International Journal of Research in English Education

In an attempt to profile the effect of two methods of teaching Second Language (L2) idioms, Etymological vs. Literal, a group of English Language learners (n= 14) were selected to participate in this study. It was a within-subjects study and the chosen idioms were taught in 6 sessions regarding the two methods to the same group (each method in three sessions). In the first three sessions, 30 idioms were taught literally. In the next three sessions, 30 other idioms were taught etymologically. Then, their post-tests were performed immediately after instruction. Finally, a delayed posttest was conducted after one-week interval to find out the amount of retention of idioms’ constituents. The results indicated no significant effect in the retention and later production of L2 idioms and their constituents in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. Following either of these methods regarding time and goals of instruction can be considered as an implication of this study.

The present empirical study investigated the relationship between Iranian undergraduate TEFL learners’ self-regulation and their self-efficacy. For this end, there have been a total number of 120 college students learning English as a foreign language who volunteered to complete the two quantitative questionnaires of self-regulation and self-efficacy respectively. The participants were informed of the anonymous nature of the data collection process in advance. They were also told that their responses would certainly be kept confidential and that they had the right to quit at any part of the survey. It took around 15–20 minutes for each respondent to complete the survey. In the meanwhile, some of the participants (around ten) also willingly answered the qualitative descriptive semi-structured questions of the interview, until that the interview responses were saturated. After the process of data collection, the findings were measured through correlation analysis, indicating that self-regulation and self-efficacy were jointly linked and had a directly positive relationship. Accordingly, it was revealed that the employment of these two highly associated psychological constructs could systematically guide and help learners to enhance their learning capabilities and lead them to ultimate desired learning goals. Ultimately, it was concluded from the findings of the current study that the delicate association between self-regulation and self-efficacy was really helpful for learners to lead them successfully to their academic goals.

One of the important issues in EFL instruction is the idea of eliminating students’ linguistic errors through providing corrective feedback (CF). Accordingly, this study investigated the effect of various CF types (i.e., comprehensive, selective, and no feedback) on advanced EFL learners’ writing in different writing conditions (i.e., individual & collaborative). 132 EFL advanced learners aged from 14-20 were considered as the main participants. Learners were divided into 6 groups (i.e., three individual and three collaborative writing conditions). Furthermore, each writing condition included three groups with selective, comprehensive, and no correction orientations. Data collection tools and procedures encompassed an institutionalized Placement Test, pre-test, and post-test. The treatment that lasted for nine sessions was followed by a post-test. Data were submitted to a series of ANOVA tests with follow up pair-wise comparisons and independent-samples t-tests. Findings indicated that: (1) CF, especially selective one, was more effective in enhancing learners’ writing accuracy, and (2) members of the collaborative writing groups outperformed those in the individual ones in terms of their writing accuracy development. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed in relation to enhancing writing accuracy of the learners.

This article reports on a study of interaction amid beginners with the use of the technological resource WhatsApp . Its major objective was to analyze online oral negotiated interaction characteristics, using mainly WhatsApp audio-recorded messages, but also multimodal interaction (text, images, GIFs, emoticons, etc.). It was a qualitative, interpretive, and exploratory case study applied to 33 participants from a public technical school in Brazil, in which participants were in the first year of High School. The analysis revealed that negotiated interaction was the main component of interaction, although in a different sense if related to the theoretical framework held in Second Language Acquisition (SLA). Therefore, this study added a discussion on interaction in SLA, which considered the peculiarities of the online oral negotiated interaction among beginner learners of English using WhatsApp . The interpretive findings discussed in this article may enlighten pedagogical practices in SLA as well as broaden possibilities in terms of activities development to work on online oral interaction amongst beginners, with the aid of technological resources. Finally, this study may serve the purpose of promoting reflections on SLA theories about interaction.

The present study intends to study Iranian EFL teachers’ attitude towards post-method pedagogy (PMP) and its implementation in private language institutes. The participants of this study were 80 male and female EFL teachers from different private institutes in two cities of Mazandaran province in Iran. For the purpose of data collection, this study applied a Likert type questionnaire. In order to analyze it, minimum, maximum, mean, and standard deviation were calculated, then different tests including Friedman test, Wilcoxon test, Pearson Correlation, and Independent T-test were utilized. Considering the findings of the study, one cannot conclude that teachers have a positive attitude toward post-method principles. In fact, the findings show uncertainty about the actual emergence of PMP principles in EFL institutes in Iran and the fact that there is a long distance to the actual realization of principles of Particularity , Practicality, and Possibility , especially the last one. Furthermore, there is a significant relationship between respondent teachers’ familiarity of some principles of PMP and their experience, field of study, and education degree.

The focus of the present study was to explore the effect of self-directed learning method on Iranian EFL students’ writing achievement in two levels of language proficiency (pre-intermediate and intermediate). It also attempted to find out if there was any significant difference between two groups of learners, control and experimental, in each level regarding their development of writing skill. In order to reach this goal, 30 male EFL learners that were selected based on random sampling, participated in this study. After the treatment was over, both groups in each level were given the post-test, the results of which were compared with pre-test results. Then, an independent sample t -test was run to find the effectiveness of two approaches to detect the differences among the means of the two groups in each level. The results of the present research indicated that the self-directed learning method had significant effects on the pre-intermediate and intermediate students’ performance of English writing ability. The results also indicated that there was a significant difference between the two groups of learners in each level regarding their development of English writing ability.

Practical improvements in students’ overall success can be made if we take into account the contribution of learning environments to learners’ various attributes that would greatly affect their academic selves. This study aimed at scrutinizing the possible associations among Iranian EFL students’ perceived classroom climate, academic self-concept, learning self-regulation, and academic identity status. 420 university students were asked to fill out College and University Classroom Environment Inventory (CUCEI), Academic Self-Concept (ASC) Scale, Learning Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SRQ-L), and Academic Identity Status (AIS) Questionnaire. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and based on its several goodness-of-fit criteria, the proposed model of the possible interactions of the main variables was confirmed. Furthermore, classroom climate was correlated positively with subscales of learning self-regulation and academic self-concept and negatively with academic identity status. Besides significant correlations among study variables, the final model also revealed some intra-scales associations. Multiple regression analysis also indicated some significant predictions. The findings could provide classroom instructors and university syllabus designers with implications so that they can plan the EFL environments and class activities taking into consideration students’ various academic characteristics. This involves their status of self-concept, identity, and regulation to help them achieve highly recognized long-term academic objectives.