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The present article explores the idea of using movies in EFL classrooms to develop students' writing skill. In this qualitative study, 15 EFL learners were engaged in different writing activities in a contextualized form of movies, meaning that the films acted as text-books, and activities were designed based on the contexts of the films. Taking an action research design, and by relying on different sources to enrich the class, the researchers took the learner-and-instructor role to explore writing beyond its conventional practices in EFL classrooms. After 40 hours of instruction, it was shown that the students found a way to enrich their writings and to express their ideas through words and statements that resembled the way writers and directors of the movies dealt with pictures. Students were engaged in deciphering the pictures, inferring and expressing the meanings, and finding a framework for their writings based on the genres of the movies. Following these activities, learners learnt how to be visually literate and to move beyond the predetermined writing formats and discover their own through an artistic practice to give life to their texts, like movies.

This study aims to investigate the predictive power of personality traits for EFL students' preference for isolated or integrated form-focused instruction (FFI). Participants were 160 Iranian EFL university students. Results indicated that students' personality traits, as measured by Costa and McCrae (Revised NEO Personality inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual, Psychological Assessment Resources Inc., Odessa, FL, 1992) NEO-FFI, were significantly related to students' preference for isolated or integrated grammar instruction as assessed by Student Preference for Grammar Instruction Questionnaire developed by Spada et al. ("System," 37(1):70-81, 2009). Multiple regression analyses indicated that NEO-FFI variables of extroversion, agreeableness, and open to experience were significant positive predictors of EFL students' preferences for integrated FFI while neuroticism had a negative relationship with that. Furthermore, NEO-FFI variables of conscientiousness and neuroticism were significant positive predictors of students' preferences for isolated FFI while extroversion and open to experience had a negative relationship with it. The results were discussed and the implications were made with regard to individual differences in educational contexts.