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Psychology of Music (17413087) 50(4)pp. 1197-1211
The role of music in second-language (L2) learning has long been the object of various empirical and theoretical inquiries. However, research on whether the effect of background music (BM) on language-related task performance is facilitative or inhibitory has produced inconsistent findings. Hence, we investigated the effect of happy and sad BM on complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) of L2 speaking among intermediate learners of English. A between-groups design was used, in which 60 participants were randomly assigned to three groups with two experimental groups performing an oral L2 English retelling task while listening to either happy or sad BM, and a control group performing the task with no background music. The results demonstrated the happy BM group’s significant outperformance in fluency over the control group. In accuracy, the happy BM group also outdid the controls (error-free clauses, correct verb forms). Moreover, the sad BM group performed better in accuracy than the controls but in only one of its measures (correct verb forms). Furthermore, no significant difference between the groups in syntactic complexity was observed. The study, in line with the current literature on BM effects, suggests that it might have specific impacts on L2 oral production, explained by factors such as mood, arousal, neural mechanism, and the target task’s properties. © The Author(s) 2021.
Considering the importance of working memory (WM) in interpreting and the scarcity of studies devoted to consecutive interpreting (CI) compared to simultaneous mode, the present study examined the association of WM with English-Persian CI performance. Furthermore, gender differences on WM and CI performance, which has not received a proper attention, was investigated. Two working memory tests and one consecutive interpreting task were administered to 30 MA translation students. The results of a Pearson Correlation showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between both measures of WM and CI performance. Furthermore, according to the results of an independent samples t-test no gender differences were observed in terms of WM capacity and CI performance. © inTRAlinea & Mojtaba Amini, Azizollah Dabaghi & Dariush Nejadansari (2022).
ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics (Belgium) (17831490) 171(2)pp. 253-279
The current study investigated the differential effect of two types of oral feedback - graduated oral corrective feedback (GOCF) in accordance with sociocultural theory (SCT) and supplemented direct oral corrective feedback (SDOCF) in accordance with cognitive-interactionist theory (CIT) - on Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners' written errors. The study used a pretest-treatment-immediate posttest-delayed posttest design with three groups. Two types of tests were employed to measure the learners' explicit and implicit knowledge of English articles. The results of the repeated measures mixed-design ANOVAs and post-hoc analyses demonstrated that while both types of feedback significantly improved both types of knowledge in the immediate posttest, a clear advantage was found for the GOCF in the long term. The findings indicate that oral feedback, especially the GOCF within SCT, could be an effective means of addressing learners' written errors and improving their implicit knowledge. © John Benjamins Publishing Company
Sendebar (11305509) 31pp. 479-502
The present study examined the association between working memory (WM) and note quantity and their relationship with consecutive interpreting (CI) performance in order to evaluate their predictive efficiency for aptitude tests in CI. To follow the objectives of the study, two WM tests and one CI task were administered to 30 MA translation students. The results indicated a positive and significant relationship between one of the WM measures (Reading Span) and note quantity. Moreover, there was a significant relationship between both measures of WM and CI performance, and also between note quantity and CI performance. Furthermore, the results of the regression analysis indicated that both measures of WM were predictors of CI performance while the variable 'note quantity' failed to be a predictor. Based on the results, it was further proved that WM is an efficient component in aptitude tests whereas note quantity did not completely comply with the criteria and was rejected as a reliable criterion and could not be included as a subcomponent in the aptitude tests. © 2020 Universidad de Granada. All rights reserved.
3L: Language, Linguistics, Literature (01285157) 25(4)pp. 121-137
This is a report on a qualitative research in relation to the development of translation competence (TC) in academia. The study aimed to map out the cognitive processes involved in problem-solving and provide a picture of the development of strategic TC and translation-notion in translation learners. A group of 20 Iranian students volunteered to take part in a think-aloud study. The participants were divided into four groups of G1 (pretranslational), G3 (early translational), G5 and G7 (translational), based on the number of semesters of language and translation training they had received. The ecological validity was established by availing the participants of any sources of documentation they preferred to use. The verbalisations of the participants were recorded and then transcribed into think-aloud protocols (TAPs). The analysis of TAPs revealed that students activated various configurations of decision-making processes and resourcing methods, and exhibit different conceptions of the notion-of-translation at different stages of TC development. The study also showed that the portrait of TC development featured strong reliance on automatised cognitive processes at pre-translational stage and increased evaluative processes, coupled with higher chances of success, at translational stage. The findings proved that the development of TC did not follow an incremental trajectory. They further indicated that the translation programmes as offered in universities tend to boost evaluative reflections on and conscious awareness of the translation process at the cost of decreasing the unconscious automatised processes. This suggests that from a process-oriented perspective, translation programmes do not seem to prepare the learners for translation-market requirements. © 2019 Penerbit Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. All rights reserved.
Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education (20507003) 11(4)pp. 800-813
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of teaching grammar through implicit and explicit approach by applying scaffolding technique on learners’ speaking abilities including: accuracy, fluency and complexity. Design/methodology/approach: To this end, 90 BA students of architecture in Yazd Azad University were selected and homogenized through Oxford Placement Test. They were assigned to three groups each including 30 participants, and took an IELTS speaking as pre-test to ensure that they had the same speaking ability prior to the begging of the experiment. In the course of the study, the first experimental group (EG1) received implicit instruction through scaffolding, and the second experimental group (EG2) was taught through explicit instruction. In contrast, control group did not receive any kind of grammar teaching. After the completion of the treatment, all groups took speaking post-test. Findings: The results of the study showed that while both explicit and implicit teaching of grammar through scaffolding had a significant impact on learners’ speaking fluency, implicit teaching in comparison with explicit teaching was more significantly effective on learners’ speaking fluency. Similarly, both implicit and explicit teaching of grammar through scaffolding had significant impact on learners’ speaking accuracy and complexity, but explicit teaching compared to implicit teaching was more significantly effective. Practical implications: The results of the study are mainly beneficial to teachers in the way that they can teach grammar in a more efficient way, and consequently improve learners’ speaking. In addition, curriculum developers and second language learners will benefit from the results of this research. Originality/value: There has always been a controversy over an effective way to teach speaking skill in EFL classes over the last decades. In this regard, one of the most controversial approaches to teaching speaking arose from the dichotomy of teaching grammar through implicit or explicit teaching of rules. This paper has originality in that it delves into this controversial issue at length and in details. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited.
Qualitative Report (21603715) 23(10)pp. 2453-2473
This article reports on a qualitative study of the learners’ beliefs about effective foreign language teaching in an Iranian setting. A semi-structured interview covering several fundamental issues in foreign language (FL) pedagogy was conducted with 22 upper-intermediate Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Qualitative content analysis of the transcript data yielded several interesting and informative themes. Among the most prominent results of the study, mention can be made of learners’ strong penchant for modern, learner-centered approaches to FL teaching such as communicative language teaching (CLT) and task-based language teaching (TBLT). Among the other notable themes were learners’ endorsement of teachers’ high proficiency and pedagogical knowledge, positive teacher personality, the integration of culture teaching in the classes, and sustaining learner interest and motivation. The results have implications for knowledge-based teacher education as well as for practicing and prospective FL teachers. © 2018: Alireza Omidi Oskouei, Azizollah Dabaghi, Dariush Nejad Ansari, and Nova Southeastern University.
Research in Language (17317533) 16(2)pp. 243-261
The issue of terminographic gaps in specialized discourses has always concerned the researchers and readers alike. However, due to the interlingual nature of such a technical issue, the need for interdisciplinary collaboration between translation and terminography seems to be in prospect. For such a reciprocation scheme to come into practical effect, the present study has aimed to conduct a translational-terminographic concerto by putting a specialized English text to the test of Persian translation. This has been done to answer the question if a translator is required to provide for any terminological gap once all attempts at finding the corresponding terminological items have failed. In this pursuit, certain workable criteria for terminographic proposition via translation have been discussed. As such, the practical phase of this study concerns itself with addressing the issue of Persian terminological gaps in a language-related metadiscoursal field and consequently detecting the problem zones of non-equivalence in a specialised text carefully selected for translation. Ultimately, a list of Persian terminological items constructed on the basis of the proposed translational-cum-terminographical scheme is compiled to address the identified terminological gaps in the target metadiscourse under study. © 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH. All rights reserved.
Lingua (00243841) 189pp. 66-74
As soon as a speaker becomes bilingual, the new language will very subtly influence the native one, even if it is not much used. This is how first language attrition may start. Most attrition studies deal with spoken language; however, as in writing people have more time to think and revise, written data is supposed to reflect language competence more clearly. In the present study the purpose is to investigate immigrants’ first language attrition in written texts. Data was a corpus of 71,848 words taken from the weblogs of a number of Persian speaking immigrants to Australia that were written monthly up to the fiftieth month of their immigration. It included lexical, morphological, syntactic and semantic deviations of the native language of these immigrants. Their own written production two months before immigration is used as control. The result confirms the vulnerability of lexicon, as in previous research. There is a decreasing, and finally stabilized state in some cases of attrition; this may be explained by the acculturation phenomenon. Lots of interpersonal variations have been detected which may either be gender-related or a matter of personal preference. Hence, this study calls for further psycho-sociolinguistic investigations to explain the language attrition. © 2016 Elsevier B.V.
Iberica (11397241) 2017(33)pp. 213-234
This study was an attempt to explore how important points are highlighted in Persian academic lectures. More specifically, this paper was aimed to reach a taxonomy of importance markers based on (a) the discourse functions of importance markers, and (b) the relative position of the importance marker to the highlighted discourse. A mixed-methods (exploratory) approach and a corpus-driven method were used to extract importance markers from 60 lectures of the Persian SOKHAN corpus. In terms of discourse functions, importance marking was found to be done by a set of five discourse functions, i.e. discourse organization, audience engagement, subject status, topic treatment, and relating to exam. Among these, audience engagement was the first most frequently used discourse function. Additionally, in terms of the position of the highlighted discourse, eight patterns were found for anaphoric importance marking. Ten patterns were also found for cataphoric importance marking. Moreover, cataphoric importance markers were considerably more prevalent than anaphoric importance markers. Generally, the findings suggested that lecturers are more inclined to function interpersonally in Persian academic contexts. The paper ends with pedagogical implications. © 2017, AELFE. All rights reserved.
Language Related Research (23223081) 7(7)pp. 51-71
Academic lecturing has tuned into the major teaching method in higher education. Due to the excess of verbal and visual information presented in a lecture and the importance of some of these information in the final assessment of a course, an understanding of how unimportant information is marked in lectures is useful. The present investigation was an attempt to investigate how lecturers mark unimportant information in Persian academic lectures. More specifically, this study was aimed to investigate the discourse functions of markers of lesser importance. Based on a mixed-methods approach, markers of lesser importance were extracted from the transcripts of the 60 academic lectures of the Persian corpus of SOKHAN. The derived markers of lesser importance were then analyzed in terms of their discourse functions. Five discourse functions, including discourse organization, audience engagement, subject status, topic treatment, and relating to exam were found. In addition, topic treatment, followed by subject status, accounted for most of the discourse functions of the markers of lesser importance. Moreover, audience engagement, discourse organization, and relating to exam were found to be the least frequent discourse functions. On the whole, the findings suggested that marking lesser importance does not necessarily involves orientation to the audience or organizing the discourse into points and asides. Instead, marking lesser importance most often necessitates using expressions that explicitly or implicitly demarcate boundaries between what the lecturer wishes to talk about, does not intend to go through, or tends to cover briefly. © 2017, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.
International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature (22003592) 4(6)pp. 1-7
This descriptive study attempts to see to what extent interpreter training courses offered in bachelor’s degree of English translation in Iranian universities are able to prepare students by teaching them the necessary skills of interpreting. Semi-structured interviews with experts and review of literature were used to find the skills required in interpreter training. A researcher made questionnaire, containing 69 items with a four point Likert scale was made to find out how much the students felt they had learned each necessary skill during their courses. A total of 103 students from six different universities completed the questionnaire. SPSS 17 was used to the analysis the data. The data gathered revealed that 67% of the students received a mean score of less than half the highest possible score. There was a significant difference between the six universities (P<0.001). The results of this study can be used by curriculum planners in the reformation and improvement of interpreter training courses. © 2015, Australian International Academic Centre PTY LTD. All rights reserved.
Journal of Intercultural Communication (14041634) (37)
The main purpose of this study is to take the first step in raising foreign language learners’ cultural awareness through comparing ECONOMY conceptual metaphors in Persian and English economic articles. It is hoped that in this way we can pave the way for the development in language learners’ intercultural awareness. In this paper, the authors explored English and Persian economic articles for the source domains of ECONOMY AS A LIVING ORGANISM. The results revealed that linguistic realizations of ECONOMY IS A LIVING ORGANISM metaphor are largely shared by English and Persian, the difference being mainly in terms of frequency. This paper has also made an effort to demonstrate that focusing on conceptual metaphors may have a useful function in raising learners' linguistic and intercultural awareness. © 2014 Immigrant Institutet. All rights reserved.
Journal of Asia TEFL (17383102) 12(3)pp. 115-147
The present study investigated the comparative effects of massed vs. distributed implicit focus on form (FonF) on the students’ short-term and long-term receptive L2 vocabulary acquisition. The participants (n = 45) were selected out of a population of 153 according to the result of the placement test and were randomly assigned to three groups of massed FonF, distributed FonF, and control group. The massed group was taught three short passages in which 28 target words were made typographically salient. Subsequently, they answered the comprehension questions presented after each passage during one session. The distributed group received instruction during three consecutive days. During each session they answered only one third of the comprehension questions. The control group received the same passages in which no words were made salient. The results of the immediate and delayed post-tests revealed the following: (a) both massed and distributed groups outperformed the control group in the post-tests; (b) there was no difference between the massed and distributed group in short-term vocabulary acquisition; and (c) the distributed group outperformed the massed group in the delayed posttest. These findings provide empirical evidence that Implicit FonF is beneficial to vocabulary learning; however, distributed FonF is more successful in long-term acquisition than massed FonF. © 2015, Asian Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language. All rights reserved.
Language Related Research (23223081) 5(1)pp. 45-62
Philosophical and linguistic reflections of Gadamer and Ricoeur on how understanding occurs are of considerable significance. Gadamer’s concept of “Fusion of horizons” and Ricoeur’s idea of “Understanding oneself through the other” are among the most important issues in this regard. These two philosophical issues attempt to gain intercultural understanding. The fact is that the dichotomous strategies and approaches of translation as manifested in Venuti’s foreignization-domestication dichotomy, and other similar theories have been unable to pave the way for mutual understanding between cultures. Employing Gadamer’s and Ricoeur’s ideas, this study attempts to tackle the dichotomous issue of translation theories. Considering the Gadamer’s view that all understanding occurs through language and the Ricoeur’s idea that man enjoys a specific unity despite his great variation, translation is rethought as a linguistic and cultural phenomenon instrumental in creating cultural and linguistic affinity among people and causing a sort of intercultural unity. Therefore, unlike the dichotomous approach of foreignization and domestication, the present study aims to view translation from the view point of philosophical hermeneutics and offer a new approach, which simultaneously considers attention to the two cultures involved in translation and respect for the other culture. © 2014, Tarbiat Modares University. All rights reserved.
Theory and Practice in Language Studies (17992591) 4(1)pp. 121-128
This paper focuses on exploring the relationship between strategy use and ESP reading test performance of two university majors (humanities VS. science). To fulfill the purpose of the study, 240 intermediate students were selected out of a population pool of 360 ESP students studying in three universities in Iran, Esfahan based on their performance on Oxford Placement Test. After 5 sessions of teaching and practicing 8 reading comprehension strategies for instance, summarizing, linking with prior knowledge or experience, a multiple choice reading comprehension test plus a cognitive and metacognitive questionnaire were given to experimental groups. Pearson product moment correlations and t-test was used. The results showed the positive effect of using strategy on ESP reading comprehension test performance. Regarding major, science groups outperformed humanities. The findings have significant implications for ESP learners, teachers and material developers. © 2014 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland.
System (0346251X) 41(2)pp. 322-351
The main aim of this paper is to test Matrix Language Frame (MLF) model of code-switching with Persian-English data, and to see whether the data confirm the principles of the model or not. A Persian-English corpus was provided from the formal and informal conversations of Persian-English bilinguals on TV shows. Then the three principles of the MLF model, that is, the Matrix Language principle, asymmetry principle, and uniform structure principle were verified. The results of the analyses suggest general support for the four principles of the MLF model. It is also concluded that Persian-English codeswitching does seem to be a 'classic' case of code-switching. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.
International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature (22003592) 1(7)pp. 155-169
Studies regarding gender differences in EFL context have been done for many years. However, it seems that writing, which is a vital skill in academic issues, has gained much less attention in this area. In addition, not having enough knowledge of gender differences for teachers is one of the main barriers of language learning. The current study examines gender differences in Iranian EFL students’ letter writing in terms of 13 linguistic features mentioned in Mulac, Bradac, & Gibbons (2001). The results of this study showed significant differences toward the use of some linguistic features. Female participants tended to use more “I” references, references to quantity, references to emotions, uncertainty verbs, sentence initial adverbials and judgmental adjectives. In addition, the results showed than women tended to be wordier than men in terms of total number of words. Men, on the other hand, exceeded women on a number of linguistic dimensions including locatives, mean length sentence and dependent clauses. Moreover, elliptical sentences were not used by female participants at all and few male participants used them in their letters. Therefore, this study demonstrated gender differences in Iranian EFL students’ letter writing. These dissimilarities between genders in EFL can be contributed to many aspects such as educational instructions, teachers, and cultural differences. It also illustrated teachers’ perspectives of gender regarding students’ writing. © 2012, Australian International Academic Centre PTY LTD. All rights reserved.
Suvremena Lingvistika (05860296) 38(74)pp. 175-187
Evidences exist that language learners can benefit from the incidental process of language learning in different ways. The present study tries to investigate the effects of incidental vocabulary learning in the form of different gloss types (L1 and L2) through the application of State Rating Tasks, which show the change of state of vocabulary knowledge in learners. Also this study attempts to shed more light on the relationship between the incidental vocabulary learning through the form of gloss types and development of Receptive and Productive vocabulary knowledge among learners. The participants were presented a list of twenty L1 and L2 glosses and they were required to read the passage by the use of these glosses. One version of State Rating Tasks was administered among participants in two data times, one before and one after the treatment, to show the change of state in participants' knowledge. The findings show that incidental learning of vocabulary by the application of gloss types increases participants' knowledge states from lower states to higher, but regarding the type of glosses, this change varies. The analysis of SRT shows that participants received L1 gloss type outperformed the other group with respect to the Productive vocabulary knowledge, while L2 gloss type was more beneficial for increasing Receptive vocabulary knowledge.
GEMA Online Journal of Language Studies (16758021) 12(2)pp. 711-725
This study aims to examine how Iranian EFL learners perceive complaining utterances produced by Americans in 4 asymmetrical situations. The main focus of the study is on perceptive data elicited from Iranian informants (male vs. female) with respect to the using of such strategies. Role-play interactions taken from 10 American speakers and a perceptive questionnaire constructed based on the interactions were used to collect the required data. Results of the questionnaire showed that more indirect complaints were perceived as more polite by EFL learners. Furthermore, social variables of power and distance made a difference in the degree of politeness perceived; Iranians (irrespective of their genders) were more concerned about the social power of the complainee than the social distance between the interlocutors. Subjects' gender did not have significant relationship with how the participants assessed the politeness degree of complaints.
Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences (20392117) 3(1)pp. 453-460
In philosophical hermeneutics, the thoughts of Gadamer and Ricoeur about conditions of attaining to understanding are of utmost interest. Gadamer, by proposing fusion of horizons and considering the prejudices of interpreter as basic factors of interpreting and understanding of all phenomena, and Ricoeur, by believing that we as human being only can understand the Self through understanding Other, have paved the paths to attaining intercultural understanding. This study tried to investigate the fundamental role of translation in the intercultural understanding from the window of philosophical hermeneutics, because according to Gadamer all understandings occur in language and this asserts that translation, as a linguistic and cultural phenomenon, can, after catastrophe of Babel, take the hearts and tongues of scattered human beings close to each other and as Ricoeur believes, humanity enjoys equivalence in spite of alterity.
Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences (20392117) 3(3)pp. 193-197
This paper aims to compare the structure of telephone conversation opening in Iran between males and females with particular attention to the "how are you" sequence. Natural data are 30 recorded telephone conversations by both males and females in different age groups. The data are transcribed for analysis to see how these two groups perform their telephone conversation openings. Due to the differences in their nature, there seems some considerable differences will be observed between the males and the females not only in the "how are you" section but also in the selection of words.
Porta Linguarum (16977467) (17)pp. 173-188
The present study explored the effects of task complexity on the occurrence of language-related episodes during learner-learner interaction of 40 EFL students. Task complexity was manipulated using two factors: (1) reasoning demands; and (2) number of elements. Participants performed four tasks of two types (picture narration and picture difference). The study bore mixed results; while in some versions of the tasks, complexity and the occurrence of LREs positively correlated, this pattern did not hold true for all the tasks and proficiency levels. Moreover, the observed increase was mostly in the number of lexical LREs than that of grammatical ones.
Theory and Practice in Language Studies (20530692) 2(1)pp. 183-186
Translation is a social practice which inevitably involves at least two languages and two different cultural identities. There are some cultural concepts and cultural phenomena that are present in one language but not present (in the same way) in another. Nord (1997: 34) uses the term 'cultureme' to refer to these culture-specific items. The problem of how to render culture-specific items (especially in literary translation) implied in the source text (ST) and finding the appropriate equivalence conveying these cultural aspects successfully in the target language (TL) can be the most challenging task for the translator. This paper attempts at exploring the problems involved in the transferring of 'cultureme' in translation of a literary text (Blind Owl) from Persian into English. In this regard, instances of culture-specific items were compared by their translations. After analyzing data, it was observed that the strategies used in dealing with culture-specific items in the process of translation by D. P. Costello were 'Cultural Equivalence', 'Generic word with a descriptive phrase (paraphrasing)' and in rare cases 'domesticating' translation. © 2012 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland.
Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences (20392117) 3(3)pp. 329-333
This paper investigates the kind of translation strategies and procedures used by translators in the translation of terms of address from English into Persian in three short stories, "The Rocking Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence, "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner, and "A Little Cloud" by James Joyce. The comparison of terms of address with their translation showed that there is a difference between the system of terms of address in English and Persian. In order to show the kind of relations exist between interlocutors in a more precise manner, translators should avoid a literal translation and pay more attention to cultural elements involved in the target language.
Asian Social Science (19112025) 7(10)pp. 128-140
In the scope of Literary Translation, the present article focuses on the benefits of translation which is technically referred to as translation gain. Defined as "translator's technique used to compensate for translation loss" (Note 1), translation gain has scarcely been a subject of heated debates among the authorities in the field of Literary Translation. The data for the present study was collected from the Armenian translation of 5 short stories written by a famous Armenian-American writer W. Saroyan (1908-1981). One of the main objectives of the study is that it covers translations into a language of limited diffusion-Armenian. The results of the study will come to show that in the course of recreating the original, the translator may add values to it either because s/he grasped the author's thought rather better or by taking advantage of the target language's neater and/or richer linguistic resources.
Journal of Applied Sciences (18125654) 8(1)pp. 1-13
The study investigated the effects of correction of learners' grammatical. errors on acquisition. Specifically, it compared the effects of manner of correction (explicit versus implicit correction). It also investigated the relative effects of explicit and implicit correction of morphological versus syntactic features and correction of developmental early versus developmental late features. Data were collected from 56 intermediate level Iranian students of English Each participant was required to read and then retell a written text in their own words during an oral interview. During or following the interview the researcher corrected the participants on their grammatical errors implicitly (using recasts) or explicitly. Individualised tests focusing on the corrected errors were constructed and administered. Statistical analyses were conducted on the scores the participants received on their individualised tests. Results showed that the participants who received explicit correction gained significantly higher scores than those who received implicit correction. Analyses of the interactions between independent variables showed that explicit correction was more effective for the acquisition of developmental early features and implicit correction was more effective for the acquisition of developmental late features. © 2008 Asian Network for Scientific Information.
Language Learning Journal (09571736) 34(1)pp. 10-13
This article reports on a study which investigated the effects of correction of learners' grammatical errors on acquisition. Specifically, it compared the effects of timing of correction (immediate versus delayed correction) and manner of correction (explicit versus implicit correction). It also investigated the relative effects of correction of morphological versus syntactic features and correction of developmental early versus developmental late features. Data for the study were collected from 56 intermediate level students of English as a Foreign Language in Iranian university and private language school settings. Each participant was required to read and then retell a written text in their own words during an oral interview with the researcher. During or following the interview, the researcher corrected the participants' grammatical errors implicitly (using recasts) or explicitly (providing metalinguistic information). Individualised tests focusing on the errors that had been corrected were constructed for each participant and administered. Statistical analyses were conducted on the scores participants received on their individualised tests. Results showed no significant differences for the timing of correction. However, significant differences were found for the manner of correction. Participants who received explicit correction gained significantly higher scores than those who received implicit correction. This finding lends support to the argument of Schmidt (1994) conceming the role of metalinguistic awareness in language acquisition. Correction of morphological features was found to be more effective than that of syntactic features. It is argued that morphological features are generally learnt as items whereas syntactic features involve system learning. Correction of developmental early features was found to be more effective than correction of developmental late features. This finding lends support to suggestions that corrective feedback (like other types of form-focused instruction) needs to take into account learners' cognitive readiness to acquire features (Pienemann 1984; Mackey 1999). © 2006 Association for Language Learning.
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