Abstract Norton’s (1995) Investment Hypothesis in L2 learning that L2 learners who cherish and foresee a richer personality for themselves in their L2 context would thrive more diligently and consequently would both enrich their personality and achieve a higher proficiency in their new language was investigated in this study in the community of Iranian EFL students. The integration and mutual r...

Although studies on L2 learning strategies are a major strand of second-language research, recent research interest has focussed on language learners’ metacognitive knowledge or awareness of strategies. Previous research has shed important light on the amelioration in L2 educational practices,but little researchis focused on EFL learners in input-poor environments. This paper reports on a study...

The present research examined the effect of speech rate on listening comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. Initially, a sample of 108 sophomore EFL learners majoring in English translation was selected based on systematic random sampling from Abadan Islamic Azad University. Then, based on an ECCE proficiency test, 62 participants were chosen and divided into two homogeneous groups of 31. One g...

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of cultural knowledge on improving Iranian EFL learners' listening comprehension. To achieve this purpose, out of three hundred participants, one hundred and twenty pre-intermediate language learners were selected based on their scores on a listening comprehension test and were randomly assigned to four groups. Each group was exposed to...

This paper reports on a 1-year longitudinal study that aimed at investigating the relationship between intermediate EFL learners’ development of reading and writing proficiency while delineating a range of linguistic features present in a set of 30 reading comprehension texts and 350 written essays. Data (reading comprehension exam scores and written essays) were collected from a junior high sc...

The paper evaluates Chinese EFL (English Foreign Language) learners’ attitudinal responses toward Chinese accent. Questionnaires administered among 81 intermediate proficiency EFL learners who were from China and UK (70 of whom were university students, 11 of whom were university English teachers). Results show clearly that the respondents do not have significant negative attitude towards their...

This study was a cross-sectional investigation into the request strategies used by Iranian learners of English as a Foreign Language and Australian native speakers of English. The sample involved 96 BA and MA Persian students and 10 native speakers of English. A Discourse Completion Test (DCT) was used to generate data related to the request strategies used by each group. Selection of request s...

the purpose of this study was to examine cook’s (2003) ‘multiple competence’ by investigating backward pragmatic transfer (from l2 [english] to l1 [persian]) in refusals to invitations. it explored participants’ frequency and content of refusal strategies in l1 regarding the status (i.e., power and distance) of interlocutors and the proficiency level of efl learners. the participants were persi...