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This study, on the one hand, investigated whether or not strategies like Lexical Inferencing (LI) and Morphological Instruction (MI) can significantly affect English as a Foreign Language (EFL)learners’ reading comprehension, and on the other hand, it examined their effects on the learners’ vocabulary retention over time. For this purpose, 60 homogeneous EFLlearners were randomly assigned to two experimental and one control group each one consisting of 20 participants. After the pre-test, participants of the first experimental group received lexical inferencing strategy training for six 45-minute sessions. The second experimental group was also provided with morphological instruction for six 45-minute sessions and as for the control group, the participants followed their regular reading comprehension course without any specific strategy training. After the treatment, two post- tests with a short time interval were administered to the three groups and the obtained data were fed to different statistical tests to spot the probable differences among the three groups' first post- test performance as a measure of their learning differences and the second post-test performance as a measure of the learners’ vocabulary retention differences over time. Results of the paired t-tests for comparison of the within group differences showed that lexical inferencing instruction had statistically significant effect on EFL learners' reading comprehension development. On the other hand, it was found that morphological instruction had no statistically significant effect on EFL learners' reading comprehension development. The ANOVA analyses revealed that there was no statistically significant difference between the effects of lexical inferencing and morphological instruction on EFL learners' reading comprehension development. Furthermore, no significant difference was found between the effects of lexical inferencing and morphological instruction on EFL learners' reading comprehension development over time.

The present study aimed toassess the target and present reading comprehension needs and abilities of Iranian medical students with different levels of Englishlanguage proficiency. A total of 283 medical students and 23 ESP instructors were chosen through cluster sampling. The data collection instruments included the Persian version of Atai and Nazari’s (2011) needs analysis questionnaire and a 40-item language proficiency test. The obtained results indicatedthat ‘general vocabulary’and ‘medical terminology’were considered ‘important’ in facilitating the comprehension of medical texts. In addition, the findings revealed that medical students need to improve all reading sub-skills. Furthermore, the respondents’ perceptions were significantly different with regard to students’ target needs and present abilities in reading comprehension. Finally, there was no statistically significant difference in students’ target and present needs and abilities across different levels of language proficiency. The findings have potentialimplications for the improvement of medical EAP courses.

Listening is regarded as an interactive process involving decoding of information. This study was launched to find out the impact of bottom-up (BU) and top-down (TD)techniques on Iranian lower and upper intermediate learners’ listening comprehension.We selected a total of 120 participants in six intactclasses, three lower intermediate and three upper intermediate. The proficiency level of the groups was further verified and groups at each proficiency levelwere randomly assigned as aBUgroup who were engaged in BUactivities during the pre-listening stage of each lesson throughout the eight-session treatment, aTDgroup who performed TD activities, and a control group (CG)for whom no pre-listening attention focusing activities were used. The One-way and Two-way analysis of variance of the listening post-test scores indicated that the lower-intermediate BU group and the upper-intermediate TD group did significantly better compared to the other groups.The findings suggest thatBU processing activities were more effective atlower intermediatelevelwhile TD processing activities played a more facilitative role for upper intermediateparticipants.The findings support the interaction between proficiency level and information processing techniques and imply a number of pedagogical implications.

The present study explored the effect of a pedagogical blog on Iranian EFL learners’ creative and critical thinking skills using a mixed-methods approach. In the pedagogical blog, the researchers asked learners divergent and evaluative questions based on Lindley’s model (1993). The quantitative data were collected by administering Creativity Test Questionnaire (ATC) and the Persian version of the California Critical Thinking Skills Test and were analyzed using SPSS Version 16.0 software. The qualitative data consisted of the posts written by the participants of the study in the class blog and were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings revealed that the pedagogical blog significantly improved the participants’ creative and critical thinking skills, which were represented in their posts by the main themes of fluency, elaboration, and flexibility as components of divergent thinking and inference, evaluation, induction, and reconstruction as features of open and active critical thinking skills. Further findings and implications are discussed in the paper.

This study was an attempt to evaluate the undergraduate TEFL program at Farhangian University. The university specializes in educating prospective teachers and the program is important since it is expected to equip the student teachers with the knowledge and skills necessary for qualified teachers. Hence, in this study, measures were taken to investigate the merits and demerits of the implemented TEFL program and explore the domains in which the program needs to be improved. The study assessed the program from the perspectives of 220 student teachers, 32 teacher educators, and 12 heads of departments and experts including the university deans, deputies, and research and teaching staff, through using three instruments, i.e. questionnaires, interviews, and observations in a mixed methods design .The findings indicated that the TEFL program did not address some educational and administrative needs as the participants believed that they were not enriched with the necessary skills, the practice of the learned theories, problem solving, critical thinking, flexibility, and innovation. Furthermore, this study demonstrated several theory- practice gaps in the curriculum.

This study investigated the impact of visual-kinesthetic tasks on ESP university students’ vocabulary learning. Two intact classes of university students were selected as control (23 students) and experimental (36 students) group. A proficiency test, a pretest and a posttest were administered and the students were exposed to a set of treatments. Also a questionnaire administered to students, recognized each student’s learning style. The posttest mean score of experimental group was significantly different from control group’s posttest proved significant effect of visual and kinesthetic activities on ESP students’ vocabulary learning. Also this significant effect was repeated regarding student’ related learning style.

This article sets out to examine the effect of utilizing different culturally-based materials on EFL university students' foreign language reading anxiety, reading comprehension self-efficacy, and reading proficiency within project-based classes. The research was carried out with two classes of intermediate freshmen majoring in English Language Teaching. The comparison group had to present their projects based on the reading passages of the book "Active" (L2 culturally-oriented texts) and the experimental group had to deliver their projects based on their L1 and L2 culturally-based reading texts designed by the researcher. Reading comprehension self-efficacy scale, foreign language reading anxiety scale, and the reading section of the Michigan Test (1998) were administered to students as pre-tests and post-tests at the beginning and at the end of one academic year consisting of two project-based reading courses. ANCOVA was utilized for analyzing the data. The results indicated that although in both groups significant improvements were observed regarding the three aforementioned variables, it was the experimental group that showed significantly less degrees of anxiety, compared to the comparison group. However, no differences regarding reading self-efficacy and reading proficiency were observed between the two groups. The findings of this study suggest that EFL teachers, material developers and syllabus designers can take advantage of cultural familiar texts when generating their own learning materials.