Iranian Journal of Applied Linguistics
Volume:15 Issue: 1, Mar 2012

This study was designed to assess the relative contributions of vocabulary and syntactic knowledge as predictors of reading comprehension performance. It also sought to investigate the interrelationship between syntactic and word knowledge and reading comprehension performance. Participants included 159 male freshman and sophomore Iranian high school students. Data were collected through the reading section of a retired version of Preliminary English Test (2004), Vocabulary Levels Test, Word Associates Test, and Syntactic Knowledge Test. The results revealed that both grammar and vocabulary scores correlated positively with reading comprehension scores. Also, vocabulary correlated significantly with reading comprehension but not as strongly as syntactic knowledge did. Our analysis revealed that syntax explains a larger portion of the reading variance. To examine whether depth / breadth of vocabulary knowledge or syntax may have more predictive power in reading comprehension performance, multiple-regression analysis was conducted. Beta values indicated that grammar made statistically significant contribution to reading comprehension, although other variables explained the variance on the reading test. The results offer new insights into the significant mediating influence that learner’s knowledge of grammar may have in reading comprehension at low intermediate level.

Metaphors and images, as part of the learner's belief systems, seem to play a large part in language learning (Cortazzi & Jin, 1999). So, awareness of them can be of substantial value to teachers in dealing with language learning problems. Aiming to contribute to this awareness, this study sought to explore the images/metaphors English language learners hold about grammar learning. To elicit learner's images, a questionnaire was delivered to 350 adult English learners, including both males and females, with at least one year of serious language learning experience. It demanded the respondents to provide one or more images about learning grammar of English as a foreign language. One hundred and thirty-nine completed forms were content-analyzed and specific metaphors were identified and grouped under descriptive rubrics. Next, the specific images were examined and general and conceptually oriented categories were identified. The results of the content-analysis and categorization are reported and discussed in terms of their implications for language teaching practice.

This pseudo-longitudinal study adopted typical-error and corrective feedback approaches to investigating interlanguage fossilization. The errors in the argumentative essays of 76 Iranian EFL learners within and across three proficiency levels were identified and classified using the model proposed by Gass and Selinker (1994). The learners were first provided with implicit and then explicit feedback to see if the two feedback types would improve written production, and if there were errors that persisted. The results indicated that word choice, plural, word form and article “the” were the most frequent types of errors, with word choice topping the list. The results also showed that, although providing learners with feedback could lead to a reduction in errors, explicit feedback was a more effective strategy. However, the t-test results demonstrated that the short-term impact of feedback could not be sustained over time, a finding congruent with those of Truscott (2007) who questioned the efficacy of error correction. Moreover, the findings revealed that the error categories of pronoun, word order, passive and possessive were likely candidates of fossilization because, although for all the other error types implicit feedback could be beneficial, these showed resistance to correction and needed explicit feedback to be eliminated.

The main purpose of this study was to construct and validate a Computerized version of Dynamic Assessment (C-DA) and examine its effectiveness in enhancing reading comprehension. Feasibility and concern for psychometric properties of testing are issues that have limited the use of DA approaches. In this study, C-DA is offered as a solution for overcoming such limitations. To this end, a software package named Computerized Dynamic Reading Test (CDRT) was developed. The software is capable of providing test takers with strategy-based hints. For each test taker, two scores are assigned by the software; a non-dynamic score which is based on test taker's first try of each item and a dynamic score which is based on the average hints they have employed. One hundred and four university students took the test. The findings of the study indicated that while observing the psychometric standards of testing namely, reliability and validity, C-DA was useful both in improving student's reading comprehension ability and in obtaining information about their potentiality for learning which goes beyond and over the initial performance level. While some test takers made the best use of the hints and could enhance their comprehension of the text, others could not use them to their advantage. The Information obtained from DA enables teachers to provide students with more individualized and consequently more effective instruction.

This study explores the relationship between metacognitive awareness and 2 aspects of vocabulary knowledge (i.e., declarative versus skill) in “more explicit” and “less explicit” language learning groups. Also, it investigates whether declarative aspect, operationalized in vocabulary size, and skill aspect, operationalized in the productive use of vocabulary, differ in the more explicit and less explicit language learning groups. To these ends, 80 Iranian EFL learners, majoring in English Translation at Shahrekord and Esfahan Payam-e-Noor Universities were selected through Oxford Placement Test. Schraw’s (1994) Metacognitive Awareness Test was used to measure the participants’ degree of the explicit knowledge; Nation’s (1990) Vocabulary Levels Test and Laufer and Nation’s (1999) Productive Vocabulary Levels Test were also used to measure their skill and declarative knowledge, respectively. Correlational statistics indicated a significant and positive correlation between metacognitive awareness and declarative knowledge, but a significant and negative correlation between metacognitive awareness and skill aspect of vocabulary. Moreover, t tests indicated that the more explicit group was better in the declarative aspect whereas the less explicit one was better in the skill aspect of vocabulary knowledge. The findings shed light on the cognitive dimension of vocabulary learning.

Although a great deal of research has been done to probe the effects of task complexity variables on the specific features of L2 learners’ output along the resource-directing dimension of the Cognition Hypothesis (Robinson, 2001a, 2003, 2005), only a few studies (e.g. Gilabert, 2007; Robinson, 2001a, 2001b; Yuan & Ellis, 2003) have explored the effects of the resource-dispersing variables of task complexity on L2 output. Neither is there a rich literature on the effects of mutual interaction of these variables and task condition variables on the output. In addition, few studies have directly involved learners in oral tasks; on the contrary, most of the previous studies have focused on written tasks and the oral production resulting from the performances of those tasks. This study investigated the effects of resource-dispersing variables and task condition variables on the complexity of L2 output. To this end, Preliminary English Test (PET) and an interview were administered to 20 EFL learners. After ranking the scores from the highest to the lowest, two expert/expert pairs and two novice/novice pairs were chosen to perform four tasks. The tasks were sequenced from the least to the most complex and the pairs were required to perform each task at a session, one pair after another. Their performances were tape-recorded and transcribed, and the data were subjected to statistical analysis. The results of the study indicated that, no matter whether the pairs were novices or experts, their output became more and more complex as the tasks increased in complexity. This is incompatible with the claim made by the Cognition Hypothesis that task complexity along the resource dispersing variables does not lead to the complexity of the output (Robinson, 2001a, 2005).