This study investigated the effect of first language (L1) metalinguistic comments on Iranian EFL learners’ acquisition of third person /-s/ as measured by the learners’ performance on a grammaticality judgment test. Accordingly, two intact university classes- randomly assigned to experimental and comparison groups- were homogenized based on their scores on language proficiency and grammatically judgment tests. During 6 hours of task-based instructions, the experimental group was treated by L1 metalinguistic comments and the comparison group through L2 metalinguistic comments. Using ANCOVA and t-test to compare the groups’ scores, the results indicated that although the mean accuracy scores of both groups were improved on the immediate posttest, the experimental group outperformed the comparison group on the delayed posttest.It can be postulated that L1 metalinguistic comments lead to more durable gains than L2 metalinguistic comments in EFL classrooms. The findings suggest that L1 use may aid language learners to become more cognitively conscious of L2 grammar features. تفاصيل المقالة

Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory (MIT) specifies at least eight human intelligences, one of which is linguistic intelligence. Gardner (1983) also calls this intelligence the intelligence of words, since it is mainly concerned with written and spoken forms of language. This new theory of intelligence which gives emphasis to learner variable has been used in language learning and teaching settings. The present paper studies possible relationship between L2 learners’ linguistic intelligence and their writing ability, and writing assessment criteria. 33 female homogeneous Persian speaking EFL learners participated in this study. The instruments used were the Multiple Intelligence Developmental Assessment Scales (MIDAS), designed by Shearer (1996), and the participants’ two writings. The linguistic intelligence index was taken from the MIDAS and the participants' average scores on two writing tasks were used as an index of writing products. The writings were scored based on Jacobs et al.’s scale of five criteria: content, organisation, language use, vocabulary, and mechanics. The correlational analysis of the results revealed a significant relationship between participants' linguistic intelligence and their performance on writing. Furthermore, the results of regression analysis showed that among all five criteria, vocabulary shows higher correlation with linguistic intelligence. Possible implications of the findings for language teaching and teaching writing will be discussed. تفاصيل المقالة