Azizzolah Dabaghi; Elaheh Ghorbanchian; Zahra Amirian
Volume 7, Issue 16 , December 2015, , Pages 1-14
Abstract
Indubitably, the efficacy of metalinguistic awareness in improving EFL learners’ grammatical knowledge and writing quality has long been an area of great interest in applied linguistics Brown (2001). Accordingly , the main objective of the present study was to investigate the impact of planned ...
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Indubitably, the efficacy of metalinguistic awareness in improving EFL learners’ grammatical knowledge and writing quality has long been an area of great interest in applied linguistics Brown (2001). Accordingly , the main objective of the present study was to investigate the impact of planned and unplanned focus on form instruction on students ability to learn grammar and use it appropriately in their writing . For this purpose three intact classes registering for the Grammar and Writing course in university of Isfahan ,Iran were chosen for teaching the target structure (i.e , transitional devices)through different methods of focusing on form instructions . The selected samples comprised 30 in each group, male and female sophomore students with the age range of 19 to 24 , studying English translation at university of Isfahan. The samples received instruction through planned focus on form instruction (PFFI) , unplanned focus on form instruction (UFFI) and zero focus on form instruction (ZFFI) respectively . the results of the post-test on paragraph writing and on the subsequent delayed post-test revealed that the participants in the planned group notably outperformed those in the unplanned and zero focus on form groups in handling transitional markers in the writing of paragraphs.
Nasrin Shams; azizollah Dabaghi
Volume 6, Issue 14 , December 2014, , Pages 37-56
Abstract
This study explores the effect of online annotations via Interactive White Boards (IWBs) on reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. To this aim, 60 students from a language institute were selected as homogeneous based on their performance on Oxford Placement Test (2014).Then, they were randomly ...
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This study explores the effect of online annotations via Interactive White Boards (IWBs) on reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. To this aim, 60 students from a language institute were selected as homogeneous based on their performance on Oxford Placement Test (2014).Then, they were randomly assigned to 3 experimental groups of 20, and subsequently exposed to the research treatment after taking a pre-test of reading comprehension. The experimental groups received the L2 texts on IWB screen for comprehension and, at the same time, received the online annotations (auditory, pictorial, and video) attached to the target words. During the session of instruction, the participants read the texts through IWB for comprehension while consulting the annotations attached to the target words. Then, they were tested on their reading comprehension through an immediate post-test in order to measure the effect of instruction on reading comprehension immediately. The results of one-way ANOVA analysis of the data indicated that pictorial annotation group comprehended the L2 texts significantly better than the auditory annotation group. The results also revealed that video annotation group significantly outperformed the other two groups in L2 reading comprehension, confirming the Dual-coding Theory (Paivio, 1971, 1990). The findings of this study may have important implications for foreign language syllabus designers and instructors as well.
