Graphic organizers (GOs) are visual frameworks assisting students in the comprehension of a text. Studies in literature have mostly focused on L1 readers and there is a lack of empirical research about the instructional effects of GOs on L2 readers. The purpose of this research is to investigate the effects of GOs on reading comprehension achievement of EFL learners. An experimental design with...

Foreign language (FL) knowledge has been shown to contribute significantly to FL reading performance. Studies have contrasted the contribution of FL vocabulary and syntactic knowledge, following a dichotomous view of these components, producing mixed results. Despite the increasingly recognized formulaic nature of language, the contribution made by phraseological knowledge to reading ability ha...

The focus of the present study was to investigate the possible effects of sociocultural-based teaching techniques on EFL learners reading comprehension. The basic purpose was to clarify how learners reading comprehension and strategy use could be affected by the types of teaching techniques and how high and low proficiency learners profited from the intervention. Iranian EFL students were used ...

Since it emerged in Brazil in May 2015, the mosquito-borne Zika virus (ZIKV) has raised global concern due to its association with a significant rise in the number of infants born with microcephaly and neurological disorders such as Guillain-Barré syndrome. We developed prototype subunit and adenoviral-based Zika vaccines encoding the extracellular portion of the ZIKV envelope gene (E) fused to...

This quasi-experimental study was an attempt to examine the effects of two types of corrective feedback, namely recast and metalinguistic feedback on the acquisition of English regular past tenseed by Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 45 female learners of English at a low intermediate level were randomly selected as the participants of this study and were assigned into two experimental groups...

This research examines two multimedia secondary EFL classrooms to identify what changes, pedagogical or otherwise, have taken place in technologically integrated classroom practice. The research analyses data generated from a range of sources: classroom observations, videotapes and teacher’s lesson plans. It is argued that substantial pedagogical innovations will not come unless there is a perc...

We propose and demonstrate the concept of using a tuneable liquid crystal micro-lens (LCML) array to improve the image contrast of a pixelated thin film photo-transistor (TFPT) flat panel imager. Such a device can be used to image contents on paper-based media and display a magnified version on a flat panel display for elderly or visually impaired people. Practical aspects including device phys...

This study employs a method in experimental phonetics to investigate the use of tones in 45 Chinese EFL learners’ read speech. The study is based on O’Connor & Arnold’s (1973) descriptions of tones of English, and takes the recorded spoken data of 8 English-speaking British university students as the norm for comparison. Findings of the study indicate that, so far as primary tones are concerned...

Foreign language learners tend to mispronounce sounds in the target language by subconsciously searching and substituting with “similar corresponding sounds” in their native dialects. Correction of EFL pronunciation is thus difficult for both instructors and learners. Yet Critical Period Hypothesis is being increasingly misused by Chinese teachers and researchers as an excuse for not paying att...

this study investigated the characteristics of effective secondary school iranian efl teachers from students’ and teachers’ perspectives. to this end, 376 junior secondary school students and 32 efl teachers teaching at various iranian secondary schools participated in the study. a validated open-ended questionnaire was distributed among the student and teacher participants and asked for their ...