مهدی مردانی

The concept of peer correction in foreign language teaching has been a dominant concern in recent years due to the increased consideration of learner-centered curricula. The researchers have concluded that active engagement happens when learners have to think and correct each other. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of peer correction on the pronunciation improvement of Iranian EFL learners in oral productions. To do this, two research questions were raised, and 60 participants were carefully chosen from among English language learning students at a private language school. By assigning a PET test, they were divided into two groups. In the peer correction group (experimental group), the participants corrected each other's pronunciation errors, and for the control group, learners’ errors were corrected by the teacher. This process continued for 20 sessions. A pre-test and a post-test were administered. The results showed that there is a significant difference in the pronunciation of the peer correction group compared to the other group, and the peer correction group outperformed the teacher correction group. It can be concluded that there is a direct relationship between using the peer corrective feedback method of correcting pronunciation and learners' pronunciation improvement in EFL classes.

This research investigated the impact of varying planning conditions and task types on the accuracy of pupils' speaking abilities. Utilizing the Oxford Placement Test (OPT), 80 intermediate female participants nominated for the research and assigned to four untouched classes. These classes were planned as the individual-planning personal task class (IPPT class), the individual-planning decision-making task class (IPDT class), the class-planning personal task class (CPPT class), and the class-planning decision-making task class (CPDT class). Two concurrent decision making tasks were planned to be conducted both at the beginning and at the end of the experiment, while a six-week intervention was scheduled in between. Three sessions were dedicated to administering the OPT test, the pretest, and the posttest; and the students accomplished two dissimilar task types under two diverse planning situations throughout the other three treatment meetings. The results from the one-way ANOVA discovered that pre-task planning conditions and task types significantly influence the accuracy of speaking. These outcomes reinforce the notion that planning conditions have meaningful results on pupils' accomplishment in personal and decision-making tasks. Consequently, both planning conditions proved real in enhancing students' performance in speaking tasks. It is suggested that educators should give considerable attention to pre-task planning to alleviate EFL pupils' challenges in attaining upper ranks of accuracy in their speaking abilities.

The present study made an attempt to examine cultural identity as a factor potentially prompting English language speaking production, an area that has only recently begun to receive much attention in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research. This study focused on three tasks to analyze the speaking performance of the participants (sixty EFL learners). As the first instrument, a modified Michigan test was used to select sixty male and female learners at the same level of proficiency from among 100 pre-intermediate learners of English language. The findings of the study showed that cultural identity affects speaking; that is, holding a secondary identity and readiness to learn a foreign language affects foreign language speaking of Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students.  The findings of the present study can be implied as a warning to both EFL learners and instructors in Iran that language learners do not show any interest in following a native-like accent. Moreover, the learners are not provided with the required facilities to improve their speaking skills.