the impact of translation on iranian intermediate efl learners' knowledge of dependent clauses

The role of first language in l2 learning and teaching has been the subject of controversy. the current research was designed to investigate the effect of translation on iranian intermediate efl learners knowledge of dependent clauses. in other words, this paper was conducted to examine the effect of using translation from second language to first language on improvement of efl learners knowledge of dependent clauses. in order to fulfill the purpose of the study, 40 iranian female intermediate efl learners were chosen by means of administering a homogeneity test. the participants were divided into an experimental and a control group (n=20). the pretest was given to both groups. then, the experimental group received io dependent clauses in each session and the teacher translated the dependent clauses into persian with simple words. for the control group, everything was similar to that of the experimental group, except that there were no translations of the dependent clauses into persian. at the end, a post-test was given to both groups and the mean scores of the two groups were identified. the paired and the independent samples z-tests revealed that the treatments had positive effects on the efl learners knowledge of dependent clause.