Intermediate EFL Students Research Articles

A Study on Myside Bias and the Iranian EFL Students

As Leki and Carson (1994) emphasize: ability to write well is necessary both to achieve academic success and to demonstrate that achievement (p. 83). However, how the information is presented in a piece of writing is also important. Myside bias is mainly concerned with objectivity in argumentative writing. It is generally believed that by including counterarguments, the overall coherence of the writing will improve. With the growing number of Iranian students studying overseas, it is necessary to see whether these students’ argumentative essays pay attention to both sides of an argument. 80 Iranian higher intermediate EFL Students were asked to write two argumentative essays. To further probe into participants' perception, an interview was held with 30 participants. Whether the participants’ gender and age played a role in the presence of myside bias was also considered. The results revealed that 55% of the participants used myside bias in their English essays, but on 37.5% could be accused of myside bias in their Persian essays.

The Effects of Written Corrective Feedback Techniques on EFL Students’ Control over Grammatical Construction of Their Written English

There has been a controversy over the usefulness of the written corrective feedback (WCF) on the accuracy of ESL/EFL learners' writing – especially after Truscott's assertion that grammar correction is pointless and harmful (1996). This study presents the findings of an investigation of the impact of WCF on 90 intermediate Iranian EFL students. The participants were separated into three groups; then they randomly received direct, indirect or no correction feedback. They created three pieces of writing, pre-test, immediate post-test and delayed post-test. Simple past tense errors were brought into focus in the feedback. The results showed that the recipients of WCF achieved more than those in the control group –suggesting the effectiveness of both kinds of WCF. Therefore, the provision of WCF should be regarded as a potentially valuable technique in instructing writing to EFL learners.

How Noticing is Affected by Replay of Writing Process During Stimulated Recall

This study investigated how stimulated recall induced peer-peer and expert-novice interactions during the replay of the participants’ writing process using InputLog affected the number of enhancements made to a composition. Enhancement was operationalized as the surface and non-surface changes made either during (noticing) or after (revision) the stimulated recall session. Twenty-four high intermediate EFL students wrote different narrative essays and recorded the writing process with InputLog. Next, they participated in stimulated recall sessions while watching the replay of their writing process, three times with a peer and once with an expert. During and after these sessions, the participants revised their essays. The greatest number of enhancement was made in the expert-novice stimulated recall sessions. However, while there was a significant difference in the number of non-surface changes, no significant difference was found in the number of surface changes in these sessions.

Investigating the Effects of Word Games on Iranian EFL Learners’ Application of the Words in Writing Paragraph Essays

In Iran, learning vocabulary has been considered a boring subject for a long time and the traditional way of learning vocabulary by mere copying and remembering has shown to be less than effective. Meanwhile, games are also seen as a time-filling activity in most English classrooms. The current research sought to explore the effectiveness of using word games on Iranian EFL intermediate students’ application of the words in writing one paragraph essay. It was carried out at Jahad Sharif English Institute among 60 intermediate male and female learners with the age range of 17-30 through a quasi-experimental research design. The researcher administered a PET test to determine the homogeneity of the participants regarding their general English language proficiency level. Participants were randomly assigned into two groups. After coming up with the conclusion that the two groups were homogeneous, during 16 sessions of treatment, the experimental group was taught using different techniques of word games while the control group received no special treatment. At the end of the treatment, both groups participated in the word game writing test of the word game questions available in Top Notch series the post-test. A t-test was used to compare the mean scores of the two groups, the result of which showed that the learners’ mean score in the experimental group was significantly higher than the learners’ mean score in the control group. In conclusion, the result of this study suggests that foreign language pedagogy, especially for young adult English learners, would benefit from applying word games in their vocabulary instruction and writing.

The Influence of Using Word forks on Developing Collocative Competence of Intermediate Iranian EFL Learners

One of the most problematic areas of learning English as a foreign or second language is learning phrasal verbs (PVs) in collocation with certain nouns. The present study was designed to test a procedure called the word fork technique to help intermediate EFL students to develop their collocative competence in using PVs. A group of 30 intermediate Iranian EFL students were randomly selected. They were given a pre – test and a post – test each in two phases. In order to check the efficacy of using the word fork technique in developing the participants' collocative competence in using PVs they were required to devote a time period of about 15 to 20 minutes of each class session practicing PVs, using the newly developed technique. This lasted for 20 session. Based on the data obtained, it can be concluded that the new technique can efficiently help the target population to improve their collocative competence in using PVs in specific and their communicative ability in English in general.

The Effect of Explicit Morphological Practice on the Reading Comprehension Abilities of Iranian Intermediate Level English Language Learners

This study investigated the effect of explicit morphological practice on improving reading comprehension ability of Iranian intermediate level language learners. Participants in this study were sixty Iranian EFL learners in English institutes of Amol, Mazandaran, Iran. Students were administered a TOFL proficiency test adapted from Sharpe (2010) and thirty homogeneous students were selected as the main participants of the study. These students were randomly assigned to one experimental group and one control group. First of all, students in both groups took a reading comprehension test as pretest. This test was designed to measure morphological knowledge of students and its effects on their total reading comprehension of passages. Then, the treatment of the researcher started and all students in both groups received a six-sessions reading comprehension training, but the experimental group also received explicit morphological practice during reading comprehension classes. After finishing the treatment, all the participants took a post test that was designed so as to be the parallel form of the pretest. The changes, if any, in the performance of both groups were calculated by SPSS and mean of the scores and t value and covariance of the scores were reported. The results indicate that students in experimental group showed a progress in their reading comprehension ability from pretest to posttest. This demonstrates that explicit morphological practice is effective in improving reading comprehension skills of Iranian intermediate level EFL students.

Gender-induced Variation in L2 Production: The Case of Reference Terms

Variation in language reception and production is one of the enduring problems of second language acquisition research. There are a number of sources of variation in L2 production. The present study addresses gender-prompted variation in the use of reference terms. Reference deals with the links between words and objects or events in the world. In discourse analysis, reference is use to tackle the links between words (or phrases) and other words (or phrases) in discourse. Reference terms are operationalized by using lexical noun phrases, common nouns, personal pronouns, indefinite articles, propositional phrases and the like. For the purpose of data collection forty EFL intermediate students (20 male students and 20 female students) participated in the preset study. Each participant transacted the narrative task in monologic condition with the second researcher. The results of the statistical analyses revealed that there have been significant differences between the mean of male group and female group in the use of reference terms.

The effect of the combination of small-group conferencing and portfolio procedure on EFL students' writing accuracy

One of the prevailing questions in English as a second/foreign language (ESL/EFL) writing instruction is the most effective way of giving feedback to students' errors. This study attempted to probe the effect of the combination of portfolio and small-group conferencing procedure on writing accuracy of students' compositions compared with an exclusive portfolio procedure. Participants were two groups of 48 female intermediate EFL students at two Iranian language institutes. The control group comprising 26 students received indirectly coded written feedback in multiple drafts of portfolio, while the experimental group consisting of 22 students received a combined indirectly coded written feedback in portfolio as well as oral feedback through conferencing. Fifteen codes each representing a specific kind of error were used for the indication of the errors made by the students of both groups in their drafts of in-class writing composition tests during the four-month treatment period. The results suggest that the treatments in both groups enhanced students' writing accuracy, but the combination of portfolio and conferencing procedure was conducive to a significantly higher accuracy compared to the exclusive portfolio procedure. The findings promise implications for EFL writing courses.

Influencing EFL learners’ reading comprehension and self-efficacy beliefs: the effect of concept mapping strategy

This study aims to investigate the influence of concept mapping on reading comprehension and self-efficacy of intermediate EFL students in Iran. To fulfill the aims of the study, 60 participants (21 males and 39 females) were selected. Their age ranged between 19 and 23. A randomized pre-test post-test control group design with a concept mapping group and a traditional method group was employed. Prior to the treatment, both the concept mapping group and the traditional method group were administered pre-tests in reading comprehension and self-efficacy. Eight items in the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire MSLQ which measure self-efficacy were applied to measure students' self-efficacy beliefs. The duration of training was ten weeks. At the conclusion of the training, all participants again completed the achievement test as well as self-efficacy scale. After controlling the effects of pre-test scores, results of ANCOVA revealed that students in the concept mapping group showed greater achievement in reading comprehension and self-efficacy than students in the traditional method strategy group. The findings of this study could have some implications for teaching reading comprehension to EFL students.

Depth Versus Breadth of Vocabulary Knowledge: Assessing their Roles in Iranian Intermediate EFL Students' Lexical Inferencing Success Through Reading

This study was an attempt to investigate the impact of depth versus breadth of vocabulary knowledge on lexical inferencing success through reading of Iranian Intermediate EFL learners. In the first step, a CELT test was administered and 40 participants were selected for the study. In the second step, subjects were tested on two tests of depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge, and were required to infer the meanings of 10 non-sense words. The results indicated that L2 lexical inferencing success on one hand, and depth and breadth of word knowledge on the other hand, were positively correlated (r = 0.91). The results of a multiple regression analysis also revealed that depth of word knowledge was a stronger predictor of lexical inferencing success through reading.

Content-based Instruction in the Teaching of English as a Foreign Language

Content-based instruction has gained widespread popularity in second and foreign language teaching. However, despite its reported benefits, many English teachers do not fully exploit its content and language learning benefits. In addition, there are relatively few studies which provide a theoretical foundation for content-based instruction and offer practical suggestions for its integration in EFL settings.This article aims to link theory to practice, and to help English teachers maximize the full potential of content-based instruction and project work. To accomplish this goal, we first present a short literature review on project-based instruction, followed by a summary of its benefits and the beneficial outcomes of using the World Wide Web to implement it. We then propose an eight-step process for the sequencing of project work. We finally showcase a real-world project designed for intermediate EFL students. The design and the activities suggested could easily be transferable to other settings.

Improvement of reading comprehension through computer-assisted language learning in Iranian intermediate EFL students

The present study investigated the effect of ICT and more specifically CALL on the quality of students’ reading comprehension in an Iranian academic setting. For this study, a pre-test / post-test experimental design was developed. 30 students out of 60 subjects were randomly selected to form the treatment group and the rest of them formed the control group. One instructor taught reading comprehension to both groups using CALL and the other group was taught reading comprehension in the traditional way. The result of the study showed that there was a statistically significant difference at the level of P<0.05 between reading comprehension scores of the two groups; therefore, it was concluded that the use of computer assisted educational techniques can improve students’ reading comprehension.

Paragraph Boundaries: Examining Identification and Production Performance of Iranian EFL Learners

This study investigates the effect of Iranian EFL students' proficiency level on their ability in identifying paragraph boundaries of unparagraphed expository texts and in producing paragraph boundaries in their own L2 expository writings. Further, this study seeks the correlation between advanced and intermediate learners' ability to identify and produce paragraph boundaries. On the basis of their scores on the general proficiency test of Michigan, intermediate and advanced EFL students studying in the English department of University of Isfahan participated in receptive and productive tasks. The results of data analysis indicate that proficiency is connected with paragraph perception, a fact more observable in productive performance; at advanced levels, students seem to be more skillful in the appropriate boundary placement. Moreover, identification performance has a positive medium correlation with production in the case of both advanced and intermediate groups of EFL learners.

Vocabulary learning from dictionary referencing and language feedback in EFL translational writing

A significant, but rarely posed, question in EFL writing is what new language the writers assimilate from the process. In this study, a group of intermediate EFL students in a state secondary school in Spain completed an L1(Spanish)-to-FL(English) written translation task on their own, with bilingual dictionary/glossary support. Three days later, this group received feedback on the vocabulary errors in their initial translations, consisting of giving the initial letters and dashes for the remaining letters of the correct word. They had to rewrite the initial translation with corrections, using the glossary support. A week after that, they were unexpectedly asked to translate the same text again without dictionary support or the previous translations, in a delayed post-test. The group looked up 158 items initially of which 148 or 94% were correct. Of these 148 items 106 or 72% were correctly recalled in the delayed post-test. Of the 136 items that were initially incorrect, 71 or 52% were also recalled. In total the students made mean gains of 13.6 vocabulary items. Not only is this result encouraging, but the analysis shows that a focus purely on errors is misleading as it does not reveal language gains.

The Optimal Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary to EFL Intermediate and Secondary School Students

The Optimal Strategies for Teaching Vocabulary to EFL Intermediate and Secondary School Students

A Classroom Perspective on the Negotiation of Meaning

It is widely argued that engaging in communicative language tasks helps a learner develop in an L2 in several ways. Tasks provide an opportunity not only to produce the target language, but also, through conversational adjustments, to manipulate and modify it. Checking and clarifying problem utterances ('negotiating for meaning') ensures that task participants receive comprehensible input and generate comprehensible output, both of which have been claimed as crucial to second language acquisition (SLA). Task type is considered significant, with those tasks requiring an exchange of information most likely to prompt negotiations for meaning. This paper reports a classroom observation of the language produced by intermediate EFL students engaged in required and optional information exchange tasks in both dyads and small groups. The results show no clear overall effect for task type or grouping, though there was a discernible trend for dyads doing a two-way task to produce more negotiated interaction. However, it was noticeable that many students in the small groups did not speak at all, many more in both dyads and small groups did not initiate any negotiated interaction, and very few students in either setting produced any modified utterances. Such positive results as were obtained seemed to be due to the disproportionate influence of a small number of the students, and so were not typical of the group as a whole. The setting of the study within a classroom, as opposed to a venue especially arranged for data collecting, is suggested as a significant variable, with important implications for group work research methodology. It is also suggested, contrary to much SLA theorizing, that 'negotiating for meaning' is not a strategy that language learners are predisposed to employ when they encounter gaps in their understanding

Investigating Linguistic Acceptability with Egyptian EFL Students

A number of errors which typify the spoken or written English of Egyptian EFL students were identified. A series of matched sentencessome containing a deviant feature, others not-were recorded by a native speaker of Arabic. Groups of intermediate and advanced EFL students listened to tape recordings and rated each sentence in terms of prescriptive grammaticality and social acceptability. Listeners were then presented with the subset of deviant sentences, then were asked to correct the errors and to indicate the extent to which each of the errors bothered or irritated them. Thus it was possible to examine listeners' reactions to various types of errors and to map out a heirarchy of acceptability of various deviant utterances produced by native and non-native speakers.