رجب اسفندیاری

The present study aimed to examine the effect of three vocabulary techniques (dictionary use, etymological analysis, and glossing) on the Iranian ESP learners' vocabulary production. Forty-five university students majoring in architecture at Azad University, Anzali branch,  participated in this study. They were divided into three groups, and each group was randomly assigned to one kind of treatment condition (dictionary use group, etymology group, and glossing group). The Michigan proficiency test was used to ensure the homogeneity of the  ESP learners. The three experimental groups received instruction for three weeks. ESP learners took a vocabulary production test (VPT). A one-way between groups ANOVA was conducted to analyse the data. The results showed that dictionary use improved ESP learners' vocabulary production, and dictioary use group outperformed the other two groups. The study concludes that dictionary use faciliates vocabulary production.

More innovative test methods may measure language learners’ test performance more accurately, contributing to much fairer decisions. This study examined Iranian language learners’ performance on cloze-elide test as an innovative, integrative test method. It specifically focused on investigating whether personality types correlated with their performance and whether personality types could predict their test performance. Data were collected from 283 Iranian language learners at six Iranian language institutes, who took the cloze-elide test, the Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency (MTELP), and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI-M) Personality Type Inventory. The data were quantitatively analysed using SPSS (version 22). The results of Pearson correlation showed a positive correlation between thinking and performance on cloze-elide test; by contrast, extroversion and feeling negatively correlated with language learners’ performance on cloze-elide test. Furthermore, the results from the standard multiple regression showed that the strongest personality type for predicting language learners’ performance on the test was introversion. The findings suggest the interaction between personality types and test methods may better explain test results. The article concludes with some implications for curriculum development.

Previous research has shown the differential effects of task-related prompts on syntactic complexity, grammatical accuracy, and lexical diversity when L2 learners use writing prompts to produce a piece of writing. However, the extent to which the freedom in the selection of prompts affects these linguistic facets in L2 argumentative essays is still unknown. The present study, therefore, was designed to investigate differences between syntactic complexity, grammatical accuracy, and lexical diversity in argumentative essays. Seventy-one upper-intermediate male and female Iranian English-as-a-foreign language (EFL) learners from Imam Khomeini International University in Qazvin and Safir Plus institute in Tehran participated in this study. Five-paragraph essays were used to collect data, and SPSS (version 25) was used to analyze the data. Results of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed statistically significant differences between syntactic complexity, grammatical accuracy, and lexical diversity. Results from post-hoc analyses revealed statistically significant differences between lexical diversity and grammatical accuracy as well as lexical diversity and syntactic complexity, but no statistically significant differences were found between grammatical accuracy and syntactic complexity in argumentative essays.

Morphological complexity is one of the dimensions of complexity that has been increasingly analyzed over the last few years. However, results from previous studies drawing on only a single text type are inconclusive. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of text types (descriptive, narrative, and expository) on the morphological complexity of essays written by Iranian English language learners. The participants included 87 lower-intermediate male and female L2 learners at six language institutes in Qazvin, Iran, who were selected from 127 language learners taking an Oxford Quick Placement test. The participants wrote on each text type in three consecutive weeks as a part of their classroom activity. The morphological complexity of verbs and nouns was separately calculated using the morphological complexity index. The data were analyzed using a series of Friedman and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Tests. The findings did not show any statistically significant differences across text types for nominal inflectional diversity; however, verbal inflectional diversity was statistically significant across text types, with narrative essays morphologically more complex than descriptive and expository essays. The findings may have theoretical and pedagogical implications for researchers and L2 teachers.

Attention to form in input now seems to have found its way into second language acquisition (SLA), and it is recommended that language learners’ consciousness be raised for language learning to occur and become intake. Input enhancement and output have received considerable attention in recent SLA as two attention-drawing devices. In the present study, we chose visual input enhancement to examine its effect on noticing and acquisition. To that end, two classes were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Both groups were exposed to ten different short stories for ten sessions for five weeks, but the type of exposure was different for each group. The English third person singular was highlighted for the experimental group through formatting techniques such as underlining, italicizing, and capitalising. Language learners in the experimental group were supposed to answer the questions following each short story and write a summary for it. Both groups were post tested one week after the treatment on both Noticing Test and a Written Production Test. The results of two independent t-tests showed the superiority of experimental group over the control group in noticing and learning the third person singular. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Many scholars have long contributed to making the instruction of oral production more effectively. This study compared three task types (information-gap, reasoning-gap, and opinion-gap tasks) and two cognitive styles (field-independence and field-dependence) regarding their effects on English as a foreign language (EFL( learners’ oral production linguistic complexity. The current study was quantitative in research methodology and followed the comparison group design. Initially, 230 Iranian learners were selected using convenience sampling. After the participants sat the proficiency test, the number of participants was reduced to 180 BA students at the university of Mohaghegh Ardabili and Islamic Azad University, Ardabil Branch. They were randomly divided into six experimental groups. Two groups were randomly assigned to field-independent (FI) and field-dependent (FD) information-gap tasks, the next two groups to FI and FD reasoning-gap tasks, and the other two groups to FI and FD opinion-gap task types. Each group consisted of 30 advanced EFL learners and was taught oral production using one of the above-mentioned task types. Michigan test of English Language Proficiency test (Phakiti, 2003) and group embedded figures test (Witkin et al., 1971) were used to determine proficiency level and measure cognitive styles. A two-way ANCOVA (analysis of covariance) procedure was run to examine the data. The results revealed significant differences among task types and cognitive styles, with FD learners and opinion-gap task being the most effective on EFL Learners' oral production linguistic complexity. The interaction between cognitive styles and task types is more likely to account for language learners’ oral performance.

Pragmatic comprehension is a central albeit under-researched dimension of pragmatic competence in which most EFL learners suffer from serious deficiencies; therefore, the current study was launched to compare the effects of the Non-Computer Mediated Instruction (NCMI) with Computer-Mediated Instruction (CMI), Multiuser Virtual Environments (MUVEs), and Mobile Augmented Reality Games (MARGs) on Iranian EFL learners’ comprehension of English speech-acts. Moreover, this study attempted to cross-compare the effects of the implicit, explicit, and balanced combination of explicit and implicit instruction and synchronous vs. asynchronous CMI impacts on learners' speech-act pragmatic comprehension. Seven equal size groups of 20 upper-intermediate EFL learners took part in this study. Three NCMI groups (implicit, explicit, and balanced explicit-implicit), two synchronous and asynchronous CMI groups (SCMI & ACMI), one MUVE group, and a MARG group were taught based on their assigned 10 two-hour sessions treatments. A validated listening pragmatic comprehension test was used as a pretest and post-test. Data analysis using one-way ANCOVA showed that the utilised MUVE (OpenSim) was more effective than other types of treatments on learners’ pragmatic comprehension development, and both CMI and NMCI were also better than the used MARGs (Batman Bat-Tech Edition and Harry Potter-Wizards Unite). Moreover, those explicit and balanced explicit-implicit interventions were significantly better than the implicit instruction. Finally, the SCMI could enhance L2 pragmatic comprehension significantly better than the ACMI. These findings pedagogically imply the use of MUVEs, SCMI, and balanced explicit-implicit interventions can strengthen L2speech-act pragmatic comprehension.

The present paper examines the theory of conceptual metaphor, using the theoretical framework of the cognitive writing model to improve EFL learners’ writing creativity and metacognitive writing awareness. To that end, 120 male and female EFL Bachelor-of-Arts (BA) students majoring in English language from Foreign Languages Center at Islamic Karaj Azad University in Iran voluntarily participated in this research study. The participants were randomly assigned into two equal groups, with the experimental group receiving the cognitive instruction and the control group the traditional instruction. Using a two-way analysis of co-variance (ANCOVA) procedure, the researchers assessed the posttest scores of both groups. The results of the analysis indicated that the experimental group significantly enhanced its scores in the posttest of metacognitive writing strategies and writing creativity compared to the control group. Findings suggest that writing is not drafting and rewriting prefabricated patterns, but it is a recursive and interactive process in which writers attempt to construct meaning and create original ideas using real-life experiences. Findings also imply that conceptual metaphors are powerful literary devices for improving EFL learners’ idea generation, writing creativity, and metacognitive writing awareness which deserve to be taught at universities.

The advent of ChatGPT, an all-purpose intelligent Chabot created by Open AI, has created a multitude of prospects and opportunities within the realm of language education. Owing to its exceptional capacity to produce a wide range of textual outputs, ChatGPT responds to queries in a matter of seconds. The present study aimed to examine the appropriateness of ChatGPT-based instruction and flipped language learning instruction (FLLI) in classrooms in terms of enhancing EFL learners’ interactional metadiscourse realization across language proficiency levels. Sixty-three English language learners were divided into four distinct groups: 16 in the advanced and 16 in the intermediate FLLI group, 15 in the advanced, and 16 in the intermediate ChatGPT group. Before initiating the study, all participants were given a pretest that specifically assessed the use of interactional metadiscourse markers (IMMs) in argumentative writing. The four experimental groups were separately exposed to ChatGPT-based instruction and FLLI during eight sessions. Results from a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedure through SPSS (version 25) revealed that the ChatGPT-based instruction was more effective than FLLI, and both intermediate and advanced language learners following the ChatGPT-based instruction used IMMs in argumentative writing more successfully. Moreover, the participants’ perceptions of ChatGPT and FLLI were analyzed through MAXQDA (version 2020), showing more positive attitudes towards using ChatGPT in language learning in general and IM realization in particular. The findings have the potential to provide advantages for teacher educators in terms of utilizing ChatGPT learning approaches.

Although researchers have analyzed the formal, syntactic, and functional behavior of cleft sentences in the English language across various genres, their distributional frequencies have received very little attention in academic research genres. Therefore, drawing on a 20,389,297-word corpus including 1,521 research articles (RAs), 116 PhD dissertations, and 48 textbooks, in applied linguistics, this study followed Biber et al.’s (1999) and Collins’ (2002) models to identify and analyze four major types of cleft structures in our corpus. Using a corpus-based research design, we drew on concordances to extract the target cleft structures. The computer program AntConc was used to identify instances of cleft sentences, and the statistical significance of the findings was evaluated through separate chi-square tests. The results of frequency analysis showed varying degrees of these grammatical structures across the three research genres, with textbooks including the highest number of clefts, followed by dissertations, and RAs. The results promise pedagogical implications for non-native English student writers to familiarize themselves with conventions in academic research genre writing for publication purposes. The findings suggest that academic research genre writing affects the frequency and use of these complex grammatical structures.  

As the world evolves into more globalized, ethnically, and linguistically mixed societies, Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) stages itself as a crucial asset. This fact holds particularly true when it comes to increasingly globalized healthcare academic milieux, where cultivating ICC is crucial for healthcare professionals to interact effectively with patients from diverse cultural backgrounds. The present study, employing a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest control group design, explored the development of ICC among nursing, as the control group (27 participants), and medical students (32), as the experimental one through explicit ICC training at Zanjan University of Medical Sciences in Zanjan, Iran. Hence, targeted ICC training effectiveness in enhancing the cultural empathy (CE), flexibility (F), social initiative (SI), open-mindedness (OM), and emotional stability (ES) of medical students was investigated employing the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) as a key tool to gauge learners' ICC before and after the training. The findings showed a significant improvement in the participants' all ICC sub-scales, indicating the positive impact of explicit training on the development of CE, F, SI, and OM.

Language teachers should be aware of the effect of various task types on L2 writing. The purpose of the present study was twofold: To investigate the effect of various task types, including graphic-writing task, decision-making task, and reasoning task, on L2 writing and to examine the relationship between working memory and L2 writing ability under three task conditions. To that end, 55 upper-intermediate male and female language learners from Dorsa Institute and Zabankadeh Meli in Hashtgerd participated in this study. Oxford Placement Test (OPT) test was used to homogenize the participants and Reading Span Test to test the working memory. Participants wrote an argumentative writing before and after the treatment. SPSS (version 25) was utilized to analyze the data. Results of data analysis showed statistically significant differences between graphic-writing task and the other two tasks while no significant differences were found between decision-making and reasoning tasks. Finding of the study showed the positive relationship between L2 writing and working memory. Implications of the study for the language learners are discussed.