Picture Description Task

Unlike Lexical Projections, Functional Projections (Extended Projections) are more of an ‘abstract’ in nature. Therefore, Functional Projections seem to be acquired later than Lexical Projections by the L2 learners. The present study investigates Iranian L2 learners’ acquisition of English Extended Projections taking into account their level of grammatical proficiency. Specifically, the aim is to identify the level of grammatical proficiency at which the acquisition of Extended Projections could occur in the process of learning English by the Iranian students. Two hundred and seventy Iranian female L2 learners of English participated in this study. Participants were administered three tests with a ten-day interval between each test. First, an Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was used to classify the participants’ level of grammatical proficiency. Second, a Grammaticality Judgment Task (GJT) was administered in order to assess the learners’ ability to recognize grammatical problems in Extended Projections. Finally, a picture description task (PDT) was administered to examine the learners’ ability to produce grammatical Extended Projections. The results indicated that the learners are able to recognize and produce English Extended Projections even at lower levels of grammatical proficiency. The results also showed that the learner’s recognition and production of English Extended Projection improves with their increased level of grammatical proficiency.

This research is a quasi-experimental study investigating the effect of different types of teacher Written Corrective Feedback (WCF) on Iranian EFL learners’ writing accuracy in using two functions of English articles (the first mention and anaphoric reference) and simple past tense (regular and irregular). Ninety-four Iranian learners of English were assigned into three experimental groups of direct feedback group (n=24), indirect feedback group (n=24), direct plus indirect feedback group (n=24), and one pilot group (n=22). The participating groups’ homogeneity was checked by their performance in the proficiency test and the pre-test. During six treatment sessions, each of the three groups received feedback type. The papers with attached comments were returned to the participants. On two occasions (pre-test and post-test), the participants completed a picture description task. The results of one-way ANOVA revealed a statistically significant difference in the performance of the three groups. Furthermore, Scheffe post-hoc analysis indicated that the direct group outperformed direct plus indirect group, and direct plus indirect group outperformed the indirect group.