Abstract This study aimed at investigating the possible impact of gender and proficiency level on the relationship between autonomy and listening comprehension ability among Iranian low and high proficiency male and female EFL learners. One hundred six English learners, based on the results of Oxford Placement Test (OPT), version II, took part in this study. Both female and male learners with t...

A long-standing debate among the vocabulary researchers is the depth of processing to learn vocabulary. This paper is a quantitative research which considers a revision in the “involvement load hypothesis” proposed by Laufer and Hulstijn in 2001. It investigates the role of proficiency and evaluation in this hypothesis in order to better reveal its potential contribution to vocabulary learning....

Bilingual studies have shown that brain activities for first (L1) and second (L2) languages are influenced by L2 proficiency. Does proficiency with a second musical system (M2) influence bimusical brains in a manner similar to that of bilingual brains? Our magnetoencephalography study assessed the influence of M2 proficiency on the spatial, strength, and temporal properties of brain activity in...

This study examined how speaker gender and talker proficiency affected realization of Taiwan Min /dz/ among young speakers of the 漳 Chiang and Mix dialect. Ten males and seven females with adequate proficiency were recruited to perform a paragraph reading task. Five major variant categories were observed, including dental sibilant, dental nonsibilant, velar obstruent, lateral, and retroflex. Ge...

This study investigated how Min proficiency influenced the realization of Mandarin tones in Mandarin-Min bilinguals. Forty subjects recruited were divided into the high and the low Min proficiency groups. Isolated Mandarin syllables carrying one of the four Mandarin tones were recorded. Results showed that Min proficiency was roughly in negative correlation with pitch height for high tonal targ...

L2 research has shown that instruction in L2 pragmatics is necessary. The current study evaluated the impact of explicit instruction on EFL learner's awareness and production of three speech acts of request, apology, and complaint. It also probed whether learners’ language proficiency plays any role in incorporating pragmatic instruction into the L2 classroom. Iranian undergraduate students maj...

the purpose of this study was to see the role of english language proficiency level and sex on iranian students’ beliefs about language learning. this study also investigated the usefulness of the balli questionnaire (horwits, 1988), which checks learners’ beliefs, for the context of iranian english language learners through conducting an interview. a total of 171 iranian learners from safir in...

L2 production of tones has been widely discussed; however, the role of orthography in the learning process has received little attention. Previous studies suggested that the opaque orthography of Chinese characters plays an important role in both L2 production and perception. The present study further investigates the role of different orthographies (Pinyin vs. Chinese characters) in L2 product...