language proficiency

Purpose: The current study was conducted to discover the possible relationship between self-esteem and the productive skills of EFL learners in Iran across genders. Methodology: The design of the study was ex post facto or correlational design. Three instruments were used for data collection in the present study. A language proficiency test (Oxford Placement Test (OPT)) to measure the participants’ proficiency level, Cooper smith Self-Esteem Inventory and finally two tests of speaking and writing adopted from Preliminary English Test (PET). To begin the study, with the purpose of clearing the language proficiency level of the learners, the researchers gave all learners a language proficiency test in Payame Noor University in Tabriz. After the test, 52 candidates whose test scores were between one SD below and above the mean finally were selected as the homogeneous sample for further data collection. Then some parts of the data were collected by Copper smith's self-esteem questionnaire to find out the participants’ self-esteem. Finally the last part of the data which was the participants’ productive skills was gathered by two tests of speaking and writing adopted from PET. To test all the research hypotheses in the current study, the researchers run Pearson correlation analysis as the chief statistical analysis. Findings: The results indicated that, there was significant relationship between the self-esteem and productive skills of the learners in both genders. Conclusion: feelings of competence, confidence and good directedness influence learners’ performance. It means that, self-esteem could have a significant impact on the learners’ learning processes.

Purpose: The present research was conducted to discover the possible relationship between self-esteem and the receptive skills of EFL learners in Iran across genders. Methodology: The design of the study was correlational or ex post facto design. The researchers used three instruments for data collection in the current study. A language proficiency test to measure the participants’ proficiency level, Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory and finally two tests of listening and reading adopted from Preliminary English Test. To begin the research, in order to clear the language proficiency level of the learners, the researchers gave all learners a language proficiency test in Payame Noor University in Tabriz. After the test, the researchers finally selected 52 candidates whose test scores were between one SD below and above the mean as the homogeneous sample for further data collection. Then they collected some parts of the data from Coopersmith's self-esteem questionnaire to find out the learners’ self-esteem. Finally, they gathered the last part of the data which was the learners’ receptive skills from two tests of listening and reading adopted from PET. With the intention of testing all the research hypotheses, the researchers ran Pearson correlation analysis as the chief statistical analysis. Findings: The Results showed a significant correlation between the self-esteem and reading skill of the learners across genders. Also no relationship could be found between the self-esteem and listening skill of the learners across genders. Conclusion: From the findings, self-esteem had deep-seated and improved positive possessions on reading performances of the learner. But when it comes to listening performance, not self-esteem, but most linguistic knowledge and strategy use, mark the failure or success of a learner. It seems that there are some other factors of which affect the process of listening comprehension

The present study was intended to investigate the roles of test-taking strategies, critical thinking, and self-efficacy in the language proficiency of the female Iranian Ph.D. students at Islamic Azad University (IAU), Shahrekord Branch, Shahrekord, Iran. The participants of the study, who were 98 Ph.D. students from a range of disciplines, were getting ready to sit for the English Proficiency Test (EPT) as a partial requirement for the completion of their courses and take the Comprehensive Exam subsequently. These participants were required to complete the test-taking strategies, critical thinking, and self-efficacy questionnaires, one questionnaire per session, towards the end of their English course with the present researcher. They also took a sample of EPT for their final exam. Standard multiple regression was conducted to see how well self-efficacy, critical thinking, and test-taking strategies could predict the participants’ language proficiency. The obtained results revealed that language proficiency had strong, positive, and significant correlations with critical thinking, test-taking strategies, and self-efficacy. Moreover, it was found that all the three independent variables were significant predictors of language proficiency, with critical thinking being the best predictor, test-taking strategies the second, and self-efficacy the third. The significance of these results lies in the fact that individual attributes like critical thinking, self-efficacy, and test-taking strategies play a significant role in the success of students when it comes to language proficiency.       

There is a general consensus that critical thinking can be influential in almost every occupation due to its association with the abilities such as problem solving and decision making. This paper aims at probing the role of critical thinking (CT) skills on EFL learners' reading comprehension performance using Bloom's taxonomy. Therefore, the role of CT strategies training across two language proficiency levels, high & low, was investigated. Then the difference between females and males regarding their CT was studied. In so doing, 240 male and female Iranian EFL students were selected and screened into two proficiency levels based on the Longman preparation course for TOEFL test. Each proficiency group was divided into critical and non-critical group. The results suggested CT skills significantly affected EFL learners’ reading comprehension performance. However, the effect of critical thinking strategy training didn’t vary across different language proficiency levels. Overall, the findings provide empirical support for the facilitative effect of critical thinking strategy training on reading comprehension performance of EFL learners.

The present study investigated the interplay between language anxiety, locus of control, and language proficiency of EFL students in online classes. The participants of the study were 67 upper-intermediate students between 18 to 30 years old and were selected randomly from a few language institutes in Shiraz. Two questionnaires and a proficiency test were used: Chametzky’s Online World Language Anxiety Scale, Rotter’s Locus of control questionnaire, and The Examination for the Certificate of Proficiency in English. Pearson-product-moment correlation, multiple regression analysis, and independent-samples t-test were run to answer the research questions. The results of the study revealed a strong negative correlation between locus of control and language proficiency, meaning that those who had higher scores on the proficiency test were internal. In addition, a strong negative correlation was found between language anxiety and language proficiency, indicating that anxiety has adverse effects on language proficiency. Thirdly, both locus of control and language anxiety could predict language proficiency, but the former was a better predictor. This means that the effect of locus of control is much higher than anxiety on the language proficiency of Iranian EFL learners in online classes. This research can help students and teachers to recognize individual differences better.

The present study scrutinized the probable significant correlation between Iranian language learners’ emotional intelligence (EQ) and reading proficiency. Moreover, the significant predicting role of the participants’ EQ for their reading comprehension proficiency was investigated. To this end, 196 Iranian B.A. English language teaching students at Islamic Azad university of Neyshabur attended the study. They formed unequal proportion of gender. The study followed a quantitative descriptive design, in which the significant correlation between the variables and the significant predicting role of EQ were investigated. As the normality of data was proved through Kolmogrow-smirnow test, the parametric statistical analyses, including descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficient, independent sample T-test, and linear regression analyses were employed. The data collection instruments were an ETS TOEFL reading comprehension test and Bar On’s (1997) inventory of emotional quotient. The findings demonstrated significant positive correlation coefficients between the participants’ reading proficiency and overall EQ as well as most of its subcategories. Three highest positive significant correlation coefficients were seen among the participants’ reading proficiency level, happiness, problem-solving, and emotional self-awareness successively. The results of linear regression analysis also reflected that EQ significantly predicted the participants’ reading proficiency. No significant differences were found between the genders concerning EQ. The findings laid emphasis on the influential importance of psychological non-linguistic factors in improving linguistic competence of language learners. Language teachers should be acutely conscious of the highly influential role of psychological paradigms in boosting language learning process of language learners.

This study investigated the interplay of working memory capacity and language proficiency in the context of vocabulary acquisition through word-focused tasks. The involvement load hypothesis served as a theoretical framework, positing that the degree of cognitive engagement influences lexical learning outcomes. A total of 100 EFL learners participated in this study. They were divided into distinct groups based on varying levels of working memory capacity, language proficiency, and aspects of working memory (phonological short-term memory and executive working memory). The participants engaged in receptive and productive vocabulary tasks under different experimental conditions, including reading-only, reading plus blank-fill, and reading-plus production. The results revealed intricate relationships between working memory capacity, language proficiency, and vocabulary acquisition. While the efficacy of the hypothesis varied across conditions, its predictions were influenced by the nuances of individual cognitive capabilities and language competence. Learners with higher proficiency levels acquired more lexical items, both receptively and productively.  Although the difference with the phonological short-term memory was not significant, executive working memory was more facilitative of lexical gain. Additionally, the role of input modality in shaping vocabulary learning outcomes was highlighted. That is, reading plus production and blank-fill tasks resulted in more lexical gain than reading-only tasks.  The study contributes to the theoretical understanding of vocabulary acquisition by underscoring the complex interplay of cognitive processes and language factors. These insights hold implications for foreign language pedagogy, guiding educators in crafting more effective interventions for enhancing both receptive and productive lexical knowledge.

This study examined the possible effects of orthographic/phonologic priming techniques on the receptive language skills of Iranian EFL learners with different proficiency levels. From an initial pool of 700 EFL learners from a language learning institute, two hundred and seventy learners from both genders were selected based on their performance on an English proficiency test and classified into six experimental and three control groups. After gaining certitude about the participants’ English proficiency levels, the semantic and orthographic/phonologic priming phase was conducted, and consequently, the participants’ contextualized comprehension of the primed words was assessed via a set of reading and listening comprehension tasks. The performances of the participants on the designed tasks indicated that semantic primes were more efficient for improving both comprehension skills compared with the orthographic-phonologic primes. Moreover, based on the results, language proficiency affected the success of the primes on both reading and listening comprehension tasks; advanced learners showed a greater improvement than the beginners and the intermediates under the influence of the priming techniques. Orthographic-phonologic primes were found to be more efficient for beginners, whereas the advanced learners showed an enhanced performance with regard to semantic primes. Overall, semantic primes showed more facilitative effects across various comprehension tasks due to their activation of deeper cognitive processing. Orthographic-phonologic primes were also successful. However, they were more efficient in the early stages of language learning, where visual recognition played a more critical role.

People are constrained by their culture and social life when telling stories. A second language learner then cannot be expected to tell stories in the target language without cross-cultural effects that influence the way of narration. The present study examined the role of the first language (L1) and second language (L2) in the organization of narratives by focusing on Persian speakers’ and EFL learners’ lived narratives. For this purpose, 125 oral stories were voice recorded. Seventy-five EFL learners’ narratives and 50 Persian narratives as told by Iranian native speakers were collected via classroom discussions and interviews. To examine the substantive effect of L2 knowledge, the EFL learners were selected from pre-intermediate and upper-intermediate proficiency levels. The Labovian analytical narrative model was employed for the analysis. The findings indicated that EFL learners’ narratives were mostly affected by L1 rather than L2. Furthermore, English linguistic knowledge, rather than the English narrative structure itself, affected the organization of EFL narratives

Despite the substantial significance of communicative goals in EFL, pragmatic aspects of instruction that are geared towards the learners’ appropriacy still remain less than adequately addressed. Such a niche offers potentials for and stimulates a proliferating body of research. This study aims at examining the effectiveness of explicit vs. implicit pragmatic instruction regarding language performance as output. For the purpose of the study, 120 (60 male and 60 female) EFL learners took part in this project. Error Recognition Tests (ERTs), Discourse Completion Tests (DCTs), role-play, and writing assessments were used for gauging pragmatic output. Two separate 3×2 mixed between-within-subjects factorial ANOVAs were conducted to examine the effects of instruction type, proficiency level, and time (treatment) on pragmatic acquisition. Findings significantly support (a) the overall benefit of pragmatic instruction, (b) the effect of both implicit and explicit instructions with explicit type being more highly influential, (c) the effect of proficiency, and (d) the interaction effect of proficiency and pragmatic instruction on pragmatic language L2 use. Findings bear implications for enriching teaching and learning contexts, deepening theoretical concerns, improving pedagogical practice, and implementing communicative syllabus design. Keywords:

This research attempts to investigate the effect of the English language test of the University Entrance Examination (UEE) in predicting the academic achievement of Iranian EFL learners. To achieve this goal, Isfahan, Tabriz, Mashhad, Shiraz and AllamehTabatabaeiUniversities were randomly selected. Then, the scores of the English majors admitted to those universities were collected from the aforementioned universities. Subsequently, the scores of special courses were included and the scores of the general ones such as theology, Ethics, etc. were excluded. Afterwards, the English scores of the learners were obtained from the Educational Testing Measurement (ETM) to investigate the relationship between the set of scores from the ETM and their achievements at the aforementioned universities. The results showed significant relationships between the UEE scores and the academic achievement in all fields of the study when quota (Q) six was included. However, in the same fields of study when Q six was excluded, the observed correlation was rather low except for the scores of the English majors in ShirazUniversity. It was also discovered that the correlation observed between the two sets of scores of the English majors in MashhadUniversity did not reveal significant relationships when Q six was excluded.

The present study was conducted to investigate whether there was a relationship between EFL learners’ use of language learning strategies and their self-perceived language proficiency at the two levels of intermediate and advanced. A total of 67 subjects (39 intermediate-level and 28 advanced) were selected to participate in this study based on their scores on a piloted language proficiency test. They were asked to respond to two questionnaires: one assessing their self-perceived language proficiency and the other the strategy inventory of language learning. The results of the statistical analysis demonstrated that there was a significant relationship between the two variables among advanced-level subjects while no such relationship existed among intermediates. Thence, as learners reach higher stages of language proficiency, they become more capable of assessing their language abilities and also use their learning strategies more often. Further analysis also revealed that subjects did not change their attitude in using strategies as they reached higher stages of proficiency except for memory and social strategies. Finally, the results showed that the most frequently used set of strategies among both intermediate and advanced learners were cognitive while the least were affective.

Communication strategies (CSs) are systematic attempts by language learners to encode or decode meaning in a target language in situations where the appropriate target language rules have not been formed. Based on this view, communication strategies can be seen as compensatory means for making up for linguistic deficiencies of second or foreign language learners. Within the conceptual framework outlined, this paper is a report on a research conducted at Azarbaijan Teachers Education University on the students majoring in English Language and Literature. The main aim was to seek a relationship between the subjects’ use of communication strategies in solving communication problems and their proficiency levels in English as a foreign language. The data was collected by means of one-to-one interviews with the participants, and were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The results indicated that the frequency of communication strategies applied by the participants varied according to their proficiency levels, i.e. low proficient learners tended to employ more communication strategies in comparison with high and moderate ones. The type of communication strategies employed also varied according to their oral proficiency level. It was revealed that high level participants employed more L2-based communication strategies where the low proficient learners used more L1-based ones.

Performance deficiencies and inconsistencies among SLA or FL learners can be attributed to variety of sources including both systemic (i.e., language issues) and individual variables. Contrary to a rich background, the literature still suffers from a gap as far as delving into the issue from language proficiency and learning style is concerned. To fill the gap, this study addressed EFL learners’ interlanguage performance (i.e., error types) in the light of their learning styles and language proficiency levels. Participants were 73 Iranian graduate EFL learners, who received the Michigan proficiency tests along with the Perceptual Learning-Style Preference Questionnaire (of Reid) in order to measure their language proficiency level and learning style types. For the purpose of the study they were divided into pre-intermediate, intermediate and upper-intermediate levels. To explore their performance inconsistencies, both oral data from an semi-structured (SST) interview and written data based on an on-the-spot piece of writing were used and then classified based on Corder’s (1971) scheme into pre-systematic, systematic and post-systematic errors. The results revealed significant relationships among the target variables, if not predictor-predicted relationships. The non-linear relationship among the variable underscores significance of an integrative approach to EFL learner’s performance inconsistencies and the importance of stylistic instruction in EFL contexts.