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The effects different awareness-raising techniques might have on language learners’ performance have been studied by many researchers. The present study specifically focused on improving EFL learners’ oral narrative task performance in terms of accuracy, fluency and complexity by awareness raising through semantic fields. The participants in the study included 40 intermediate learners whose initial homogeneity in terms of language proficiency was assessed via a Preliminary English Test (PET). They were further randomly assigned as one experimental group and one control group, each comprising 20 participants. The amount of instructional time was 17 sessions, during which the participants in the experimental group received an awareness raising technique through 'semantic fields'. Before and after the treatment, an oral narrative test was administrated. The results of the data analysis revealed that the experimental group which received the awareness raising technique outperformed the control group in three measures of accuracy, fluency and complexity on their performance. The participants showed significant improvements in language proficiency as they retold the narratives. The findings of the present study can create the floor for researchers to go deep through the EFL contexts and find more about the probable effects awareness raising techniques might have on language learning and teaching.

The present study was aimed at exploring the use of pronominal reference for identity representation in terms of power and solidarity in English political discourse. The investigation was based on a corpus of four political interviews and debates amounting 26,500 words. The analysis was both qualitative and quantitative. In the qualitative analysis, a discourse-analytic approach was used to find out the pronouns, their references and their identity load, and in the quantitative analysis, the distribution of different representations of identity were calculated. A nonparametric test, that is, Chi-Square was run in SPSS as the statistical operation needed for the current study. The analysis showed that most of the personal pronouns represented identity in the form of solidarity. The results also showed that political figures use <em>I</em>-pronoun and its variants to represent their identity in terms of power. The representation of identity in terms of power was also found to be correlated with the use of certain terms such as <em>veto</em> and active voice constructions. Furthermore, the results showed that when making claims, instead of giving pronominal reference to self, political figures use first-person plurals. In order to show solidarity, the speakers may also make use of discoursal proximity. Considering the important role that discourses play in constructing reality, it is important for CDA researchers to reveal sources of power, inequality and prejudice in discourses and interpret their hidden meanings. Pronominal choice and academic voice as linguistic constructions that are ideologically loaded need to be brought into the spotlight.

The current research examined the use of lexical bundles in the result sections of research papers by Iranian non-native writers in the field of applied linguistics. The WordSmith Software was applied to identify lexical bundles. In addition, the two analytical frameworks Biber et al. (2004) and Ruiying and Allison (2003) were used to categorize the bundles with regard to their structural features and their moves and steps. Moreover, with the aid of concordance, the identified clusters were analyzed and categorized according to their communicative functions. The results of the current research showed that Iranian writers relied heavily on the use of specific formulaic bundles to perform the communicative functions associated with the moves and steps. The findings also revealed that four moves out of six moves were mostly used by Iranian authors. Moreover, the researchers found that the extensive range of formulaic clusters used to demonstrate Move 2, Reporting results, the least bundles occurred in Move 4, Summarizing results, and also no clusters were used in Move 5, Evaluating the study along with Move 6, Deductions from the research by Iranian writers. The findings of this study boost the awareness of formulaic sequences usage for novice writers in particular discourse and communicative function.

The impetus behind the current study was to get the best use of all possible pathways of the learner’s brain. Multiple-pathway model, one model of brain-based instruction, on which the current study was based, has synergic effect addressing sensory-motor, emotion, reward, attention, memory, language, frontal lobe (executive function), and social pathways of the learner’s brain altogether. To this aim, this quasi-experimental research, with pretest-intervention-posttest design, was carried out. The participants, who were selected through a convenient sampling method, included 30 BA University students studying TEFL at Islamic Azad University, Aliabad Katoul Branch, and 30 BA University students studying TEFL at Islamic Azad University, Gorgan Branch, were placed into two experimental and control groups, respectively. The instrumentation included DASS 21 and Learning Climate Questionnaires (LCQ) which were used as the pretest and posttest prior to and after the 10 session intervention of brain-based instruction for the experimental group. Descriptive and inferential analysis of collected data indicated the significant impact of the instruction on the participants’ stress, anxiety, depression, and perceived supportive learning climate in the experimental group.

This study set out to check the addressing behavior within men’s and women’s talk in the written conversations in English language textbook series titled ‘New Interchange book’ by Richards, Hull and Proctor, (1998) from Cambridge University Press. In line with this aim, the present researchers initially prepared descriptive tables for both formal and informal contexts in three theme categories (Social, Cultural & Economic) vis a vis four case appropriations (men*men, men*women, women*men, women*women). The distributions of interlocutors were coded through content analysis techniques. The major findings indicated that the highest percentage of detected address terms belonged to pronouns (67.7%). The proportions for gender appropriations between interlocutors for this address term showed that the case condition with women to men (52.3%) and men to women (36.4%) had the highest rates as compared with other cases. Then, in the final stage, the datasets were scrutinized in terms of theories on gender disparity in the instructional materials. This paper has some pedagogical implications in terms of addressing term inequality as mapped on gender status within ELT books, which might indirectly change the balance against full and rich contexts for effective learning to occur.

This study investigated the comparative effect of collaborative strategic reading (CSR) and metacognitive reading strategy (MRS) on the reading comprehension of Iranian extrovert and introvert EFL learners. To achieve the purpose of this study, a sample IELTS was administered to 325 students studying at Marefat Language Academy in Tehran from whom 225 were selected based on their performance on that test. Next, the above students sat for Eysenck Personality Inventory questionnaire to determine their level of extroversion and introversion. As a result, a total of 150 learners (75 extroverts and 75 introverts) were selected as four experimental groups and two control groups. The four experimental groups, comprised of 1) 25 extroverts undergoing CSR, 2) 25 extroverts receiving MRS, 3) 25 introverts undergoing CSR, 4) 25 introverts undergoing MRS while the two control groups, with 25 extroverts and 25 introverts, the learners experienced the conventional procedure of teaching reading comprehension in the language school. Ancova and two-way Ancova were conducted which revealed introvert learners with MRS outperformed the extrovert with MRS, introvert and extrovert with CSR, and control groups, suggesting a decisive role for personality traits in reading comprehension classes with different reading strategies instruction.