مطالب

The present study strived to determine the degree to which collaborative tasks and EFL learners’ gender affected their flow experiences. To this end, first, the researchers selected 56 intermediate-level EFL learners in two intact classrooms at a private language institute in Urmia (Iran) as the participants. Second, they randomly assigned the classes to an experimental group and a control group. Third, they used a flow state questionnaire to determine the participants’ flow experiences prior to the onset of the study. Fourth, they provided the experimental group with collaborative language learning treatment during 12 sessions. Nonetheless, they deprived the control group of this treatment. Finally, they administered the flow state questionnaire to the groups anew to appraise the efficacy of collaborative tasks for augmenting the participants’ flow experiences. The results indicated that the above-mentioned tasks had an advantageous impact on the EFL learners’ flow state of mind. Furthermore, based on the results, female learners’ flow experiences were more positively affected by the collaborative tasks in comparison with the male learners’ flow experiences. The obtained results may empower the teacher educators, syllabus designers, and researchers to take account of the flow state of mind during the process of language acquisition.

Paralinguistic features are indispensable and crucial aspects of communication without which any utterance would lose its identity. On the other hand, confusion in cross-cultural communication is most often assigned to paralinguistic features. Despite the significant importance of paralinguistic clues in humans’ communication, only limited studies have tackled this issue. More specifically, despite the fact that paralinguistic features are culturally different, no study has investigated the possible relationship between these features and speaking performance of Persian-speaking learners of English. Hence, with this existing gap in the literature, in this study, we tried to scrutinize the impact of paralinguistic cues upon EFL learners’ speaking fluency in the Persian setting. To this objective, we recruited 40 first-year undergraduate female students of Linguistics at the University of Gonabad, utilizing non-random sampling method. Their English proficiency level was determined as lower-intermediate via the administration of Quick Oxford Placement Test. In our pre-test post-test experimental research, we allocated a five-week span of instruction for the purpose of teaching paralinguistic clues to the experimental group to see whether it could have a significant positive impact upon their speaking performance. The instrument we utilized to evaluate speaking capability of our participants was Researcher-Made Speaking Test. The results of our study demonstrated that utilizing paralinguistic features boosted students’ speaking capability. On the light of our finding, it could be concluded that paralinguistic features could be employed for the first-year undergraduate students to enhance their communicative performance. Future studies in diverse EFL settings, could shed light on this conclusion.

Background : High altitude environments can cause a range of physiological changes in the body, and adolescents may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of altitude sickness. Acetazolamide has been shown to be an effective treatment for altitude sickness, but further research is needed to determine its impact on physiological variables among adolescents at high altitude. Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of acetazolamide in adolescents over 17 days at high altitude. Materials and Methods: Twenty-five healthy adolescents volunteered for this study and were randomly separated into control group (CG, n=12) and acetazolamide group (AG, n=13). AG took 250mg of acetazolamide. Resting Heart Rate (RHR) and Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) using the Lake Louise questionnaire were measured each morning and afternoon during field testing; Resting Blood Pressure (RBP) was measured each afternoon. Pre- and post-blood samples (haemoglobin (Hb) and haematocrit (Hct)) were taken at sea level (SL) one week before departure and within 40 hours on return to SL. Results : Significant differences between groups for RHR on days 2, 3 and 5; systolic blood pressures for day 4 and 13 ( P <0.05). No significant difference between groups for diastolic blood pressure, pre- and post-altitude for Hb, Hct and PV. AMS scores did not differ from the two groups except on morning of day 12 ( P <0.05). Discussion and Conclusion : Results revealed that acetazolamide did not significantly induce changes to adolescents’ AMS scores and physiological changes. However, adolescents may consume acetazolamide to achieve lower RHR that may enable them to accommodate to HA, prolonging exercise in similar environments.