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It is assumed that web-based dynamic assessment will continue to thrive and have a profound role in pedagogy. In this regard, explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was selected to consider the effect of web-based dynamic assessment on learners' autonomy. To this end, a sample of 60 male EFL learners at high school were chosen at non-random and categorized into two groups of web-based dynamic assessment and the control group based on the convenience sampling method. the learners’ autonomy questionnaire was used as a data gathering tool for pretest and posttest in autonomy. The high school students exposed to web-based DA via a designed web based on the level and requirements of the students in grammar, however, the learners in the control group learned the grammar by the traditional or conventional method of instruction. Based on the results of Mann-Whitney U test, the learners’ autonomy means scores in web-based DA increased in comparison to those of the control group. The platform and methods employed in this study produce results that are encouraging for the field of language instruction and could produce motivational outcomes in the future. The pedagogical implications of the study

Test de Connaissance du Français (TCF), a French knowledge test for any non-native speakers of French, is an official language exam for the certificate of proficiency in French designed by France Éducation international (FIE) and accredited by le Ministère Français de l’Éducation Nationale, de la Jeunesse et des Sports (French Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sports). To meet the need triggered by American TOEFL and British IELTS, TCF was created in 2001 by FIE (formerly Centre International d'études Pédagogiques) and has been administrated in more than 120 countries by more than 700 centers around the world and has served for more than 2,000,000 candidates by the year 2022 for personal, academic or professional purposes (France Éducation International, n.d.). The increasing number of French learners worldwide and the growth of popularity French enjoyed give rise to the need of more reviews of test fairness and usefulness on recognized French competence tests such as TCF. However, unlike the large number of assessment practices focusing on English language testing, only a few studies available show awareness about the assessment on world languages other than English. With the hope to enrich the body of research in the field of language testing and to expand the scope of assessment on world languages, this review aims at examining the overall usefulness and fairness of TCF using Kunnan’s (2018) most recent theoretical framework of test fairness and justice. As a result, our review shows that TCF test developers have made great efforts on addressing core issues of validity, reliability, and authenticity, while there might be room for improvement to provide more meaningful and useful information to all stakeholders.

The present work is a contribution to the debate around attitude towards English as a foreign language in Cameroon. By case-studying an under-searched area through a multi-component tool: the Attitude and Motivation Test Battery, it proposes a different reflection to the question. The test was administered to 211 Grade 11, 12, and 13 Francophone students from various urban and semi-urban schools in the city and its suburbs. It was based on the postulates that attitude is a dynamic characteristic that varies according to place and time on the one hand, and that it is far too complex to be examined from the prism of a single variable. The results revealed that of the six parameters that made up the three components of the tool, three were negative and three were positive, with the integrative orientation slightly outpacing the instrumental one. This underscores the need to envisage attitude as a multi-component variable, as well as the need to reckon with evolving social variables. In general, the results reveal that attitude towards EFL is not as desperate as usually thought. It can be intimated that recent socio-political initiatives aiming at reinforcing French-English bilingualism are gradually bearing fruits. Thus, socio-political ideologies appear to have significant effects on overall attitude towards EFL.

Testing organizations are faced with increasing demand to provide subscores in addition to the total test score. However, psychometricians argue that most subscores do not have added value to be worth reporting. To have added value, subscores need to meet a number of criteria: they should be reliable, distinctive, and distinct from each other and from the total score. In this study, the quality of subscores from two subscore augmentation models (Wainer and Yen) were compared in terms of distinctness and variability. The reliabilities of the Wainer-augmented subscores were also examined. The models were applied to a high-stakes English language proficiency test in Iran. The results of the study showed that Yen better satisfied subscore distinctness while Wainer best preserved variability and had high-reliability subscores. In other words, Yen-augmented subscores had lower correlations while Wainer-augmented subscores better discriminated examinees with different ability levels. Thus, none of the examined models of subscoring satisfied all criteria. The results of the study are discussed and suggestions for future research are provided.

After nearly a decade since the recognition of the importance of theticals, traditionally referred to as parenthetical constructions (see Kaltenböck et al. 2011; Heine et al. 2013), there has been a flurry of research on these linguistic elements across various languages, including but not limited to Romance languages (Schneider, 2007), Chinese (Long et al., 2019), Persian (Kazemian & Amouzadeh, 2019), and Arabic (Haddad, 2020). However, it appears that theticals still remain relatively understudied and warrant more comprehensive and fresh examination. This lack of interest in studying theticals, particularly those inherent in interaction, has prompted Bernd Heine to undertake writing a new book, “The Grammar of Interactives”, dedicated to these items and analyzing them as a distinct level called interactive grammar (IG) which works alongside sentence grammar (SG) to facilitate successful communication. The book is structured in a cohesive and organized manner, consisting of an introduction, six main chapters, and a conclusion, totaling eight chapters in all. This structure properly presents the book's content by establishing the context and scope in the introduction, delving into the subject matter in the core chapters each exploring a specific theme related to the overall subject, and providing a sense of closure and reflection in the conclusion.

Though dynamic assessment (DA) has gained strong theoretical and empirical support over the last decades, second language (L2) practitioners have blamed it for its applicability in large classes. To ameliorate this limitation, peer-dynamic assessment (peer-DA), rooted in the conceptualization of zone of proximal development (ZPD), can be introduced and practiced as an alternative approach. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the effects of peer-DA on cultivating Iranian upper-intermediate EFL learners’ interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) competence. Additionally, it was to disclose how peer-DA leads to improving the learners’ ILP competence. To achieve these aims, a sample of 84 upper-intermediate EFL learners, including females was selected through a convenience sampling method at Iran Language Institute in Borujerd City, Iran. Then, a total of 37 EFL learners whose scores fell around the mean score were selected and randomly assigned to two groups, namely an experimental (n = 19) and a control (n = 18). Then, they went through a pre-test, interventions (lasting 16 one-hour sessions held two times a week), and a post-test. The experimental group’s interactions were meticulously recorded. The collected data were analyzed through two independent samples t-tests, and the microgenetic development approach. Findings documented a statistically significant difference between the experimental group and control group concerning the gains of ILP competence on the post-test. Furthermore, the results of the microgenetic development analysis evidenced how the gradual, contingent prompts could lead to noticeable improvements in the learning of ILP features. These findings may have some pedagogical implications for different stakeholders.

The present study addressed the effects of cognitive styles on answer-switching practices across online and traditional tests. After completing Ehrman and Leaver’s (2003) cognitive style questionnaire, a sample of upper intermediate students took pen-paper and online versions (59 test-takers each) of an already validated teacher-developed test of English. The data from think-aloud and erasure analyses revealed significantly more frequent total and right-to-wrong changes in the traditional and online tests, respectively. Multiple regression values explained more than 50% of right/wrong-to-wrong, wrong-to-right, and overall answer-changing variance based on cognitive styles in the pen-paper exam. However, the regression results from online performance analyses could not prove the power of thinking styles in predicting answer-changing strategies. Fisher’s exact tests showed significantly different answer-changing strategies adopted by field-dependent, leveler, analog, concrete, and impulsive individuals in the traditional test but no significant differences between the behaviors of individuals with different cognitive styles in the online exam. Based on the present findings, online and pen-paper platforms may require different test-taking strategies. Language instructors and test developers can use these findings to align their instructional and assessment practices with various cognitive styles and testing environments.

The main purpose of this essay is to investigate the role of becoming through political and social factors among the main character’s changing identity in Achebe’s No Longer at Ease. The researcher intends to depict the effects of political factors on the re-territorialization and territorialization of the main character through the framework of Deleuze’s theory. The current essay focuses on No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe to discover how becoming and transformation of identity take place throughout the novel and how the main character of the novel is going through constant change and becoming which are the result of different forces. Moreover, the researcher intends to investigate the character’s desires that result in the becoming process of identity deriving from social and capitalist factors in society. Since Deleuze and Guattari’s distinctive definition of literature investigates how minor literature is produced in the dominant narratives of major literature, it can critically assist the present research to discuss that Achebe prepares the ground for indigenous, anticolonial voices in his novel No Longer at Ease. It can be concluded that the main character of Achebe’s No Longer at Ease is in flux due to different forces, and his identity goes through constant becoming.

Children need to start learning English from a very young age in this fast globalizing world. The knowledge of the English language can assist in providing several opportunities for them in the future. It is also essential to know how very young children acquire a foreign language and which content and activities should be selected for their age. This study aimed to observe and describe the procedure of the language development of very young children. Researchers employed a descriptive case study design to portray and assess foreign language learning of two three-year-old twins’ grammar acquisition, vocabulary gains, and fluency in the early years of life (3-4/5). Besides the methods firmly associated with qualitative study and case studies, there were four sources of data collection: observation, audio-video recordings, and diary records. The central unit of the twins’ language development analysis was their utterances. The findings supported using a naturalistic environment where very young children could be exposed to the English language informally in everyday contexts and activities. This research can share its findings with education communities and very young children’s teachers to promote a new professional development model for fostering language development in very young learners’ classrooms, assessments, and curricula.

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.

This article aims to analyze Patrick McCabe’s The Butcher Boy (1993) in light of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism. The present study explores the significance of dialogism in the given novel which tells the story of a marginalized young boy living in neo-colonized Ireland in the 1960s. Bakhtin believes that the development of signification between the “self” and the “other” is called dialogue through which human beings define their existence as individuals in polyphonic societies. The protagonist of The Butcher Boy is a non-conformist, unwilling to follow social rules. He creates his very own way of dialogism with his surroundings and ends up in a mental hospital and finally a prison, showing the author’s approval of Bakhtin’s viewpoint towards the importance of dialogue in shaping human beings’ consciousness and existence in the world. Moreover, this article attempts to clarify the resistance of the main character before his society’s hierarchical structure that makes him a perfect example of a marginalized hero disobeying rules and regulations imposed by the authorities to gain an independent resolution.