Comparative Effect of Authoritative vs. Facilitative Virtual Intervention Models on the Development of Second Language Speaking Components of Iranian EFL Learners

This study investigated the comparative effect of authoritative vs. facilitative virtual intervention models on the development of second language speaking components of Iranian EFL Learners. The study participants were 60 intermediate male and female EFL learners at Imam Reza University in Mashhad who were selected out of the total number of 80 participants taking a standard Preliminary English Test (PET) as a language proficiency test. Subsequently, the participants were randomly divided into two experimental groups and received a standard speaking pretest. Next, one experimental group received authoritative intervention and the other one received facilitative intervention. After ten sessions of treatment, the speaking section of another version of PET, as the posttests, was given to the participants. Finally, the learners took part in a semi-structured interview. The use of SPSS examined the quantitative data, and the outcomes were examined through a series of t-tests and MANOVA. The results of quantitative analyses revealed that Facilitative Intervention (FI) model was more effective than the Authoritative Intervention (AI) for the L2 speaking development of Iranian EFL learners. Another point of variance was concentrating on the grammatical accuracy in measuring L2 speaking. For the AI group, grammatical errors and pronunciation were more important, whereas for the FI group, pronunciation and lexical resources were more central, followed by discourse management and interactive communication.