Zahra Banitalebi; Ali Akbar Jabbari; Mohammad Hasan Razmi
Abstract
The present paper sought to investigate gender differences in the speech pauses made by Iranian bilingual (L1: Turkish and L2: Persian) learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). To this end, the pauses made by males and females were compared. Via an Oxford Placement test, a convenient sample of ...
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The present paper sought to investigate gender differences in the speech pauses made by Iranian bilingual (L1: Turkish and L2: Persian) learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). To this end, the pauses made by males and females were compared. Via an Oxford Placement test, a convenient sample of 40 bilingual advanced EFL male and female learners were selected from several English language institutes in Tehran, Iran. Three reading passages (English, Persian, and Turkish) were used to measure students’ fluency in terms of their speech pauses in the texts they read. As learners started to read the passages, their speeches were recorded. The collected data were analyzed by means of Praat Software. The data were analyzed in terms of the frequency and duration of the recorded pauses. The results indicated that that there were not any statistically significant differences between males and females regarding their pause frequency and duration across languages. Accordingly, the results represented more similarity than difference across the groups. The implications of the study results are discussed.
Omid Mallahi
Abstract
The present study intended to examine the relationship between working memory (WM) and writing performance of a group of Iranian EFL learners and to explore whether learners with different working memory levels perform differently on the fluency, accuracy and complexity of texts produced or not. The ...
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The present study intended to examine the relationship between working memory (WM) and writing performance of a group of Iranian EFL learners and to explore whether learners with different working memory levels perform differently on the fluency, accuracy and complexity of texts produced or not. The necessary data were collected through the argumentative essay writing prompt and a computerized Persian version of reading span test as a measure of learners’ WM capacity. The correlation analysis revealed that there was a significant positive relationship between these two constructs. The results of Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) indicated that there were significant differences between High, Mid and Low WM groups in terms of fluency and accuracy of texts produced, but not their complexity. The findings confirmed the importance of WM while working on cognitively challenging tasks such as writing which requires automation and effective management of cognitive resources while writing. On the whole, the present study confirmed the idea that learners with different learning characteristics orchestrate their mental resources in different ways to perform in different phases of writing and part of their difficulties or even capabilities in writing can be attributed to the efficiency with which they apply these resources while dealing with different writing systems (formulation, execution, or monitoring) or engaging in different writing processes (translating, planning, programming, reading, or editing).
