Abstract The ability to employ the language as a communicational tool often serves as a measure of one’s speaking success in the language learning class. This research sought to investigate the effect of learners’ autonomous textbook selection on the speaking ability of Iranian English as foreign language (EFL) learners. Moreover, finding and analyzing factors considered by the learners in selecting the textbooks were another aim of this research. Sixty Iranian intermediate EFL learners from the Simin Language Institute in Ramsar, Mazandaran, Iran, were selected as the participants of the study based on their scores on Oxford Placement Test. This test determines the level of the students’ English proficiency. These participants were randomly assigned into the control and experimental groups. An interview procedure was run as their pretest. The experimental group studied from their selected books, besides the researcher’s teaching in the class. After 16 sessions, a posttest, the same as the pretest, was run as well. The quantitative results indicated the superior performance of the experimental group over the control group. Furthermore, an analysis of the Litz’s (2000) questionnaire shows that learners considered criteria such as practical considerations, layout and design, activities, skills, language type, subject and content of the selected books.

中文翻译：

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学习者自主课本选择对伊朗中级英语外语学习者口语能力的影响

摘要利用语言作为交流工具的能力通常可以衡量一个人在语言学习班中的口语表达能力。这项研究旨在调查学习者自主选择教科书对伊朗英语作为外语（EFL）学习者的口语能力的影响。此外，寻找和分析学习者在选择教科书时考虑的因素也是本研究的另一个目标。根据他们在牛津大学入学考试中的分数，选择了来自伊朗马赞达兰拉姆萨尔市思明语言学院的60名伊朗中级英语学习者作为研究参与者。该测试确定学生的英语水平。这些参与者被随机分为对照组和实验组。他们进行了面试程序作为他们的预测试。除了研究者在课堂上的教学外，实验小组还从他们选择的书中学习。在16个会话之后，也进行了与预测试相同的后测试。定量结果表明实验组的性能优于对照组。此外，对Litz（2000）调查表的分析表明，学习者考虑了一些标准，例如实践考虑，布局和设计，活动，技能，语言类型，所选书的主题和内容。