intermediate

As the main part of a large-scale project, the present study investigated the relationship among reflective thinking, listening anxiety, and listening comprehension of Iranian EFL learners with regard to their proficiency level. To this end, 223 (106 intermediate and 117 advanced) adult male and female Iranian EFL learners from a private language institute took part in the study by completing the Reflective Thinking Questionnaire (RTQ) developed by Kember et al., (2000), the Foreign Language Listening Anxiety Scale (FLLAS) developed by Kim (2000) and a listening comprehension test selected from the listening part of IELTS. Using factor analysis and Chronbach’s Alpha, the questionnaires were revalidated and their reliability was re-estimated. The results of Pearson product moment correlations indicated there was a statistically significant: (a) positive association between reflective thinking and listening comprehension, (b) reverse correlation between listening anxiety and listening comprehension, and (c) reverse relationship between reflective thinking and listening anxiety of Iranian EFL learners. Furthermore, the results of multiple regression analysis indicated listening anxiety, compared to reflective thinking, was a significantly stronger predictor of listening comprehension. Additionally, the results of MANOVA revealed there was a significant difference between intermediate and advanced EFL learners with respect to their reflective thinking and listening anxiety. In the light of the findings of the study, foreign language education policy makers in general and EFL teachers in particular are thus recommended to introduce ways to enhance reflective thinking of the students and decrease their listening anxiety if they are to improve their listening comprehension. The results and implications of the study are discussed in more detail in the paper.

The main concern of this study was to identify Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ problems in cohesion and coherence of writing performance as well as the extent to which they utilized cohesion and coherence in their writing. It is important for EFL and ESL learners the ability to compose a piece of descriptive text. Despite its significance, there is a gap in the literature about how Iranian EFL learners write essays in this genre that this study intends to fill. The research design involved the utilization of mixed research method in addressing the research questions. The study addressed a corpus of 40 intermediate language learners’ descriptive essays, 10 experienced teachers that they were themselves at intermediate level as the questionnaire respondents and four interviewees’ answers from those volunteer experienced teachers. The results of the study revealed lack of cohesion and coherence in the participants’ essays and their writing performance in terms of these two variables was not acceptable. Therefore, the obtained findings, by implication, indicated that they had neither some aspects of cohesive and coherent writing, nor had enough support, practice and feedback on their written text in terms of cohesion and coherence. Some pedagogical implications of this study would be applicable to the language learners’ writing in terms of these two aforementioned variables as well as the results were expected to aid in setting the writing sections of classes for improvement of language learners’ written texts particularly in terms of cohesion and coherence.

The present study was an investigation of metacognitive strategy training on improving Iranian EFL learners’ listening performance and the differences and similarities at three levels of elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels. Few studies have been conducted to investigate three levels. So, 348 third grade female senior high school students of Zanjan/Iran were selected through multistage cluster random sampling method and based on Cambridge placement test (2010), 116, 132, and 100 students in 3 elementary, advanced, and control groups participated in this experimental study. During two months and over period of nine forty-minute sessions, students in experimental groups received metacognitive and listening instructions. To address the research question, ANOVA test was conducted and the results showed that there were meaningful differences between students’ performance and the students of experimental advanced group showed more improvement than students in experimental intermediate and elementary groups, and students of intermediate experimental group showed more improvement than students in experimental elementary group. The implication of the study is that metacognitive strategy training should be incorporated into the regular listening teaching programs to help students become more effective listeners.

This research was carried out to examine the effect of using careful online planning vs. pressured online planning on learning multi-word expressions among intermediate English learners. To this end, two samples of learners through an Oxford Placement Test (OPT) were selected as the careful online group and pressured online group. After the pretest, the researcher exposed the experimental group to all multi-word expressions, adapted from input text. The experimental group was supposed to listen to some audio files and learn the multi-word expressions and then they must have been able to produce those expressions while speaking. They were asked to watch a film of The Donkey and The Master , take notes, and retell the story in six minutes for pressured online planners and then the time for careful online planners. The first time was for pleasure; the second time, they were expected to retell the story using Multi-Words Expressions in the film. After three weeks of instruction, the posttest was given to the students of both groups to assess their achievement. After quantitative data analysis, an independent sample T-test was performed. The results indicate that pressured online planning was more effective. This study has implications for EFL teachers and instructors.