks. To this end, all the tasks of each textbook were categorized in their major and minor associated groups. The results revealed that linguistic tasks were the most frequent type of tasks in almost all of the textbooks. Moreover, there was a significant difference among the frequency of task types in these course books. Finally Total English, English Result and Interchange proved to be the most balanced textbooks respectively in comparison to others with regard to each task types. It was concluded that unlike the common belief, being recently published does not guarantee the appropriateness of textbooks for language teaching program. The results of this study could be helpful for teachers to realize the types of the tasks and exercises in the available ELT textbooks and consequently help their students develop their English proficiency by adapting and mixing different types of tasks from different textbooks.

The present research aims to examine the influence of response format on the reliability and validity of grammaticality judgment tests. To this end, the grammaticality judgment test developed by Gass (1994) was selected as the instrument which was manipulated in terms of the response format while the original items remained intact. Thus, in the first phase of the study, a multiple-choice GJ test was constructed to be compared with the traditional form, i.e., the dichotomous type. The two tests were administered to a group of 110 students. With regard to validity which was arrived at by means of internal correlations proposed by Alderson, Clapham and Wall (1995). In the second phase, GJ tests were developed in ordinal and likert scales to which 49 students responded. The analysis unveiled the effect of response format on reliability. Concerning validity, which was examined via a post-test questionnaire, response format was selected as the second reason behind inconsistency in responses from participants’ view.

This study attempted to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and linguistic competence of some Iranian learners of English in the areas of structure, written expression, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and composition. A forty-item test of linguistic proficiency secured from TOEFL preparatory books with the Cronbach’s Alpha reliability of 0.742, the thirty-three-item Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale, and a task of writing in English were administered to 110 Iranian undergraduate students of English language and literature to elicit the necessary data for study and analysis. Seventy-nine respondents succeeded to finish the tests and the tasks. While there is much literature supporting the existence of a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and academic success, a series of Pearson correlation tests applied to the results from the proficiency test, the essay task, and emotional profiles of the participants did not indicate any significant positive relationship between their emotional intelligence scores and their scores on proficiency tests. The article discusses reasons for these counter-intuitive findings.

Since the 1990s, a substantial body of interventionist interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) research has probed the efficacy of various instructional pragmatics approaches, with speech acts serving as its prime target. The present study compared the short-term and long-term effects of individual and collaborative output-based instruction on EFL learners’ acquisition of English “apologies,” “requests,” and “refusals.” For this purpose, 54 intermediate EFL learners, making up an individual output group (N=26) and a collaborative output group (N=28), participated in the study. Individual and collaborative output-based instruction was offered over nine consecutive sessions (three sessions on each speech act). Each of the nine treatment sessions involved the presentation of video input containing the speech acts under investigation, followed by individual and collaborative output production and manipulation tasks. Moreover, a 24-item WDCT was used to measure the participants’ speech act production ability at the pre-treatment, immediate post-treatment, and delayed post-treatment phases of the study. The results indicated significant gains for both individual and collaborative output groups from the pretest to the immediate and delayed posttests, and the greater efficacy of collaborative output over individual output. The findings reveal the potential of learner output, both individual and collaborative, for ILP development and the greater advantage collaborative output production and manipulation tasks can offer.