The present study sets out to examine whether and how task structure affects the number and type of vague expressions used by a group of higher intermediate EFL learners. The participants were 50 Iranian EFL learners from 6 intact classes, all native speakers of Persian with limited opportunity to communicate with native speakers of English, and…

Little research has been carried out on the effect of task repetition on young learners' negotiation of meaning (NoM) strategies and on pair dynamics. The present study aims to fill this gap by analysing the interaction of 60 dyads of third- and fourth-year primary English as a foreign language learners (8-9, 9-10 years old, respectively) while…

This article reports on a study on the effect of orthography on L1-based phonological transfer in L2 production in 40 novice English-speaking learners of Spanish. In particular, the role of auditory-orthographic training and production and the influence of grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences are examined. Data elicited via a picture-naming task…

This study investigates the relative effectiveness of four types of input-enhanced instruction on the development of Iranian EFL learners' production of pragmatically appropriate and grammatically accurate suggestions. Over a 16-week course, input delivered through video clips was enhanced differently in four intact classes: (1) metapragmatic…

The use of integrated skills tasks in language tests has been debated for many years and international English test developers such as Educational Testing Service (ETS) and Pearson Tests of English (PTE) already use such tests to assess English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' language proficiency. Empirical research has rarely investigated…

This study examines the effects of foreign language learning context (three-month study-abroad; versus "at-home" instruction) and age (10-11-year-old children versus university students) on the development of effective foreign language communication strategies (CS) in monologue production. Participants (N = 95) were all Spanish/Catalan…

This study investigates the combined effects of task-based careful online planning and the storyline structure of a task on second language performance (complexity, accuracy and fluency). Sixty intermediate EFL learners were randomly assigned to four groups (n = 15). Participants were asked to perform two tasks with different degrees of storyline…

To date, research results suggest that task repetition positively affects oral task performance. However, researchers have not yet shown the extension of the benefits of repeating the same task to performance of a new task. This article first provides an overview of the currently available research findings on task repetition and then presents the…