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Learner autonomy, which emphasizes learners’ engagement in self-dependent learning to enhance their ability to become self-reliant learners, is the key element in the language learning process. Although many studies have been carried out on learner autonomy, very little is known about the students' engagement in autonomous learning in the resource poor areas. This research uses a mixed-method research design and collected both qualitative and quantitative data from students (n=84) and teachers (n=20) from different colleges (n=15) located in Far Western Nepal and explores students’ engagement in autonomous learning and discusses the challenges and practices of learner autonomy in an EFL context in difficult circumstances. This research reveals students' over-dependence on their teachers, and teachers seemed to spoon-feed their students during their instructional practices. This research suggests how learner autonomy can be fostered in the actual instructional practices which can be of interest to the teachers, material designers, policymakers, and researchers working in developing the proficiency level of English language learners in remote and resource-poor areas.

Due to subjectivity in oral assessment, much concentration has been put on obtaining a satisfactory measure of consistency among raters. However, obtaining consistency might not result in valid decisions. One matter that is at the core of both reliability and validity in oral performance is rater training. Recently, Multifaceted Rasch Measurement (MFRM) has been adopted to address the problem of rater bias and inconsistency; however, no research has incorporated the facets of test takers’ ability, raters’ severity, task difficulty, group expertise, scale criterion category, and test version together in a piece of research along with their two-sided impacts. Moreover, little research has investigated how long rater training effects last. Consequently, this study explored the influence of the training program and feedback by having 20 raters score the oral production, as measured by the CEP (Community English Program) test, produced by 300 test takers in three phases, i.e., before, immediately after and long after the training program. The results indicated that training can lead to higher degrees of interrater reliability and diminished measures of severity/leniency, and biasedness. However, it won't lead the raters into total unanimity, except for making them more self-consistent. Although rater training might result in higher internal consistency among raters, it cannot eradicate individual differences. That is, experienced raters, due to their idiosyncratic characteristics, did not benefit as much as inexperienced ones. This study also showed that the outcome of training might not endure in long run after training; thus, it requires ongoing training letting raters regain consistency.

Foreign language vocabulary learning is challenging and requires using an appropriate method. To this end, this study aimed to investigate the effect of listening and viewing BBC News lessons as a teaching and learning tool on high school EFL learners’ vocabulary learning. This quasi-experimental research was carried out in the twelfth grade of Shohada high school in Kalybar city in East-Azarbijan, Iran. Forty two high school EFL learners were chosen as participants from two intact classes. The homogeneity of the classes was checked through a KET test. Then, they were randomly assigned into the experimental (n=19) and control (n=23) groups. Target words were selected from the eight BBC News lessons for both groups. The unfamiliarity of these words to the learners was found through the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale. The experimental group experienced vocabulary learning through watching and listening to the BBC News lessons; while, the control group received the same target words through the traditional method. A vocabulary-based post-test was administrated after the treatment. The result of Independent-Samples t-test on the post-test scores of both groups revealed the significant outperformance of the experimental group compared to the control group. Practical implications are presented to teachers, researchers, and learners.

The ability to assess the language learners’ progress has been known as one of the most important parts of EFL/ESL teachers’ literacy. Language assessment literacy (LAL). The notion of LAL has evolved over time, as a large number of researchers showed to be enthusiastic to study this research area. However, the number of studies on teachers’ Writing Assessment Literacy (WAL) is scanty. As writing skill is very necessary for language learners to communicate with native speakers of the English language, it is very important for writing teachers to develop assessment tasks to positively contribute to the rate of learners’ progress in writing skill. Therefore, it is of much significance to review the related studies on assessment literacy, language assessment literacy, and writing assessment literacy. In this review study, the relevant studies were reviewed and further directions for writing assessment literacy of EFL/ESL teachers are suggested to the researchers interested in the field.

For decades, task-based language teaching has become a commodity in ELT profession and has been the subject of many studies. Yet, there seems to be a paucity of research on the impact of TBLT on enhancing learners’ motivation in learning writing. In this regard, this article presents the results of student’s perceptions of the intervention of TBLT in teaching writing in two English classes for one academic term at one institution in Phnom Penh. The study examined the students’ perceptions regarding the impact of TBLT on their writing behaviors and motivation in learning writing before and after the intervention, as well as the constraints that they encountered during the implementation of TBLT. The results indicate positive-but-varying views regarding this intervention. Some challenges are also detected and suggestions are offered for future research in this area accordingly. The study has implications for EFL writing classrooms.

This study investigated the effects of corrective feedback (CF) and the Flipped Teaching Model (FTM) on English language learners’ overall and categorical grammar accuracy. The study was conducted at Payame-Nour University (PNU) of Mahabad, Iran. A total of 80 Iranian EFL learners participated in the study. The participants were randomly assigned into two flipped and two non-flipped groups of 20: one in each pair of groups receiving explicit and the other implicit CF. Data were collected across two time periods (pre-intervention and post-intervention). Two measures of Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) were conducted. The results revealed no significant differences in the effect of CF type in the flipped classes, and both led to the learners’ higher level of overall grammar accuracy. However, the explicit group outperformed the implicit one in the non-flipped classes. Explicit feedback in flipped and non-flipped classes led to the learners’ outperformance in acquiring specific grammatical structures, such as adjective/reduced adjective clauses, but not in others, like comparative/superlative adjectives, gerund/infinitive, word forms, word order, and apposition. These findings have implications for language educators seeking to enhance learners’ grammatical accuracy in both flipped and non-flipped classrooms, particularly in relation to the use of explicit feedback for certain types of grammatical structures.

The present study was conducted to investigate the comparative impacts of three types of EFL teachers' mindsets on EFL learners' mindsets. The participants of the study were English Translation undergraduate students (both female and male with the age ranging of 18-35) who were selected according to convenience non-random sampling from three classes of English Grammar 1 at both Islamic Azad Universities of Karaj and Shahriyar. The total number of students in each class was 30. The course lasted 16 successive sessions. Participants were assigned into three experimental groups. At the outset, a Mindset Assessment Profile (MAP) adopted from Mindset works, INC (2002-2012) on a scale of disagree a lot to agree a lot was administered among participants in all three experimental groups. The researchers provided interventions in terms of fixed, growth, and mixed mindsets to teach English grammar. At the end of the course, the same Mindset Assessment Profile (MAP) as the one administered in the pretest phase was administered among participants in all three groups and it was demonstrated that the EFL teacher’s type of mindset can significantly influence EFL learners’ mindsets. Consequently, it was determined that helping students adopt growth mindset hinges on raising teachers’ awareness about the importance of their own mindsets as well as helping them to grow their mindsets. This study includes a variety of instructional implications for both EFL teachers and EFL learners.

The present study investigated Iranian EFL teachers' alternative assessment literacy (AAL). The study employed a sequential explanatory mixed methods design, including qualitative and quantitative approaches. To achieve more accurate results, the AAL inventory (Mertler & Campbell, 2005) and an interview with ten teachers (to explore their challenges) were used to collect the data. The study participants were 306 Iranian TEFL teachers teaching English in different language institutes in Tehran. The study results revealed that Iranian EFL teachers enjoyed moderate knowledge of AAL. Also, their beliefs in employing AAL standards in L2 classroom assessment and its related methods were valuable and appreciated presenting their awareness of the issue. In addition, they claimed to have used specific alternative assessment-related strategies and practices in the L2 classroom. The findings imply that EFL teachers' AAL is inadequate as they cannot perform well in practice, while theoretically, they are knowledgeable enough. Therefore, continuous in-service training programs on educational assessment and AAL should be considered to cater to teachers' assessment literacy problems in the Iranian context.

This study is a descriptive piece of research attempting to compare and contrast the use of two types of cohesive devices (i.e., lexical cohesion and ellipsis) in the original dialogues of a television series with the Persian subtitled and dubbed versions of the same dialogues. The data used in the study comprises the dialogues of 10 scenes randomly selected by the researcher from the television series Prison Break as well as the dubbed and subtitled counterparts of the dialogues of the same scenes. The study seeks two objectives: First, it attempts to investigate the original dialogues of the film in terms of the frequency of the use of the two mentioned types of cohesive devices and to compare them with the dubbed and subtitled versions; second, it aims to compare the two types of audio-visual translations (i.e., dubbing and subtitling) to find out how they have dealt with these cohesive devices and what difference exist between these two types of translation in terms of their handling lexical cohesion and ellipsis. For this purpose, the study employs the model proposed by Halliday and Hasan (1976). Also, in order to determine the interrater reliability of the analyses, Chi Square test is conducted. The findings reveal that repetition has the greatest frequency of use among lexical cohesion elements and clausal ellipsis has the greatest frequency among ellipsis types in the original dialogues. The findings also demonstrate that the two translated versions are relatively similar in their handling lexical cohesion but the dubbed version contains a substantially greater number of cases of ellipsis than the subtitled version does. The findings of this paper could provide audiovisual translators with information as to how the cohesive elements are differently used in the English dialogues and their Persian translations (subtitled and dubbed dialogues).

The present study aims at providing an account of the translational features of a pseudotranslational work. The case for the study is The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan by James Justinian Morier, a book presented as the translation of a manuscript presumably written by a Persian narrator, Hajji Baba. Morier’s book has ever since won a wide readership among the English as a translated text although many critics have attested to its authorial status. Following library research, this study gauged the pseudotranslationality of the book using its paratextual elements and then analyzed the text regarding its textual-linguistic makeup to highlight the elements which helped the fictitious translator to disguise the book as a translation in the English culture. The inquiry shows how Morier benefited some of the common paratextual and textual ploys in pseudotranslating, noticeable in such processes in other literary contexts as well, to manipulate his own authored book and cover it with a veil of translation. The study can help gain a broader picture of techniques used in pseudotranslating and accordingly prevalent norms of translation.

Language transfer refers to the application of previous language knowledge to the target language learning. Using questionnaires, this paper investigates the lexical transferring behaviors of 230 Dongxiang-Chinese bilingual and monolingual students who are in the early stage of learning English vocabulary. The results display that Chinese predominates the transference, while bilinguals’ Dongxiang Language is described as a barrier during the process of English learning. To show the individual-level differences, several learner-based factors: age, linguistic background, social background, cognitive level, emotion, and learning attitude are also confirmed, which appear to promote or inhibit this transferring behavior. The experiment data suggest that there are two different types of the factors mentioned above, which depend on whether they are affected by context-based factors---learner-based factors and learner-context-based factors. The paper also concludes with suggestions to teachers and policymakers in Dongxiang area for the modification of current teaching methods based on the quantitative analysis of surveys.