the present research was an attempt to provide new evidence for the efficacy of task-based techniques to speaking proficiency development. the primary focus of the study was to investigate the effects of task-based techniques on speaking proficiency development. in the second place, it tried to scrutinize the effect of gender on speaking proficiency development under task-based principles of la...

In the present study, we examined the relation of knowledge of semantic radicals to students’ language proficiency and word reading for adult Chinese-as-a-foreign language students. Ninety-seven college students rated their proficiency in speaking, listening, reading, and writing in Chinese, and were administered measures of receptive and productive knowledge of semantic radical position and fu...

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...

research on reading comprehension supports the contribution of the topic sentence to better understanding of the paragraph by efl readers. however, the level of language proficiency, which has recently been recognized as an interacting factor with many language processing tasks, has not been taken into account in previous research. therefore, the prupose of this study is to investigate the rela...

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 student...

the present study examined the factor structure of the university of tehran english proficiency test (utept) that aims to examine test takers’ knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. a structural equation modelling (sem) approach was used to analyse the responses of participants (n= 850) to a 2010 version of the test.  a higher-order model was postulated to test if the unde...

Task  repetition  is  now  considered  as  an  important  task-based  implementation  variable  which can affect complexity, accuracy, and fluency of L2 speech. However, in order to move towards theorizing  the  role  of  task  repetition  in  second  language  acquisition,  it  is  necessary  that individual variables be taken into account. The present study aimed to investigate the way task r...

The present study was an attempt, in the first place, to find out whether there is any relationship between Iranian EFL learners' multiple intelligences and their language proficiency. The second objective was to explore whether one of intelligences or combination of intelligences are predictors of language proficiency. To this end, 228 subjects of this study were chosen from among 280 English ...

This study examined the interrelationships of first language (L1) literacy, second language (L2) proficiency, and L2 reading comprehension with 246 Chinese college students learning English. L1 literacy and L2 proficiency were measured with college admission exams in Chinese and English. L2 reading comprehension was measured with the reading comprehension section of a TOEFL and a researcher-dev...

Although anecdotally there appear to be differences in the way native speakers use and comprehend their native language, most empirical investigations of language processing study university students and none have studied differences in language proficiency, which may be independent of resource limitations such as working memory span. We examined differences in language proficiency in adult mon...