The paper reports an experimental study on the learning of stress placement rules of Chinese EFL learners. The F0 slope of stress assignment rules in English by 30 Chinese EFL learners were compared with that of native speakers. The learners had an average of 5-minute instruction with a tenminute practice period. The stimulus words, sentences, and paragraph contrast the compound stress rule and...

Although is a frequently used subordinating conjunction in English. However, non-nativeness is often observed in Chinese EFL learners’ although output during pedagogical practice. This paper aims at exploring the characteristics of Chinese EFL learners’ although employment in Chinese EFL learners’ writing. The study is a corpus-based analysis launched under the analytical framework of contrasti...

this study aims to examine how iranian efl learners perceive and apply mitigation devices in request speech act in 4 asymmetrical situations. role-play interactions and questionnaires were used to elicit the required data from iranian informants (male vs. female). the results obtained from the analysis of data revealed that in identical situations, male requestors were comparably more certain t...

This pilot empirical study examined the deficiency of textual cohesion and coherence reflected in genre-based English abstract production of the engineering discourse by most Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) advanced learners, using cohesive theory, text linguistics, and intercultural theory as the theoretical framework. The problems were addressed typically from the perspective of i...

The present quasi-experimental study mainly investigates the role of literature as input for reading comprehension in Iranian EFL classrooms. To be more exact, it investigates the effects of authentic and simplified literary texts on the reading comprehension of Iranian advanced EFL learners. The participants were 35 male and female Iranian EFL learners who were at advanced level, studying in a...

This paper, as part of an ongoing study, reports a qualitative case study in investigating pre-writing activities among three English as Foreign language (EFL) learners in an online community via a facebook group. The data were collected from the learners’ interactional exchanges, observation notes of their interaction and responses to online written interview questions. Based on a qualitative ...

The present research investigates the acquisition of the English locative alternation by Korean EFL learners, which poses a learnability paradox taking Pinker’s framework of learnability theory as its basis. It focuses on two questions (1) whether the broad-range and narrow-range semantic constraints are operative in the interlanguage of Korean EFL learners as they are in L1 children’s and (2) ...

Mastering writing has always proved an almost insurmountable barrier to EFL learners. In an attempt to alleviate problems advanced EFL learners have with writing, this study aimed at investigating the effect of scaffolded instruction through writing frames constructed from extended prefabricated lexical bundles. 40 female advanced English students, selected out of a population of 65, were rando...