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Developing rating scales for assessing interactional performance is demanding since it is a relatively complicated procedure. The present study investigated the psychometric characteristics of the CAP rating scale (Wang, 2015) for assessing interactional competence at micro-level. To this end, 160 Iranian intermediate EFL learners were selected based on their performance on TOEFL iBT test from a language institute in Tabriz. Four interaction tasks were used to elicit students’ performance on interactional competence using the CAP rating scale. Five raters were recruited in the study to assign score to each individual’s performance. The participants were pretested and post-tested at the beginning and the end of the term through the same scale. The Pearson correlations were computed in order to estimate the test-retest reliability indices of the scale. In addition, five separate exploratory factor analysis (EFA) through the varimax rotation method were conducted in order to investigate the underlying constructs of the communication functions individually and as a total. The results revealed that the CAP rating scale enjoys a reasonable reliability indices and the four functions i.e. building argument, developing discussion, offering support, and shaping connection can be appropriate predictors of interactional competence. Some pedagogical and assessment implications are presented as well.  

Learning styles are considered among the significant factors that aid instructors in deciding how well their students learn a second or foreign language (Oxford, 2003). Although this issue has been accepted broadly in educational psychology,further research is required to examine the relationship between learning styles and language learning skills. Thus, the present study was carried out to investigate the relationship between the perceptual learning style preferences and the participants’ writing achievement after receiving instruction based on computer-assisted language learning within the activity theory framework. For this purpose, 67 students majoring in English translation at a university in Iran were selected as the participants of the study based on their performance on a version of The Oxford Placement Test. A correlational research design was employed using a writing pretest and posttest and a style preference questionnaire. The writing instruction was based on an e-learning platform designed according to the activity theory framework. The results indicated lack of significant relationship between the participants’learning style preferences and theirwriting achievement. It was also found that there was no significant difference in the writing achievement of the participants across different learning style preferences.  

Listening is referred to by many scholars as the most important as well as the most complicated skill in the language, which can cause mental fatigue in the learners. This study was an attempt to investigate the relationship between L2 listening comprehension and listening fatigue among Iranian EFL learners. For this purpose, 86 intermediate and upper-intermediate Iranian EFL learners randomly selected after administering a paper-based TOEFL among an initial sample of 120 BA learners majoring in English language translation, took part in the study. A TOEFL listening test and a researcher-made validated listening fatigue questionnaire were utilized in order to gather the necessary data. Afterwards, during the qualitative phase, oral interviews were employed to obtain 30 % of the participant’s’ attitudes about the relationship between listening comprehension and listening fatigue. Applying a Pearson product-moment correlation revealed that there was a significant relationship between L2 listening fatigue and their listening comprehension. These findings were also supported by a small qualitative phase and learners gave their positive support and attitude about the relationship. These findings have some pedagogical implications for teaching and learning an L2, the most important of which is that in order to enhance EFL learners’ L2 listening comprehension, it is better to reduce their debilitative listening fatigue.  

This study was set out to shed light on the efficacy of pushed output directed by scaffolding on 41 (24 female and 17 male) upper-intermediate EFL learners’ speaking fluency and accuracy. A public version of IELTS speaking test was held to measure learners’ entrance behavior. Then, they were randomly assigned into symmetrical, asymmetrical, and control group. The experimental and control groups covered 7 lessons of New Interchange 2 during 15 sessions, twice a week for about 45 minutes each session. Control group received placebo while symmetrical and asymmetrical groups worked on pushed output tasks. The data were audio recorded and transcribed for statistical analyses. The results indicated the efficacy of pushed output in boosting speaking. However, tests of between-subjects effects revealed that the mean score of the control group was not significantly different from that of experimental groups concerning speaking fluency. Furthermore, the results of Tukey's HSD post-hoc tests showed that asymmetrically pushed output activities were more effective in enhancing learners speaking accuracy. In sum, the results suggested that the implementation of pushed out put strategies in student centered contexts could be considered as an effective way in the development of learners’ oral output.  

This quasi-experimental study investigated the effects of input-enhancement and production of sentences, containing the target structures, on learning grammar by Iranian Intermediate EFL learners. Sixty male students in three input, output, and control groups participated in the study. After checking the homogeneity of the participants with a proficiency test, the researchers administered a pretest. Input-based group received input enhancement within reading texts in which the target structures were highlighted with different techniques such as bolding and underlying. The output-based group were required to produce some sentences including target structures based on reading texts. The control group received traditional grammar instruction. The results of ANCOVA revealed that both experimental groups learned the target structures better than the control group; however, the input-based group outperformed output-based group in learning target grammatical structures. The findings of the study suggest the widespread use of input-enhancement, as one of the techniques of focus on form, plays a significant role in enhancing grammatical accuracy.

Reading comprehension is one of the essential skills for learning in every language and in Iranian educational system, there seems a need to make some revisions in teaching reading comprehension. In an attempt to address this problem, this research set out to utilize Directed Reading –Thinking Activity (coined by Stauffer, 1969) as a teaching comprehension model which was expected to enhance students’ reading comprehension ability of graded readings. To do this end, 50 intermediate students from Zabansara Institute were randomly assigned to two groups (one control and one experimental) each consisting of 25 participants.  Drawing on a mixed-methods design, the two groups were compared in pre-test and post-test in the quantitative phase. In the qualitative stage, fifteen students from experimental group were interviewed on the effect of implementing DRTA based setting on their comprehension of graded readings (The implemented readings in this study were narrative texts). The findings of the study revealed that DRTA had significant effect on participants' reading comprehension of graded reading. The study provides some pedagogical implications for EFL teachers and students, and suggests some possible avenues for further studies as well.

This study aimed at exploring the influence of the role that a teacher employs on his/her professional success. The teacher role was investigated from a new outlook, Goffman's footing theory. According to Goffman (1981), a speaker's role can be classified into three categories of animator, author, and principal, characterized as the repeater of the ideas made by the others, the paraphraser of concepts, and the creator of original ideas, respectively. Applying this theory in the educational context, the researchers selected 36 university professors of TEFL in the MA level and asked their students (N=118) to identify their professors' dominant role as animator, author, or principal, both generally and individually, via a metaphor checklist and their professional success via the Characteristic of Successful Iranian EFL Teacher Questionnaire. The results of Chi-square analysis indicated that the professors dominantly take on the author and animator roles respectively. One-way Anova results also demonstrated that the professors taking on the principal role enjoy higher professional success than those adopting the animator and author roles. The results offer implications and suggestions for pedagogical consideration within the Iranian university context.

Various individual differences, including ambiguity tolerance (AT), have gained momentum because of the influence they can exert on the process and product of learning, and thereby, on various aspects of the learner’s interlanguage system such as accuracy of oral speech. The present study was undertaken to examine the extent to which Iranian EFL learners’ AT was significantly correlated with the accuracy of their task-based speech. To serve the purpose, a random sample of 60 Iranian EFL learners studying English at New Pegah Institute in Tabriz were selected from a population of 150. The Second Language Tolerance of Ambiguity Scale (Ely, 1995) was employed to quantify the participants’ AT while the accuracy of their speech, based on a picture description task, was measured based on the ratio of the grammatical errors to the total number of t-units produced. Correlational analyses of the research data revealed that the participants were highly inaccurate in their oral performance and that there was a significant moderate relationship between the two research variables. The findings underscore the need to determine and promote Iranian EFL learners’ AT and offer a number of pedagogical implications.  

The present study was an attempt to determine a relationship between foreign language reading anxiety and reading strategy use among a group of EFL Iranian readers (no = 100) with low vs. high proficiency levels. To this end, FLRAS (Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale) developed by Saito, Horwitz, and Garza, (1999) was used in order to measure the participants’ level of anxiety in reading and SORS (The Survey of Reading Strategies) adapted from Mokhtari and Sheorey (2002), was utilized to gauge the participants’ strategy uses.  The students’ responses to reading strategies when faced with anxiety-provoking contexts were categorized into three strategy uses including ‘global’, ‘problem solving’ and ‘support’ and mapped on their total scores in reading anxiety.  The results from Multinomial Logit Regression (MLR) showed that the students with lower level reading anxiety indices would adopt problem solving strategies more compared with support and global strategies. Regarding the interaction of proficiency level in the process, the results showed that it was less probable for the students with lower reading anxiety levels to adopt problem solving strategies compared with more anxious students who would adopt global strategies. Some possible implications are discussed in the light of improving reading instructions provided for Iranian students. <strong><em> </em></strong>  

The present study aimed to investigate the attitudes and perceived nature of thinking and understanding towards intercultural communicative competence (ICC) among International English major students. Accordingly, this study employed the paradigm of a sequential mixed-method research, in which it comprised a qualitative phase followed by a quantitative phase. The participants of the first phase of the study were 30 undergraduate English major students in their third year at Isfahan Islamic Azad University in Iran; and the participants of the second phase of the study included 30 international ESL students in their first year at Gonzaga University (GU), in Washington, U.S. The analysis of narratives in the first phase of the study indicated that the participants had diverse attitudes towards intercultural encounters. The results of the statistical analyses of the second phase of the study showed that the most important individual difference variables directly influencing students’ intercultural communicative competence were their communication apprehension and their perceived communicative competence. This study also showed that students’ self-image as communicators were of utmost importance: if students believe they are good communicators in English, theyare more likely to be self-confident and are more likely to take part in intercultural encounters. Thus, instructors should help students achieve a realistic self-image about their performance in English and support them if they lack self-confidence.