عزیزالله میرزایی

This study was an attempt to explore the role that the increased perceptual saliency of L2 input features or output flaws and hereby promoting L2 learners’ noticing (through planned instructional activities) can play in the learners’ use of correct English intonation patterns. The participants were 80 Iranian EFL students attending four intact classes, two low-intermediate and two upper-intermediate levels, in a language institute in Shahrekord. The classes at each level were assigned to control and experimental groups. The experimental groups received the noticing-enhancing instruction while listening to native speakers' English audio-recorded on a CD and through in-class intonation assessment tasks, repeated activation of intonation patterns in both L2 input and output, metalinguistic explanations, picture descriptions, and interactive role-playings. An English native-speaker instructor was then hired to rate the learners’ audio-recorded data at both pretest and posttest times. The results of the statistical data analysis demonstrated that both the ‘noticing groups’ achieved significant improvement from their pretests to their posttests. Complementary gain score analysis indicated that the attainment of the lower-level group was relatively more than that of the higher-level group, perhaps due to the fact that they initially had more room for improvement. It is finally discussed that selective attention, or noticing, can influence the processing of the commonly neglected aspects of L2 input and thus leads to more learning. The findings also suggest that L2 practitioners include in their pedagogy activities that aim to increase the prominence or saliency of such intrinsic features of L2 input and communication in order to make them available for processing and internalization.

This study examined the effect of the ZPD-based discourse scaffolding on EFL learners' co-construction of L2 metadiscourse performing collaborative writing tasks and explored the discourse scaffolding dynamics. The participants were 160 EFL students that were assigned to four different treatment conditions: (i) formal teaching, (ii) input enhancement, (iii) non-ZPD interaction, and (iv) ZPD-based L2 discourse scaffolding. The ZPD learners were required to audio-record their task-focused social interactions and also write four weekly compositions and one delayed essay. The results showed a substantial effect for the ZPD-based L2 discourse scaffolding on the ZPD participants' use of English metadiscourse. Further, the microgenetic analysis of the social interactions revealed that the ZPD groups employed manifold scaffolding dynamics at various ZPD levels to expedite task performance and their peers' use of L2 metadiscourse. The asymmetrical discourse construction grew mutual with the less capable peers offering increasingly more self-initiated repairing moves within their activated ZPD. Also, the students' essays were rated as more reader-friendly over time. Finally, the implications for L2 research and pedagogy are discussed.