مطالب

This study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of flipped instruction on the Iranian upper-intermediate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ appropriate use of request and refusal. The participants of the study included 60 upper-intermediate EFL learners from a language institute in Tehran, Iran, who were selected through the Quick Placement Test (QPT) from a total of 80 learners who were originally picked up based on convenience sampling in the form of two intact classes. Then, the two classes were randomly assigned to two groups namely, flipping group and control group. The two groups were subjected to 12 treatment sessions wherein instruction on the appropriate use of request and refusal was offered to the flipping group through explicit flipped instruction and to the control group through non-flipped instruction. The instruments used to collect the data included the Quick Placement Test (QPT) and Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT). The results showed that flipped instruction significantly affected the EFL learners’ appropriate use of request and refusal. According to the findings, EFL teachers are recommended to use flipping methods in an attempt to enhance EFL learners’ appropriate use of request and refusal.

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between listening assessment task types, time on task, and the use of listening strategy by Iranian EFL learners. For this purpose, a group of 44 Iranian EFL students (Males and Females; 14 to 25 years old) selected through convenience sampling from an English language institute in Sanandaj participated in this study. Then, they were randomly assigned into four experimental groups. In one group, note-taking was considered the listening assessment task, while in the second group oral reproduction was specified as the assessment task for assessing listening comprehension. After that, each group was further subdivided randomly into a shorter time-on-task group (20 minutes) and a longer time-on-task group (40 minutes). Next, all groups completed Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal, and Tafaghodtari’s (2006) Meta-cognitive Awareness Listening Strategy Questionnaire. A two-way ANOVA was run to examine the effects of both listening assessment task type and time on task on listening strategy use among the four groups. The results revealed that the students in the oral reproduction task with high time on task group significantly showed higher preferences for choosing Planning-Evaluation, Mental Translation, and Problem-Solving strategies and those in the note-taking with low time on task group preferred the Directed-Attention strategy, while those in the note-taking with high time on task group preferred Person-Knowledge strategy.