The present study investigated comparatively the impact of two types of input enhancement (i.e. textual vs. compound enhancement) on developing grammar ability in Iranian EFL setting. Sixty-five female secondary high school students were selected as a homogenous sample out of about a 100-member population based on Nelson language proficiency test. Then, their grammar ability was measured based ...

In the present study, an exploratory approach (Oxford, Cho, Leung & Kim, 2004) to language learning is adopted which holds that the number and type of strategies used by Iranian learners might vary with respect to the difficulty of task and their L2 proficiency. In this regard, the term task is defined, its leading dimentions and charecteristics are put forward, and the nature of learning start...

The ultimate goal of human natural language interaction is to communicate intentions. However, these intentions are often not directly derivable from the semantics of an utterance (e.g., when linguistic modulations are employed to convey politeness, respect, and social standing). Robotic architectures with simple command-based natural language capabilities are thus not equipped to handle more l...

For a robot to perform a task, people have to instruct it, typically through programming. However, it does not seem feasible for a general user to be able program any robot. Instead, people talk and use language to instruct one another. In this thesis, we investigate how to provide language-based interactions to get a robot to perform a task. We consider robots equipped with a set of built-in m...

Curriculum development and empirical research in the field of second language acquisition could benefit critical pedagogy (CLP) its practitioners. This article reviews central concepts organization curriculum CLP compares them with another major curricular initiative teaching, namely task-based or task-supported approaches, particular emphasis on teaching. Content itself (as activities material...

In an effort to investigate developmental episodes in additional language learning using both cognitive and social frameworks, this working paper presents results of a pilot study based on a task-based language learning session. A total of forty participants at a Japanese university carried out a pedagogical task in five steps, including both interactive and independent steps. No instruction wa...