امید ملاحی

The present study adopted a mixed-methods research design and explored the role of a set of cognitive (i.e., aptitude and working memory) and motivational (i.e., self-regulatory capacity and self-efficacy beliefs) individual difference variables in the writing quality and composing behavior of 78 Iranian undergraduate EFL learners. The necessary data were collected through a series of instruments and both quantitative (e.g., multiple regression and t-tests) and qualitative (e.g., narrative construction and qualitative comparative analysis) techniques were used to analyze the data. The results of these analyses indicated that the construct of foreign language aptitude had the highest level of correlation and contributory potential to account for the writing competence of the learners. The composing process of learners with different individual characteristics was also compared and it was found that learners with high self-regulation capacity orchestrated and managed their composing behavior in more effective ways compared to their less self-regulated counterparts. Moreover, the narratives and qualitative comparative analysis provided some insights about how various individual characteristics might affect the composing behavior of the individual learners. Finally, it was suggested that consideration of individual differences in writing can reveal more subtle information about the causes of strengths and weaknesses of different learners and may enable the teachers to design and implement more effective instructions targeting their learners’ individual needs

The sociocultural approach to writing strategy use emphasizes the importance of context and the mediating resources that learners can use to enhance the quality of their performance in writing (Lei, 2008). Accordingly, the present study explored the sociocultural strategy use of a convenient sample of 105 BA level students of English Language and Literature who had passed essay-writing courses in a state university in Iran by analyzing their responses to the items of a newly-developed sociocultural strategy use questionnaire consisting of different sub-scales, namely, artifact-mediated, rule-mediated, community-mediated and role-mediated strategies. The results of the descriptive statistics revealed that the tool-mediated strategies, which are the subcategory of artifact-mediated strategies, had the highest frequency of use which is rather justified in the context of Iran. In addition, the students’ overall strategy use and their writing ability were correlated and a statistically significant relationship was found between these two variables. However, the results of the multiple regression analysis indicated that none of the sub-scales had a unique predicting power in accounting for the learners’ writing ability. The researchers also compared the sociocultural strategy use of more- and less-skilled student writers and found a significant difference in the strategy use of different individuals.

The present study intended to examine the relationship between working memory (WM) and writing performance of a group of Iranian EFL learners and to explore whether learners with different working memory levels perform differently on the fluency, accuracy and complexity of texts produced or not. The necessary data were collected through the argumentative essay writing prompt and a computerized Persian version of reading span test as a measure of learners’ WM capacity. The correlation analysis revealed that there was a significant positive relationship between these two constructs. The results of Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) indicated that there were significant differences between High, Mid and Low WM groups in terms of fluency and accuracy of texts produced, but not their complexity. The findings confirmed the importance of WM while working on cognitively challenging tasks such as writing which requires automation and effective management of cognitive resources while writing. On the whole, the present study confirmed the idea that learners with different learning characteristics orchestrate their mental resources in different ways to perform in different phases of writing and part of their difficulties or even capabilities in writing can be attributed to the efficiency with which they apply these resources while dealing with different writing systems (formulation, execution, or monitoring) or engaging in different writing  processes (translating, planning, programming, reading, or editing).

The present quantitative study examined the role of a set of socially-mediated personal attributes that might intervene in the speaking performance of Iranian EFL learners. The possible relationship between three factors (namely, Willingness to communicate (WTC) in L2, L2 communication confidence, and Beliefs about L2 group work in L2 speaking), which are hypothesized to influence learners’ oral performance, was investigated. In fact, a model reflecting the hypothesis that these three variables would influence the learners’ speaking performance was constructed and tested by collecting data from a convenient sample of 100 B.A. university students in Iran. In order to collect the required data on the above-mentioned variables, a comprehensive questionnaire developed by Fushino (2010) and IELTS speaking test module 1 were utilized. The structural equation modeling confirmed that these three variables were very good predictors of performance of Iranian EFL learners on speaking skill. In other words, the measurement model of this study was approved and the conceptual model of research had an acceptable level of fit index. In addition, the result of multiple regressions indicated that L2 communicative confidence made a higher level of contribution in explaining the L2 speaking performance of the learners, which corroborates the association of these two constructs. The findings of present study also implied that increasing EFL learners’ WTC, communication confidence and beliefs about L2 group work is likely to help to improve their speaking ability and learners who have higher levels of L2 WTC and confidence are likely to achieve higher scores on their speaking performance.

Shadow education, defined as private supplementary tutoring provided beyond the mainstream educational systems and formal learning spaces, has become a widespread phenomenon throughout the world. The present study adopted a hermeneutic phenomenological research approach to investigate the status and effects of shadow education practice in general education and teaching the English language in Iran. Through the purposive sampling technique, 10 ELT teachers and 10 EFL college students who had the experience of being engaged in such teaching practices and learning experiences were selected and interviewed. After conducting a thematic analysis of the transcribed data, the researcher obtained the following themes with regard to the nature and influence of shadow education in teaching English in Iran: (1) shadow education compensating for inefficiency in teaching, (2) shadow education providing more student-centered and humanistic teaching methods, (3) shadow education facilitating access to higher education, (4), shadow education creating business opportunities and (5) shadow education perpetuating social inequalities in the society. Finally, it was suggested that due to its tremendous growth and ubiquitous presence along with the mainstream curriculum in educational ecology, shadow education must receive appropriate attention from educational authorities, teachers and researchers in the country.

Academic writing is not just about presenting a set of ideas, but through the act of writing, the authors position themselves as individuals having particular identities which mostly reflect the dominant sociocultural values and practices of the discourse communities in which they are living and performing. The present study, using a mixed method approach, attempted to explore the evidences of voice and subject positioning, as reflections of authorial identity, in the argumentative writings of 41 advanced Iranian EFL learners. At first, the relationship between voice intensity and overall writing quality of the participants was assessed and the results indicated a positive relationship between the constructs. The multiple regression analysis conducted also revealed that assertiveness, as one of the main subcomponents of voice in writing, had the highest level of contribution in accounting for the writing competence of the learners. Afterwards, some representative instances of subject-positioning (i.e., ideational, interpersonal and textual) in the written texts were identified and discussed based on the ideological context of the study since it is believed that authorial identity and voice can vividly reflect the overall ideology of the specific discourse community in which they are constructed. Finally, it was suggested that raising the awareness of learners and even instructing them about the significance of authorial identity, voice and subject-positioning in writing can assist them in constructing more authentic texts in terms of idea presentation, consideration of readers and specific textual and linguistic features used.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of task type (i.e., sentence fill-in/sentence writing) and word type (i.e., real/ pseudo) on initial learning and retention of 10 word meanings, taking the predictions of Involvement Load Hypothesis (ILH) and Technique Feature Analysis (TFA) into account. Participants were 59 intermediate-level EFL learners from eight intact classes. Each intact class was randomly assigned to one of the four learning conditions: 1) sentence fill-in with real words, 2) sentence writing with real words, 3) sentence fill-in with pseudowords, and 4) sentence writing with pseudowords. Initial learning was measured by administering a meaning recall test immediately after the tasks and medium-term retention was measured by administering the same test with rearranged items one week after the tasks phase. The results of a mixed between-within subjects ANOVA did not show any significant interaction effect between test time and learning condition. Furthermore, the main effect for learning condition was not statistically significant but there was a significant main effect for test time, suggesting that participants’ scores dropped significantly from the immediate posttest to the delayed posttest. The findings of two independent-samples t-tests failed to show any significant difference between the immediate and delayed posttest scores of the participants who received either sentence fill-in or sentence writing tasks. However, some tentative findings demonstrated that those participants who were assigned to the sentence writing task achieved higher scores on the posttests. This finding indicates that TFA has probably more predictive power than ILH and it also provides some evidence in favor of the heavier weight of the evaluation component of the ILH when compared to its search component.