Test method facet is one of the factors which can have an influence on the test takers’ performance. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of two different response types, multiple-choice cloze and multiple-choice test, on the pre-intermediate and intermediate test takers’ reading comprehension performance. To this end, 40 pre-intermediate and intermediate learners par...

The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of modified cloze procedure on writing proficiency of Iranian intermediate EFL learners. To fulfill the purpose of the study, 110 participants studying at Semnan University majoring in English literature were tested on CELT proficiency test. 65 participants who were found to be homogenous were selected and assigned randomly to two groups...

Verbal working memory is recognized as a strong predictor of L2 reading development in the area of learning new vocabulary, reading comprehension, and overall L2 proficiency in alphabetic languages such as English. However, few studies have addressed if the same is true in logographic languages such as Japanese. Previous literature has indicated that phonology plays a weaker role in reading Jap...

Words that are more predictable given a previous context show facilitated processing over low predictable ones. Such facilitation has been traditionally viewed as associated with reduced amplitudes in the N400 component. However, this effect is observed during the presentation of the target word, and it does not provide direct information about the prediction processes engaged before. To overco...

Although we usually have no trouble finding the right antecedent for a pronoun, the co-reference relations between pronouns and antecedents in everyday language are often 'formally' ambiguous. But a pronoun is only really ambiguous if a reader or listener indeed perceives it to be ambiguous. Whether this is the case may depend on at least two factors: the language processing skills of an indivi...

This paper examines the effect of gender and type of stem on Iranian test takers’ performance on the grammar section of a nation-wide language proficiency test. In so doing, the scores of 2931 examinees (1107 female and 1824 male) who sat Tarbiat Modares English proficiency test were obtained. The examinees’ scores on three types of MC grammar items with different kinds of stems (i.e., blank fi...

Tablet PCs have become a powerful instructional device for students to read and write stories (Robin, 2008). To assist young learners to cultivate efficient learning strategies in the early ages, students in the current study were guided to read three authentic online storybooks and then write their own digital stories with the Android applications. The study aims to investigate Taiwanese eleme...

In reading tasks, words that convey a false statement elicit an enhanced N400 brainwave response, relative to words that convey a true statement. N400 amplitude reductions are generally linked to the online expectancy of upcoming words in discourse. White lies, contrary to false statements, may not be unexpected in social scenarios. We used the event-related potential (ERP) technique to determi...

While many links have been established between sensory-motor words used literally (kick the ball) and sensory-motor regions of the brain, it is less clear whether metaphorically used words (kick the habit) also show such signs of "embodiment." Additionally, not much is known about the timing or nature of the connection between language and sensory-motor neural processing. We used stimuli divide...