scholarly journals Investigation the Effect of Colloconstructural Corpus-based Instruction on Pragmalinquistic Knowledge of Request Speech Act: Evidence from Iranian EFL Students

Author(s):  
Batoul Sabzalipour ◽  
Mansour Koosha ◽  
Akbar Afghari

The current study investigated the effect of using colloconstructional corpus-based instruction on enhancing the pragmalinguistic knowledge of speech acts of request among intermediate EFL learners. The fundamental idea was that whether providing students with on-line corpora through using colloconstruction had any effects on enhancing their pragmalinguistic knowledge of request speech act. In such doing, 60 intermediate-level subjects from several institutions in Mazandaran province, in Iran, participated in the study. Then, the subjects took a standard Oxford Placement Test (OPT) to demonstrate their English proficiency. Based on the obtained scores, they were randomly administered as two equal groups (N=30). A WDCT pre- test was conducted in each group to examine their ability and knowledge in using speech acts of request.  After 15 sessions of treatment, a WDCT posttest was conducted. The experimental group received corpus-based instruction through colloconstructional practices. In contrast, the control group only practiced learning the same speech act through traditional and old methods of learning speech acts like textbooks, audios and videos. The data were analyzed using paired and independent sample t- test. To boost the results validity, the researcher used observation and interview, too. The results revealed that speech act learning was enhanced by corpus-based instruction. Some theoretical and pedagogical implications of the study were then presented. 

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-106
Author(s):  
Khalil Motalebzadeh ◽  
Abdolghafour Bejarzehi ◽  
Hossein Sheikhzadeh

This study aims at investigating the effects of types of oral texts’ genres on listening comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. The participants of the study were 65 male and female EFL students which all of them from Issar institute in Nikshahr and Chabahar. In order to have homogeneous groups and real-intermediate level students, the first part of the Oxford Placement Test (OPT) containing 40 questions was performed. After the sampling procedure, the pretest was performed and then students were randomly assigned to two groups of control and experimental. The experimental group received a course encompassing the instruction of generic features including news with two genres, political and economic, for twenty sessions of instruction. The subjects in the control group listened to some pieces of news (without any specific generic features, mostly reports with ordinary people about routines). The results showed the experimental group had a better performance on the listening comprehension posttest.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arash Hashemifardnia ◽  
Hosna Rasooyar ◽  
Mehrdad Sepehri

This study examined the effects of task-based activities on Iranian EFL learners’ speaking fluency. For this study, 50 Iranian participants were selected from students based on Oxford Quick Placement Test. The selected intermediate participants were then randomly divided into two equal groups: experimental and control. After a pre-test, a treatment was started; in the first session of the treatment, the task of ‘buying’ was given to the participants to be performed in a near authentic context. In the second, the third and the fourth sessions of the treatment, the task of ‘ordering food’, ‘ordering a bus ticket’ and ‘visiting a doctor’ were given to the participants, respectively. The control group did not receive task-based instruction. At the end of the experiment, a post-test for finding their speaking fluency was done. The findings revealed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group (p < 0.05). Keywords: Iranian EFL learners, speaking fluency, task-based speaking activities


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuha Abdullah Alsmari

While pragmatic competence has proven to be teachable over the past three decades, determining the most appropriate and effective approach to facilitating English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ pragmatic development is still a central concern for researchers of interlanguage pragmatics (ILP). An investigation into the effects of video-driven prompts on less-studied and more complex teaching speech acts, such as complaints, will significantly supplement the inconclusive results of pragmatic interventional studies in foreign language contexts. To this end, the present study aims to investigate the effects of metapragmatic instruction on English complaints through the implementation of video-driven prompts to raise Saudi female EFL students’ awareness of the pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic aspects associated with the production of appropriate and accurate target-like complaints during one academic semester. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used to collect data from 62 English majors, assigned to an experimental group (n = 31) and a conventional group (n = 31), at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia. To elicit the required data, a proficiency test and pre-/post-test written discourse completion tests (WDCT) were distributed among participants. The results of the post-test demonstrated significant improvement in participants’ pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic skills in the production of English complaints. The experimental group immensely outperformed the control group due to their exposure to authentic, contextualized video excerpts. The study supports the teachability of complaints as well as the benefits of incorporating metapragmatic awareness tasks based on contextually authentic input, which can, in turn, accelerate EFL students’ ability to produce pragmatically appropriate and accurate target-like complaints.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Nuha Abdullah Alsmari

The present study sought to investigate the effect of using Edmodo, a Web 2.0 tool, as a supportive blended learning tool in developing EFL Saudi students&rsquo; paragraph writing skills at Prince Sattam bin Abdul Aziz University, KSA. Eighty students majoring in English at the college level one participated in the study. The participants were randomly selected for an experimental group (taught by using Edmodo) and a control group (taught without using Edmodo). Two main tools were devised to collect data: Oxford Placement Test (OPT) and Test of Paragraph Writing Skills (TPWS). The data were analyzed descriptively and inferentially by running a t-test, using SPSS 16.0, to calculate the differences between the mean scores of the two groups pre- and post-intervention. The results showed statistically significant differences in the post-test in favor of the experimental group. Integrating Edmodo into the writing class was found to be highly beneficial in developing EFL students&rsquo; writing abilities, up to paragraph level. The use of Edmodo also enriched students&rsquo; knowledge and increased their motivation to learn.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-95
Author(s):  
Daniele Artoni ◽  
Valentina Benigni ◽  
Elena Nuzzo

Over the last three decades, a growing number of studies have investigated the effects of instruction on the acquisition of pragmatic features in L2. The bulk of this research has focused mainly on the teaching of English as a second/foreign language. However, instructional pragmatic studies in L2-Russian are lacking. The main purpose of our study is to contribute towards filling this gap by analysing the effects of pragmatic instruction on the acquisition of two speech acts by Italian learners of Russian. Furthermore, we aim to explore whether the Multimodal Russian Corpus (MURCO), a multimedia subcorpus of the Russian National Corpus, can be an effective tool for teaching speech acts in L2-Russian. Our research was composed of one experimental group (n = 18) and one control group (n = 11); each was composed of two intact classes of Italian university students at an intermediate level of L2-Russian, who were pre- and post-tested using a written discourse completion task. The experimental group was subjected to a programme of pragmatic instruction – eight thirty-minute MURCO-based lessons devoted to requests and advice, while the control group was taught according to the standard syllabus, that is, with no pragmatic instruction. The results revealed that the use of the target pragmatic features varied significantly in the experimental group, but not in the control group, thus showing a general positive effect of the instructional treatment based on the MURCO corpus. However, some limitations were identified with regard to the usability of this tool by teachers and learners.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (33) ◽  
pp. 693-714
Author(s):  
. Muntaha Sabbar Jebur

          Peer teaching is a strategy that allows the students to teach the new content to each other, and they must be accurately guided by instructors.     The researcher proposes that the use of students peer teaching  may promote students' achievement  and ensure the engagement of all the students in the learning process. Therefore, the researcher employs it as a teaching method aiming at investigating its  effect on Iraqi EFL students' achievement in the course of Library and Research Work .      The study hypothesizes that there is no significant difference between the students' achievement who are taught library and research work by students peer teaching  and that of the students taught by the traditional way. The experimental design of the study is Parallel Groups, Random Assignment, posttest. Each group consists of 35 students, chosen randomly from the Third Year Students at the Department of English in the College of Basic Education. Both groups were matched in terms of their age and parents' education. The experiment was fulfilled in the first course for 15 weeks during the academic year 2016-2017.       The same materials were presented to both groups. This included   units from Writing Research Paper by Lester D. . Post-test was constructed and exposed  The t-test for  independent samples was used to analyze the results and it is found out that there is a statistical difference between the two groups in their achievement because the calculated t- value 2.635 is bigger than the tabulated t- value which is 2.000, and also shown the superiority of the experimental group. The results indicate that the experimental group, who was taught Library and Research Work by peer teaching   was better than the control group, who was taught according to the traditional way. So, the null hypothesis is rejected. Finally, some recommendations and suggestions are presented in the light of the study findings. to a jury of experts to verify its validity and it was administered to both groups.


Author(s):  
Rajwinder Kaur

The purpose of the study was to study the Effect of Web based instructions on achievement in Social Studies. The sample consisted of 100 students from Grade 8th of schools affiliated to C.B.S.E of Ferozepur and were randomly split into two groups-control (taught by traditional method) and experimental (taught by Web based instruction) groups. Firstly pre-test was administered on both the groups; then the students in the control group were taught by conventional method while experimental group was taught by Web based instructions. Then post-test was administrated on both the groups. The Statistical techniques were then employed to data collected and analysis and interpretation of the data was done. The result of the study implied that there exists significant difference in achievement in Social Studies based on Web based instructions and conventional method. The study also revealed that there exist significant gender differences in achievement in Social Studies with Web based instructions.


SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824402110071
Author(s):  
Saleh Alharthi

Writing is an intricate process that encompasses various factors and is a key skill for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students. Thus, writing assignments are vital for any curriculum. One of the essential aspects of effective writing includes good grammar knowledge. Advocates of process writing argue that a free-writing journal is a practical approach to teaching EFL students writing. This study is intended to examine the impact of the free-writing journal on EFL learners. This study was conducted on 80 students from a writing course at the University. Thirty-five students were randomly selected to join the free-writing program—the experimental group—and 45 students were kept in their regular structured writing program—the control group. The experimental group selected topics of interest to them and was encouraged to write in English freely without concern for errors, whereas the control group followed a regular structured writing program where the topics were selected for them and they wrote following a clear guideline. Five major areas were investigated to evaluate students’ progress: the number of words written, spelling, capitalization, subject-verb agreement, and punctuation. The researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 students of the experimental group to elicit their perception of the free-writing program. According to the analysis, students in the free-writing program acquired better grammar acquisition than the control group. The researcher also observed students’ perception of free-writing at the end of the study and found that free-writing improved their writing skills.


The purpose of the research was to investigatethe effect of activity-based games on the academic achievement of graduate-level pupils in social sciences.An experimental research design with a pre-and post-test control group was used in this study. As pre-test and post-test, MCQ achievement tests containing 70 items were used as research methods for data collecting. The initial stage in this initiative was to collect data on what inspires children to learn. Both groups took a pre-test, and the results were tallied.The project's second phase was to study the effects of variousactivities on academic achievement. Both groups were given an MCQ performance test. The T-test was used to analyze the data. The findings of this study demonstrated that, compared to the control group, mostpupils'marks improved in the experimental group. The mean value showedthat experimental group participants scored 18.77on the post-test, while control group students scored 16.21. According to a post-lesson poll, most students regarded activity-based games to be more engaging than lecture-based instruction.


2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 24
Author(s):  
Mohammad Davoudi ◽  
Mojtaba Rezaei

<p>The present study aims at investigating the influence of podcasts (POD) on language comprehension of Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners. An Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was administered to 60 male and female university students. The participants were considered as pre-intermediate learners and were divided into two groups (one experimental group and one control group). During the fifteen sessions of the treatment, thirty podcasts were presented to the two groups. The experimental group received just the audio file of the POD, and the control group received a different treatment which was the transcript file of the same audio podcast file of the experimental group. The results of the t-tests revealed that there was no significant difference in language comprehension scores across the posttest between two groups. Based on the interview results after the post-test, all of the participants (100%) agreed that both audio and the transcripts (written texts) were useful for them and claimed that it is a good method of improving language comprehension.</p>


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document