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This study was intended to compare processing instruction (PI), an input-based approach to L2 grammar instruction developed by VanPatten (1996), with an output-oriented type of instruction (OI) to assess their relative effects on learners' ability to interpret and produce English causatives. A pretest and posttest (immediate and delayed effects) design was used. 151 university students from four intact classes were randomly assigned to three treatment groups of PI, OI, and EI (Explicit-information-only) and one uninstructed control group (C). Students were assessed on interpretation and controlled written production tasks at the sentence level. Within-group comparisons indicated that the three instructional options, as compared to the control group, resulted in some kind of knowledge gain in both interpretation and production tasks, but the gains were not equal. The results of between-group comparisons contradicted VanPatten's claims about the superiority of PI over OI. While PI and OI were equally better than EI on interpretation tasks, OI group outperformed both PI and EI on production tasks. No significant difference was found between PI and EI on production tasks. The same results were obtained after a one-month interval, reflecting the durability of the instructional effects on the interpretation and production of the target structure.

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Self-assessment and peer-assessment are two means of realizing the goals of educational assessment and learner-centered education. Although there are many arguments in favor of their educational benefits, they have not become common practices in educational settings. This is mainly due to the fact that teachers do not trust the pedagogical values and the reliability of learners’ self- and peer-assessment. With regard to these points, this study aimed at investigating the effect of doing self- and peer-assessments over time on the paragraph writing performance and the self- and peer-rating accuracy of a sample of Iranian English-major students. To do so, eleven paragraphs during eleven sessions were written and then self- or peer-rated by the students in two experimental groups. The findings indicated that self-and peer-assessment are indeed effective in improving not only the writing performance of the students but also their rating accuracy. After comparing the effects of self- and peer-assessment on the writing performance and the rating accuracy of the participants, peer-assessment, however, turned out to be more effective in improving the writing performance of the students than self-assessment. In addition, neither of the assessment methods outdid the other in improving the rating accuracy of the students.

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This study investigated the effects of different output-based task repetition conditions on EFL learners’ speech act production. Three intact classes of English-major students constituted three instructional groups: (1) the explicit task-repetition (ETR) group, (2) the implicit task-repetition (ITR) group, and (3) the no-input task repetition (NTR) group. All the three groups engaged in the repetition of output-generation tasks. However, before the second performance of the task, the ETR group received input coupled with metapragmatic information, the ITR group received visually enhanced input coupled with a consciousness raising task, and the NTR group received no input. The results of a written discourse completion test (WDCT) revealed statistically significant gains in the learners’ performance from the pretest to the posttest in the ETR and ITR groups, but not in the NTR group. Moreover, the analysis of differences across the groups in the posttest revealed the superiority of the ETR over the ITR and NTR groups. The results suggest that output-based task repetition cannot enhance EFL learners’ speech act production ability unless learners are provided with input before the second performance of the task. Also when explicit and implicit instructional methods are integrated with output-based task repetition, the explicit approach is more effective than its implicit counterpart.