Among a growing body of research that examined the contradictory role of written corrective feedback (WCF) in development of L2 writing accuracy, this study investigated the possible impact of focused metalinguistic WCF on discourse markers (DMs) in writing performance of an intact group of 42 Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners over an eight-week period. In an authentic, situated, and personalized learning platform, giving and receiving WCF were made possible only through the mobile-mediated application of WhatsApp. Before participants wrote on selected elicitation topics, they had taken part in a 2004 version of Oxford Preliminary Test in order to be screened for their initial differences in writing performance. After receiving metalinguistic WCF on their scripts, participants were required to work on the coded feedback and try to eliminate the DM errors in their revised writing assignment. After collecting the scripts over an eight-week period, the content of written assignment was thematically analyzed using NVivo 21 Software for the additive, adversative, causal and temporal DMs, following Halliday and Hasan’s (Cohesion in English., 1976) typology. In a convergent mixed-methods design, the content analysis of the qualitative data showed a larger distribution of additive DM than adversative, causal, and temporal DMs in all participants’ written scripts. Exploring the possible impact of metalinguistic WCF on improving the DMs accuracy, analysis of the frequency count data with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) multivariate Chi-square test reported the fluctuation and unsystematic patterns of distribution for four types of DMs with no sign of significant long-term improvement in DMs accuracy after receiving metalinguistic WCF. These findings implied further research on practicing alternative WCF strategies focused on variety of error types in actual and virtual L2 writing environments.

This study attempted to explore the possible impacts of teaching English pragmatic features to Iranian high school students’ use of request speech acts. To this end, a sample of Iranian female high school students (n=50) between 12 to 18 years range of age participated in the study. The students with the same level of proficiency were assigned into two experimental and control groups. The data were collected by administering Multiple-Choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT) as both the pre and the post-tests. The pragmatic features were selected from the high school English textbooks and the excerpts taken from the Top Notch series (2A, 3A, 2B). With the focus on request speech acts, the control group received conventional instructions whereas the experimental group was exposed to the researchers’ request speech act interventions. After statistical analysis of the findings, the data revealed that teaching pragmatic features has significant impact on the Iranian high school students’ performance on request speech acts. Besides, the overall responses by the experimental group showed that indirect request speech acts were more widely used than direct request speech acts as the sign of social and cultural politeness.

This study attempted to explore the possible relationship between test-taking strategies and (a) successful performance on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) reading comprehension, (b) EFL learners' level of language proficiency. To accomplish the purpose of this study, 68 students of English translation of both genders were randomly selected and placed in the three Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced levels, at Alborz Institute for Higher Education, Qazvin, Iran. Analysis of Variances (ANOVA) proved that there was a significant and positive correlation between the scores in reading comprehension test and Oxford Placement Test. While the scores in reading comprehension test did not show any significant correlations with using the majority of test-taking strategies, they had a relatively low and negative but significant correlation with test management strategy. The findings in this study were interpreted as the low knowledge of test-taking strategies in Iranian EFL context and the importance of attending to the cognitive processes effective in taking language tests was emphasized.

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