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Although most EFL learners are equipped with a fair command of general English knowledge, they lack the sufficient proficiency required to communicate their thoughts and ideas fluently and accurately. This study was conducted to explore the impact of task-based language teaching (TBLT) on the development of EFL learners’ productive skills. The participants of this study were 25 undergraduate students majoring in English Language and Literature at a State University who had enrolled in a course entitled “Listening and Speaking (I).” The teaching method utilized for this course included three tasks (listening, writing, and speaking), and each task included three phases (pre-task, whilst-task, and post-task). For the purpose of data analysis, the researcher analyzed students’ four oral presentations and four writing assignments quantitatively and qualitatively. Furthermore, an attitude questionnaire was administered and a semi-structured interview was conducted to elicit the participants’ attitudes regarding (TBLT). The findings revealed that all the students could significantly improve their productive skills. Correspondingly, the results of the questionnaire and semi-structured interviews revealed participants’ positive attitudes regarding (TBLT). Students realized that developing their speaking and writing skills was a complex process, and through practicing, they could overcome their problems and enhance their fluency and accuracy.

News headlines like other pieces of writings use rhetorical devices. They are regarded as the initial informative and persuasive part of news stories. The goal of the present study was to analyze COVID-19-related native and non-native news headlines chosen from two main online news websites in Iran and England in terms of number and degree of utilization of sub-types of rhetorical devices. To this end, the 6-week corpus including 489 headlines relevant to corona-virus news (282 headlines selected from the BBC and 207 from the Tehran Times) were analyzed. Shams (2013) and Picello (2018) taxonomies were used to analyze all news headlines. The findings showed that ten rhetorical devices were found in these headlines. Alliteration was used most frequently, following closely behind were metonymy, rhyme, rhetorical question, depersonalization, hyperbole, metaphor, pun, cliché, and euphemism. Both alliteration and metonymy were frequently used in the headlines of the news stories. However, just simile and allusion were found in the Tehran Times headlines, but not with high frequency. The findings can provide insights into the understanding of rhetoric-specific conventions in news headlines for ELT teachers and students. Also, English teachers can use news headlines as authentic teaching materials in their language classrooms.

This study examined the development of text complexity for the past 25 years of reading comprehension passages in the National Matriculation English Test (NMET) in China. Text complexity of 206 reading passages at lexical, syntactic, and discourse levels has been measured longitudinally and compared across the years. The natural language processing tools used in the study included TAALES, TAALED, TAASSC, and TAACO. To compare the differences across the years at various levels of text complexity, ANOVA and MANOVA tests were conducted. The results suggested that lexical level text complexity revealed the most evident changes throughout the years, lexical sophistication, density, and diversity levels of the most recent years of reading passages have increased remarkably compared to the early years. The syntactic level text complexity indicated a moderate elevation toward the recent years of reading passages. For the discourse level text complexity, regarding cohesion, insignificant fluctuation occurred throughout the years and the general trend was not necessarily increasing. Combined, the results indicated that text complexity of the reading comprehension passages in the NMET over the past 25 years had been steadily increasing by including more low frequency and academic vocabulary, diversifying vocabulary in the passages, and complicating sentence and grammatical structures. The results were further examined against the general curriculum standards and guidelines to analyze whether the changes were reflected in the policies. It showed that the exams required a much larger vocabulary size than the number indicated in the guidelines, suggestions for test designers and pedagogical practices were provided accordingly.

M-learning is the enhanced form of e-learning that focuses on three common components i.e. place, time, and wireless device. The aim of this research is to identify the perceptions of the students regarding M-learning at Kandahar University. To this end, 191 male and female students responded to a questionnaire designed to ask their perceptions in this regard. The results from the study showed that students have positive attitudes towards M-learning and they are ready for M-learning approach in respect to using wireless devices, the Internet, and necessary applications. Additionally, they can also afford to buy the devices which support m-learning, however, half of the students ask for the providence of Internet through their respective university. Moreover, the Internet connection is also a big challenge especially for students who live in villages and areas far from cities. The study concludes with some issues for further research and some recommendations to authorities in higher education for better implementation of M-learning.

Over the years, much research has been done on the role of tasks in L2 learning, but little is known about how sequencing tasks affects listening comprehension. Thus, the present study evaluated the effect of sequencing repeated familiar tasks (SRFT) along three dimensions of complexity i.e. +/- visual support, +/- few elements, and +/- planning time. Sixty upper-intermediate EFL learners were randomly selected as experimental group (n=30) and control group (n=30) in this experimental research. To control the homogeneity of the participants and their topic familiarity, the Success Placement Test designed by Fricker (2007) and the listening comprehension test (developed by Richards, 2005) were administered respectively. Then the posttest of listening for IELTS which included 3 levels of task complexity was employed to analyze the results of SRFT. The participants in the experimental group were required to listen to keeping fit tasks ordered from simple to complex tasks during 10 sessions. The participants in the control group performed disordered tasks. T-test and SPSS version 20 were utilized to analyze the tests. Before employing treatment, the placement test addressed that both of the groups obtained no marked difference level of English language knowledge. They also displayed the same topic familiarity of listening comprehension on the pretest. In the end, the t-test indicates a positive influence of SRFT for the experimental group in the posttest. The findings of this study recommend sequencing tasks in English classes as a basic tool to improve the listening performance of learners.

Having witnessed the unprecedented prevalence of online education during the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, the present research was motivated to explore the challenges facing an EFL teacher throughout an online English course of intermediate level. To this aim, a process-tracing approach (Checkel, 2006) was employed to unravel the causal mechanisms involved in the beginning, middle, and end of the course. The results showed that deficient technological resources caused the greatest challenges throughout the course, especially in the initial and mid-sessions. Also, the two other causal categories, human and content resources, were at their peak at the beginning of the course and were no longer noticeable at the end of the course. The most troublesome challenges the teacher faced were platform limitations, internet connection, and human resources’ unpreparedness for online education. Furthermore, the teacher’s and most students’ technological knowledge, as well as their media literacy, increased by the end of the course, but some students’ rather slow adaptation to the sudden online environment challenged the teacher during the course. Finally, suggestions were made to prevent these challenges or handle them effectively upon occurrence, especially in developing countries, where the required infrastructure for online education is lacking, and the majority of teachers, students, and institutions might not be yet adequately prepared for the online mode of teaching and learning languages.

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.