International Journal of Research in English Education

English Pronunciation instruction is difficult for some reasons. Teachers are left without clear guidelines and are faced with contradictory practices for pronunciation instruction. There is no well-established systematic method of deciding what to teach, when, and how to do it. As a result of these problems, pronunciation instruction is less important and teachers are not very comfortable in teaching pronunciation in their classes. This paper reviews some of the important issues of English pronunciation instruction. The aims of this paper are to define the term pronunciation, discuss the goal of pronunciation instruction, explain the importance of pronunciation instruction, elaborate the role of teachers in teaching pronunciation, and finally mention some suggestions in helping teachers to improve learners’ pronunciation. The review of literature shows that if teachers want to teach pronunciation accurately they should be trained in pronunciation instruction.

Many studies in language learning have indicated that listening comprehension plays an important role in the learning process. In spite of its importance, listening has been ignored in second language learning, research, and teaching. The purpose of the present article is to define the terms listening and listening comprehension, review the components of listening, explain teachers’ role in listening comprehension, and present the general principles of listening comprehension. The literature review demonstrated that learners’ listening comprehension skill can be improved by teachers’ assistance and the use of appropriate learning materials and activities.

This study overviews current research on the role of motivation in second or foreign language learning. Motivation is an important factor for explaining the success or failure of any complex task. In this paper, the researcher defines the term motivation, explains different types of motivation, reviews previous studies about the role of motivation in language learning, mentions conditions of motivation, and finally states key factors of motivation. The review of literature indicated that motivation has a very important role in learning English as a foreign or second language successfully.

Receptive language skill refers to answering appropriately to another person's spoken language. A lot of teachers try to develop receptive language skills in their language learners. When receptive language skills are not appropriately acquired, learners may miss significant learning opportunities resulting in delays in the development and acquisition of spoken language. The goals of this paper are to explain the term reading, elaborate reading strategy, discuss metacognitive strategies, and review self-managing learning strategies and teacher-managing learning strategies. The literature review demonstrated that teachers can play a key role in helping learners acquire their receptive skills in language learning. It can be also concluded that receptive skills can be acquired through the active involvement and effort of the learners in learning English language and learners should develop their own learning strategies in order to work with written material or the spoken word.

Abundantly clear though the need for effective eclectic techniques for enhancing learners’ vocabulary learning strategies may seem, in practice, language instructors, by all accounts, tend to resort to only a few obsolete ones. This review paper aims to provide a brief account of practices in vocabulary teaching and learning by focusing on the research on teaching words in context and out of context as well as incidental and intentional vocabulary learning.

Computer-assisted language learning (CALL) is reaching an up most position in the pedagogical field of English as a Second or Foreign Language (ESL/EFL). The present study was carried out to study the effect of using phonetic websites on Iranian EFL students’ pronunciation and knowledge of phonemic symbols. Participants of the study included 30 EFL female pre-intermediate students studying in Kish Language School in Tonekabon. A pretest and posttest of phonemic symbols and pronunciation was given before and after the treatment to both experimental and control groups. The results of statistical analysis revealed that the learners’ pronunciation developed better when they took part in web-based training course. On the other hand, the experimental group did not outperform the control group regarding the knowledge of phonemic symbols. This thesis concludes with some implications for teaching and directions for further research.

Listening comprehension means the process of understanding speech in a second or foreign language. It is the perception of information and stimuli received through the ears. Iranian EFL learners have serious difficulties in English listening comprehension because Iranian universities pay more attention to grammar and reading. The researcher used a set of authentic materials to improve Iranian learners’ listening comprehension. The researcher examined the effect of authentic materials on Iranian learners’ listening comprehension, their listening difficulties, and their listening strategies. The participants of this study were students majoring in English Language Translation Department at the Payame Nour University of Rudsar. Data were collected from survey. The results of this study indicated that authentic materials helped Iranian students improve their listening comprehension and listening strategies.

The present study investigated school general English achievement and group work among Iranian junior high school students. The main question this study tried to answer was whether group work could enhance a higher general English achievement among junior high school students. To answer this question, 60 female learners were divided into experimental and control group randomly with 30 members in each after administering a general English test to 100 Junior high school females to release qualified intermediate learners. Then, the experimental group was broken into 6 groups including 4 learners in each to work cooperatively while the control group went on working conventionally. Firstly, each group received general English test such as reading, listening, writing, and speaking as pretest to figure out their current level. Then as treatment, experimental group took practices in all skills in group while the control group received a placebo. The students were asked to do the posttest. The average was taken to indicate students overall English language achievement of method of instruction in the general English course. By analyzing the scores of each single group on their posttest (Independent samples T-test) and also analyzing pretest to posttest scores of experimental and control group (Paired sample T-test), the null hypothesis of the study was rejected. It meant that the group work had a better performance in terms of the general English posttest.