Foreign Language Teaching and Research

The attitude one has towards language learning determines the success or failure of learning the language. To this effect, this study aimed to explore EFL learners’ attitudes towards communicative language learning and the relationship between learners’ attitudes and English language achievement. To address these objectives, the study adopted a survey research design. Two hundred seventeen grade 11 students were selected through simple random sampling technique. Attitude questionnaire, achievement test and interview were tools of data collection. In order to verify students’ attitudes towards communicative language learning, the mean score obtained from attitude scale and qualitative descriptions of the interview data were utilized. To address the relationship between students’ attitudes to communicative language learning and English language achievement, and to decide the predictive power of attitude on learners’ English language achievement, Pearson correlation and regression were applied respectively. In addition, t-test was used to investigate if gender caused attitude difference or not. The findings indicated positive attitude towards communicative language learning. In addition, it was found that attitude to communicative language learning significantly predicted achievement scores of the students. Furthermore, gender was not found to be a determining factor in the attitude towards communicative language learning.

The use of politeness strategies can help interlocutors promote and/or maintain social harmony in telephone interactions. Using the Rapport Management Model proposed by Spencer-Oatey (2008), this study aimed primarily to reinvestigate the closing structures of telephone conversation (hereafter abbreviated as TC) in Persian and to discover the common politeness strategies used by native Persian speakers to end their TCs considering the contextual variables of social distance and status. Moreover, this study tried to explore the effect of time availability/limitation along with those contextual variables on TC closing part. To this end, 30 Persian native speakers were selected randomly. A DCT (Discourse Completion Test) of 12 scenarios was developed by considering three criteria: status, time limitation and distance. Analyzing DCTs, many different TC closing patterns were found. The obtained findings depicted that the aforementioned variables had significant effects on the TC closing patterns and strategies taken by the participants. The findings of the present study may be beneficial for extending pragmatic knowledge through emphasizing the significance of pragmatic competence in language proficiency. Also, since the results showed some limitations in the previous politeness models, the findings of this study can guide researchers to follow more complete and perfect politeness models.

Translation can have long-term effects on all languages and cultures. It is not a mere linguistic act, but mostly a cultural act, since language is by nature one of the major carriers of cultural elements. Thus, the translator’s job is not just transferring the meaning of words and sentences from the source text to the target text. Culture-specific items often cause translation problems. Identifying such items in the source text and locate their rendering in the target text has been the focus of the present study. This study has attempted to spot culture-specific elements in the source text; i.e. Matilda, and to check the extent of the translator’s fidelity in rendering such elements and dealing with the concept of domain of discourse in Lefever’s (1992) words. To conduct the study, the researchers have applied a qualitative-descriptive (as well as a quantitative) method, focusing on the analysis of the text and classifying the cultural elements in the source text on the basis of Newmark’s (1988) taxonomy. The findings thereof revealed that universe/domain of discourse has changed in several cases, mostly when the translator has used domestication strategy.

Teacher enthusiasm and its impact on students’ learning and emotions have remained unnoticed in the realm of second language learning and teaching. This study aimed at exploring the possibility of boosting language teacher enthusiasm and its potential relationship with language learners’ effort and attitude for language learning. In order to foster teacher enthusiasm, the highly novel concept of vision was utilized and a vision enhancement program was conducted to improve language teacher enthusiasm. Four EFL teachers and their 46 students participated in the research project. Two of the teachers were assigned to the six-week visionary intervention and the other two received no treatment. A Likert-scale questionnaire measuring perceived teacher enthusiasm, intended effort, and attitude to language learning was administered to all the students before and after the treatment. Results of ANCOVA revealed that those students whose teachers were subjected to vision enhancement were significantly different from the students whose teachers did not receive the treatment. Moreover, linear regression analyses demonstrated that students’ perception of teacher enthusiasm can positively predict their effort and attitude. The efficiency of visionary training for improving teacher enthusiasm gained empirical support. Besides, the findings underscore the link between teacher enthusiasm and students’ effort and attitude.

Speaking is deemed by many scholars as a fundamental skill in second language (L2) learning. From the myriad of factors playing a role in willingness to communicate (WTC) in a foreign language, communication apprehension and self-perceived competence have attracted a good deal of interest in recent decades. Furthermore, it is generally agreed that cooperative teaching can enhance learners' linguistic and psychological variables. To unravel the aforementioned dilemmas, 60 male and female EFL learners within the age range of 19 to 25(i.e., 30 each) were selected out of 100 participants via double sampling from several English institutes in Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan province and were assigned equally to an experimental and a control group. Subsequently, the treatment started where the experimental group was taught based on cooperative teaching, while the control group received conventional treatment. Before and after the treatment, three questionnaires (WTC, communication apprehension and self-perceived competence) were given to all the participants in three different phases. After collecting the data, they were analyzed descriptively. Finally, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was run. The findings of the study highlighted that there is a negative correlation between communication apprehension and WTC as well as a positive correlation between self-perceived competence and WTC of Iranian EFL learners in post intervention. The findings further indicated that cooperative teaching can influence learners' WTC, self-perceived competence and communication apprehension.

The purpose of the study was to examine how teacher motivational practice might influence Iranian EFL Learners’ Request and Refusal Speech Acts Production. To this end, five instruments were used to provide appropriate responses to research questions: (a) Quick Placement Test (b) the Motivational Orientation of Language Teaching classroom observation scheme, (c) the Post-Lesson Teacher Evaluation scale, (d) student motivational state questionnaire and (e) Discourse Completion Task administered to 300 male students from 12 classes (upper intermediate senior high schools of 6 districts in Isfahan, Iran. The research indicates that, there is statistically significant difference between the students in high motivation index teachers’ (HMIT) classes and low motivation teachers’ (LMIT) classes with respect to their request speech act posttest scores. There was also a statistically significant difference between the students in HMIT and LMIT classes concerning their refusal speech act posttest scores. So it seems a must for the EFL curriculum developers at Iranian ministry of education and training to think about remedies for improving motivation among their EFL teachers for persuading their students to provide more practical and real opportunities to use English in a class and so on.

The present study is aimed at investigating the relationship among Iranian EFL teachers’ reflective teaching, reflective thinking and classroom management ability. To this purpose, 102 male and female EFL teachers, aged between 25 and 40, with different academic background who were teaching at different levels, were chosen to fill in three questionnaires on reflective thinking, reflective teaching and classroom management. In this connection, the Spearman Rank-Order correlation was used as the analytical method to analyze the data and to come to the conclusion. The obtained result showed that there was a positive correlation between teachers’ reflective teaching and class management. A strong relationship was observed between reflective thinking and class management and there was also a positive correlation between teachers’ reflective thinking and reflective teaching.

The present study investigated the effect of pragmatic eliciting tasks on EFL pre-intermediate learners speaking proficiency. Thus this study aimed at comparing the English language learners who practiced pragmatic eliciting tasks and the ones who used traditional speaking activities such as questions and answers, discussion, etc. In doing so, 40 learners out of 80 were selected through Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) with the band score of 30 to 39. Then they were non-randomly divided into two equal experimental and control groups through convenience sampling method. Both groups took a teacher-made pre-test on speaking proficiency and the scores were recorded. The experimental group received pragmatic eliciting tasks including explicit uses of pragmatic functions of speech (i.e., greeting, thanking, etc.) while the control group received these pragmatic tasks implicitly. Finally, both groups took a posttest which was the modified pre-test. Data were analyzed through independent and paired sample t-tests and the results showed that explicit instruction on pragmatic eliciting tasks were effective than the implicit ones in the control group. Implications of the study suggest that the learners should learn pragmatic eliciting tasks for effective uses of language functions in their conversations.

In this study, the use of speech-like pragmatic markers in Iranian EFL students’ academic writing was investigated. Speech-like pragmatic markers, such as I think, well, I guess, actually, anyway, anyhow, etc. are linguistic components that are more specific to conversation than writing, and writers may wrongly include them in their academic writing. To examine the students’ use of speech-like pragmatic markers when writing an essay, samples of Iranian students’ and English native students’ argumentative essays were analyzed using Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis (CIA). Moreover, the overuse or underuse of such items was compared between English native students and Iranian EFL students. Native English data were collected from the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS) and non-native English data were gathered from Iranian students’ essays during an academic semester from Islamic Azad University of Najafabad, Islamic Azad University of Abadan and Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz in Iran. Iranian participants were 71 EFL upper-intermediate (based on the Oxford Placement Test) graduate students that were selected randomly from male and female students. A frequency analysis of pragmatic markers indicates significant differences between Iranian students’ and English native students’ use of speech-like pragmatic markers. Quantitative analyses of the non-native corpus data revealed that students apply these spoken components in their argumentative essays, which may adversely affect their text in terms of a correct style and tone. By investigating the results, the language teachers and materials writers are recommended to recognize the features of Iranian English students’ interlanguage and to provide them with planned input about appropriate use of pragmatic markers.