Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research
Volume:8 Issue: 1, Jan 2020

Since its inception, pragmatic competence has been studied vastly; the majority of these studies, however, have examined pragmatic production, and pragmatic comprehension is chiefly under- researched. This lack of adequate research also stands true for the underlying pragmatic comprehension processes and strategies. Therefore, the present investigation aimed to find out L2 pragmatic comprehension strategies used by 40 (F=20, M=20) Iranian EFL learners and to discover whether there would be any differences between interlanguage pragmatic comprehension strategies used by male and female learners. Participants, selected based on stratified random sampling, were chosen on the basis of their performance on a paper-based TOEFL out of the initial sample of 90 students. Three data collection instruments were employed: a validated pragmatic test (Tajeddin & Ahmadi Safa, 2010), concurrent verbal think-aloud protocols, and retrospective verbal think-aloud protocols. Data analysis revealed three classes of pragmatic comprehension strategies. First, socio- pragmatic strategies that included politeness, formality, indirectness, and distance/power influences. Second, lexico-pragmatic strategies which were more frequent than grammatical strategies in the second category. Third, the cognitive strategies that comprised both top-down and bottom-up processing strategies in L2 pragmatic comprehension. Furthermore, it was found that gender did not play any significant role in the use of pragmatic comprehension strategies. Study findings suggest that explicit teaching of pragmatic comprehension strategies helps learners promote their L2 pragmatic comprehension.

Research on EFL teachers’ beliefs and practices is significant for teaching effectiveness. This paper investigated and compared the convergences and discrepancies between an EFL teacher’s stated beliefs and observed classroom practices related to teaching an L2 speaking-oriented Topical Debates course. In mainland China, Topical Debates is a credit-bearing course that focuses on addressing both sides of an issue, as well as the associated different views. It is a compulsory course for English majors and an optional course for non-English majors. A qualitative case study with interviews and classroom observations was applied over two months. The findings indicate that the teacher generally practiced what she believed in the classrooms. Although some discrepancies existed, the reasons are related to the context of the teaching as well as learner factors, including their lack of preparation and their language proficiency level. The findings also demonstrate that this teacher held many common educational beliefs, which are highly crucial for teaching Topical Debates, such as critical thinking and logical thinking. The results suggest that it is necessary for EFL teachers to regularly and systematically examine the relations between their beliefs and practices through reflective practices for a better monitoring of their daily teaching practicums.

Recently, the field of instructed pragmatics has seen a shift of paradigm from the prevailing cognitive approaches to socially-oriented ones, revolving around the notions like collaborative dialogue and sociocultural theory. Drawing on the notion of collaborative dialogue, this study investigates the extent to which teacher's scaffolding and peers' collaborative dialogue assist EFL learners' to produce requests, apologies, and refusals. It also explores the effect of symmetrical and asymmetrical proficiency pairings during the participants' collaborative dialogue on the production of speech acts. To this end, three intermediate-level intact classes were randomly assigned to the teacher's scaffolding (TS), peers' collaborative dialogue (PCD), and control groups. The PCD group was also divided into symmetrical and asymmetrical pairs based on their pragmatic pretest scores. The treatment lasted for 11 sessions. Each session involved the metapragmatic instruction followed by pragmatic problem-solving tasks, with the TS group getting the teacher's scaffolding and the PCD group collaborating in pairs while doing the tasks. The ANOVA and independent samples t-test results of the post-test scores revealed the superiority of the PCD group over the TS group. Asymmetrical pairs were also found to outperform their symmetrical counterparts. The findings reveal the potentiality of peer mediators in L2 pragmatic acquisition and point to interlanguage pragmatic gains associated with an asymmetrical proficiency pairing.

As each and every language learner is subject to assessment, a sound and valid assessment plays a pivotal role in foreign language education. This study focuses on how assessment is perceived by English as a foreign language (EFL) students in the Turkish EFL context with the participation of 481 EFL students from 24 K-12 level schools and 8 universities. A mixed-methods research design was adopted, and the data were collected through a questionnaire, follow-up interview, and observation. The results showed that the students were not satisfied with the assessment practices and they did not feel like they were assessed. It was also observed that the traditional approach focusing on the formal properties of English was commonly practiced while assessing the students. Moreover, it was found that the assessment quality in the schools was low and it was taken as a formal requirement to grade students. The final part of the paper suggests the need for a comprehensive teacher-training in assessment to increase the assessment literacy of English teachers.

The present study was an attempt to investigate the differential effect/s of three different planning time scenarios (i.e. 0 min, 10 min, & 20 min), as well as three task conditions of (1) topic given, (2) topic and ideas given, and (3) topic, ideas and macrostructure given on EFL learners L2 writing complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF). One-hundred-eight male and female participants were randomly assigned to three time-conditions, each with 36 members. Each time-condition group was itself divided into three smaller groups of 12, each with a particular task condition. The results of the comparison of the groups who were engaged in the argumentative writing task revealed that planning time significantly influenced the complexity of the essays, and the writers in the 20-minute planning time group produced more complex texts compared with those in the zero-minute planning time group. However, no significant effect of task conditions, as well as no interaction between planning time and task conditions were found. Moreover, task conditions affected the general accuracy of the writers’ performance in all tasks. The pairwise comparisons showed a marginally better accuracy of texts in the condition of topic, ideas, and macrostructure given as opposed to the topic given condition. The findings of this study provide beneficial implications for language teachers and learners in developing their writing quality particularly with regard to the CAF triad, and stress the significance of planning time before conducting a written output task in the complexity of the output.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the online English information searching strategies (OEISS) used by university students studying English as a foreign language (EFL). Students’ background characteristics were also examined to determine whether they influence the students’ searching strategies. This study revised and used the Online Information Searching Strategy Inventory (OISS) developed by Tsai (2009). A survey questionnaire was administered to 537 university students recruited from 11 universities. The results indicated that the participants used OEISS at an average level. In addition, significant differences were found on how students used OEISS in developing their English reading ability, their purposes for online reading, and their time spent online. Moreover, contrary to previous findings, no significant difference was found between males and females in the use of OEISS. Lastly, the majority of students were found to avoid using disorientation strategies. This research provided information that compliments the present literature on OEISS for EFL university students.

This study elucidated how humanistic teaching as manifested in teachers’ error correction influences EFL learners’ engagement, motivation, and language achievement. the present study was carried out in a language Institute in Mashhad, Iran. The population comprised 42 advanced female learners. To investigate how error treatment will affect EFL learners’ engagement, intrinsic motiv ation and language achievement, a mixed -methods design incorporating both quantitative (experimental design) and qualitative (interview & observation) methods (QUANqual) was employed. The participants were divided into control and experimental groups. Speaking errors of the participants of the experimental group were corrected by three methods of corrective feedback including peer-correction, elicitation, and repetition, whereas, speaking errors of the participants of control group were directly corrected by the teacher. To measure the intrinsic motivation, the MSLQ questionnaire (Pintrich, et al., 1991) was employed. Students’ engagement was determined through Tool-school engagement scale, which was assesses behavioral, emotional, and cognitive aspects of academic engagement (Fredericks, Blumenfeld, Friedel, & Paris, 2005). A Babel test was utilized to assess language proficiency. To examine the effect of corrective feedback on intrinsic interest, an independent samples t-test was run. The results substantiated the efficiency of corrective feedback in enhancing intrinsic motivation. A one-way between-groups multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was utilized to investigate the role of corrective feedback in Cognitive, Behavioral, and Emotional Engagement. It was revealed that all three types of engagement were influenced and the highest difference was observed in Emotional engagement and the lowest difference was obtained for Behavioral engagement. Regarding language achievement, the results implied that corrective feedback utilized in the experimental group resulted in higher language achievement. Twenty-five percent of the whole participants were interviewed after the term. The findings analyzed via MAXQDA software were in line with the results of the quantitative phase.

Potential error in human knowledge is the main driving force behind replication research, a relevant corollary of critical approach to scientific knowledge. Accordingly, we come back to a study to verify it and reduce possible chance factors. Replication research starts right after the publication of one particular previous research study that attracted you, rather than a set of studies. Replicating a study sets us on a journey back to the history of our interest area, due probably to a failure in the previous study.

The writer capitalizes on the notion of a transdisciplinary approach to SLA. In chapter one, Introduction, the writer elaborates on eight themes on which the entire book rests. The book comes into nine chapters, each chapter corresponding to a theme save chapter one. Where possible, the writer has made an endeavor to embellish different concepts with examples, often real life ones. Furthermore, the book is embroidered with a ‘pedagogical activities’ section which I think is the linchpin of the book.