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This study seeks to determine whether or not using indigenous Taiwanese folktales as materials in EFL classes could help to improve the learning outcomes of indigenous Taiwanese high school students by increasing their foreign language enjoyment and motivation. Indigenous high school students in this study used two types of classroom materials: A graded reader set in a generic western milieu and then a series of indigenous folktales that had been translated into English. After each intervention, the students were asked to fill out a questionnaire that evaluated their enjoyment, interest, motivation, and self-perceived efficacy. Interviews and focus groups followed. The study found that students enjoyed the indigenous stories more by a statistically significant margin. The indigenous stories were also more effective in motivating students, while students perceived both types of material to be equally effective in terms of helping them learn new words and improve their proficiency. Implications for practitioners and policy makers are discussed.

This quantitative study examined the relationship between EFL learners’ choice of vocabulary learning strategies (CVLS), reading strategies (RS), and reading anxiety (RA). To this end, 123 Iranian EFL learners (81 female; 42 male) within the age range of 24 to 39 were selected by employing convenience sampling. The data collection instruments were the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (Saito et al., 1999), the Survey of Reading Strategies (Mokhtari & Sheorey, 2002), and the Vocabulary Learning Strategies Questionnaire (Schmitt, 1997). Subsequent to checking and verifying the pertinent assumptions, using Pearson’s correlation coefficient indicated that there was a significant and negative correlation between CVLS and RA and a significant and positive correlation between CVLS and RS; in addition, a significant and negative correlation between RS and RA was observed. Furthermore, the results of multiple regression analysis and comparing the β values revealed that RS makes the strongest statistically significant unique contribution to suppressing reading anxiety, and CVLS turned out to be the second significant preventer of RA. In general, the obtained results confirmed that both RS and CVLS can significantly prevent EFL learners’ RA; therefore, it is fairly reasonable to consider RS and CVLS while planning the pedagogical practice.    

This study aimed at designing a problem-based model of writing development for Iranian EFL learners. To this end, a qualitative content analysis method was used. The participants included EFL teachers (N=10) and learners (N=15) with teaching and learning experience in writing courses at different language institutes of Iran. They were selected through purposive sampling. To collect the data, a semi-structured interview was used. More particularly, initially, the respondents in this study were interviewed to find out what their views about PBL is. The researchers began the qualitative data collection procedure and continued until data was saturated. The semi-structured questions administered to the respondents dealt with various aspects of PBL including: searching for answers, collaborative learning, cognitive thinking, learner-centered learning, diminished rule of the teacher, feedback dynamics in PBL, synthesis of data, and application of findings. By using the views of participants with regards to PBL, a new PBL model for the writing skill were designed. The findings can have implications for EFL teachers, learners, and curriculum planners.

The present study aimed to examine the effects of an educational technology called smart learning pen (i.e., iPen) as an ICT tool on young Iranian male and female EFL learners' speaking accuracy and fluency. A group of 180 young (6-9 years old) male and female learners with no previous formal education in English were randomly assigned into three different conditions: those who used the iPen in class and at home (IPC), at home only (IPH), and those who did not use the iPen at all (NIP). As gender was an independent variable, each condition had male and female groups. To address the research questions, the participants' performance on the oral sub-test of the posttest was put into analysis. The two-way ANOVA run on the effect of the independent variables (iPen and gender) and their interaction on the participants' speaking accuracy, and fluency revealed that using iPen helped the IPC and IPH participants significantly outperform the NIP group in terms of both accuracy and fluency. However, such an analysis did not show any significant effect for gender, nor did it show any significant effect when the interaction of gender and other variables was taken into account. The study has practical implications for policymakers, language teachers as well as software, hardware, and mobile phone application developers.

This study intends to conduct a systematic qualitative meta-analysis that focuses on research studies into English Language Teaching (ELT) policy in Iran and Singapore. To identify and compare the main features of the studies and also to provide a contemporary picture of the field in Iran and Singapore, 13 articles published between 2010 and 2021 were included in this review. The analysis revealed that Singapore has employed a top-down language policy and utilized a holistic curriculum which has led to an English knowing society. The policies are well articulated and few mismatches were reported in the policies. In addition, the policies are positively perceived by stakeholders, leading to effective implementation of the policies. However, the findings showed that the Iranian top-down policy negatively framed ELT. Moreover, the policies are not well articulated and there are some inconsistencies between the policies and some mismatches between policy and practice. In addition, the analysis revealed that Iranian stakeholders negatively perceived the policies. They believed that the policies have marginalized the role of teachers and their professional judgment. Finally, research gaps for future research studies in ELT policy were highlighted and recommendations were offered.

: Peer review plays a vital and major role to determine the fate of manuscripts submitted to international academic journals. The present study analyzed the discourse structure and the language use of a corpus containing 43 peer review reports from journals from three disciplines (i.e., Applied Linguistics, Accounting, and Sociology). This study analyzed the most frequent discourse moves, negative, and positive expressions used in minor revisions, major revisions, and rejected manuscripts. The findings of this study showed that all discourse moves appeared in all peer review reports but two moves “Summarizing Judgment” and “Conclusion and Recommendation” were the most frequent discourse moves in all peer-review categories. The findings also revealed that the words “well”, “good”, and “original” were the most frequently-used positive words, while the words “unclear”, “inconsistent”, and “poor” were the most frequently-used negative words in the analyzed peer-review reports. The study recommends some points to be considered in future research on this topic.

This paper reports the study undertaken on types of defense mechanisms used by Iranian EFL teachers. Furthermore, the significant differences between male and female EFL teachers at different age groups in the use of defense mechanisms are also considered. In the first phase of the study, the focus was on identification of defense mechanisms teachers generally adopt in their daily activities, while the second phase was exclusive to the deployment of defense mechanisms inside EFL classes. Accordingly, Defense Style Questionnaire was distributed among 100 EFL teachers. Next, to capture in-class atmosphere, the researchers carried out 30 semi-structured interviews with Iranian EFL teachers. All the participants (15 males and 15 females) were teaching in public schools as well as private institutes at the time of the interview. The results of the questionnaire indicated that teachers used two mature defense mechanisms, namely, anticipation (M=13.8) and rationalization (M=13), in their daily lives more than the others. Nonetheless, the results of the interview denoted the dominance of pseudo- altruistic behaviors (N=30), as a neurotic mechanism, in EFL classes. Sublimation and humor (N=29), as two mature defense mechanisms, were also frequently used. On the other hand, splitting (N=2), passive aggression (N=2), and projection (N=3), all of which are considered to be immature mechanisms, were the least-frequently used mechanisms. Moreover, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests signified no significant differences in terms of gender and age in the use of defense mechanisms among Iranian EFL teachers.

Mastery of English phrasal verbs is regarded as a stumbling block for English language learners, even at advanced levels. Possible sources of difficulty can be a lack of clear meaning and the random nature of particles. The lack of an organized approach to present phrasal verbs to the learners might be a factor that could exacerbate the situation of learning them. This study takes this issue as its point of departure. It investigates whether employing radial categories, conceptual categories with one prototypical concept and some peripheral members that are organized around it, is influential in the learning and long-term retention of these verbs. Moreover, the effect of employing radial categories to teach PVs on learners' cognitive load is investigated. For this purpose, 60 intermediate high school students in 10th and 11th grade were assigned to two groups, one experimental and one control group, each containing 30 students. The study results indicated that the experimental group learners who were taught phrasal verbs using radial categories outperformed control group learners who were taught using a traditional approach. This result suggests that radial categories may help facilitate learning phrasal verbs.

Cloze tests are gap-filling tests designed to measure overall language ability and reading comprehension in a second language. Due to their ease of construction and scoring, cloze tests are widely used in the context of second and foreign language testing. Previous research over the past decades has shown the reliability and validity of cloze tests in different contexts. However, due to the interdependent structure of cloze test items, item response theory models have not been applied to analyze cloze tests. In this research, we apply a method to circumvent the problem of local dependence for analyzing cloze tests with the Rasch model. Using this method, we applied the Rasch model to a cloze test composed of eight passages each containing 8-15 gaps. Findings showed that the Rasch model fits the data and thus it is possible to scale persons and cloze passages on an interval unidimensional scale. The test had a high reliability and was well-targeted to the examinees. Implications of the study are discussed.

With the improvement of technologies in language learning and teaching, new models and approaches are being proposed to enhance the students’ performance. One of the practical models is Flipped Classroom (FC), which has been attracted by many teachers and researchers, especially in the K-12 education system. This study explored the effect of the online FC approach on the improvement of EFL learners' performance in high schools in Iran with a quasi-experimental design. To run the experimental study, through convenience sampling forty-three high school students were divided into an experimental group and a control group and to evaluate the efficacy of the online FC approach. The comparison of the results of experimental and control groups’ pre-test and post-test scores by an independent samples t-test revealed that incorporating the online FC approach into EFL educational context remarkably improves the EFL students' learning performance. It is significantly applicable for learning a language, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic which majority of the classes have been running online. Additionally, to manage online FC more efficiently, some suggestions are provided for teachers.