Foreign Language Teaching and Research

“Flipped” or inverted classrooms are designed to utilize class time for application and knowledge building, while course content is delivered through the use of online lectures and watched at home on the students’ time. It is believed that flipped classrooms promote student engagement and a deeper understanding of the class material. The implementation of flipped classroom has been conducted in China’s higher education for more than a decade. However, its implementation in Hotel English courses has not received any attention. By doing a needs analysis, it was proved that the implication of flipped classroom model would be promising in Hotel English courses. Hence, the author redesigned the Hotel English course based on the results of the needs analysis. This course is expected to improve the cultural awareness of the students and offer them with more opportunities to practice speaking English, especially in an authentic situation. Meanwhile, their problem-solving ability and critical thinking ability can be upgraded. As a result, the students can be well prepared to enter their future career not only in hotel industry but other areas.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of task-based instruction (TBI) and project-based instruction (PBI) on the improvement of EFL learners' referential and expressive writing performance. To accomplish this objective, 60 students majoring in English translation participated in Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT), but out of them 50 students were selected as the members of a homogeneous sample. Then, they were assigned into two experimental groups. They were exposed to IELTS module task-based writing pre-test, treatment, and post-test, to assess the participants' writing performance. The participants in first experimental group received TBI to practice the referential and expressive types of writing, while those in the second group received PBI. The results showed that TBI and PBI affected the development of both referential and expressive writing among EFL learners. In addition, the results revealed that there was not any statistically significant difference between the effect of PBI and TBI on developing expressive and referential writings among EFL learners. The pedagogical implications of the study are discussed at the end of the paper.  

This study is an attempt to find the realization of visual literacy in Iranian high school English textbooks. To this purpose, the density and number of the tags in the three volumes of the senior high school English textbooks were qualitatively investigated. The results showed that Book 1 emphasizes the Affective/Perceptual aspect of the visuals, whereas Book 3 puts more emphasis on Critical/Ideological aspect of the visuals. Furthermore, it was found that as grades of the books advance, the density and number of the tags decrease. The results based on Callow’s (2005) dichotomy also indicated that as the grade of the English textbooks advances, the visual literacy moves from the receptive aspect to more productive one. It can be inferred that in developing high school English textbooks, there seems to be no association between the visuals and the corresponding tags despite the variety of the visuals.  

The present study aimed at investigating the effects of applying yoga, visualization, and Rosetta Stone software on English achievement of Iranian senior citizen EFL learners. Prior to this study, the homogeneity of the learners was checked through conducting Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT). Consulting the rating scale of OQPT, 30 female elementary level senior citizen EFL learners between the ages of 55 and 65 were selected to take part in the study. The participants sat for an English achievement test designed based on their textbook. They were, then, assigned to two groups of control and experimental. The members of the experimental group were taught English while practicing yoga, visualization, and applying Rosetta Stone software program, whereas their counterparts in the control group were taught via the conventional method of teaching English in the elderly day-care center. The procedure lasted for 30 sessions during the three-month treatment. Afterwards, the posttest which was similar to the pretest was administered to unravel the effect of the treatment. They were also given an attitude questionnaire to uncover their attitude towards the applied instruments. The results of the study indicated that the members of the experimental group outperformed those of the control group in terms of their English learning. The results of the attitude questionnaire demonstrated that they had positive attitudes towards the use of yoga, visualization, and Rosetta Stone software in learning English. The results of this study may offer implications for EFL teachers, curriculum designers, day-care centers of the elderly, well-fare organizations, and language schools.  

This research intended to study the Potential relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ job satisfaction, job burnout, and reflective thinking. One-hundred and eighty-two teachers from different universities, and schools were requested to answer the the Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire, Maslach Burnout Inventory, and reflective thinking scale as the main data collection instruments. Structural Equation Modeling was used to test the hypothesized model of relations. The results represented, there were significant internal correlations between all the latent variables and their sub-scales. Multiple regression analysis showed that job satisfaction positively predicted reflective thinking, with job satisfaction exerting more predictive power in comparison with job burnout. Furthermore, job burnout weakly predicted reflective thinking, with job burnout exerting less predictive power in comparison with job satisfaction. Moreover, there was a negative correlation between job satisfaction and job burnout in which not only these two latent variables but also all their sub-scales were negatively related to each other. Pedagogical implications of the results have been discussed.

This descriptive quantitative study scrutinized the relationship between impulsive and reflective EFL learners’ oral communication strategies (OCS) and willingness to communicate (WTC). To this end, 114 impulsive and reflective graduate-level EFL learners (67% female; 33% male), within the age range of 23 to 40, were selected employing convenience sampling. The data collection instruments were the impulsiveness sub-scale of Eysenck’s impulsivity inventory (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1978), the OCS inventory (Nakatani, 2006), and the WTC scale (McCroskey, 1992). Subsequent to checking and verifying the pertinent assumptions, using Pearson’s correlation coefficient indicated that there existed a positive yet insignificant correlation between impulsive EFL learners’ OCS and their WTC; however, a positive and significant correlation between reflective EFL learners’ OCS and their WTC was observed. In addition, the results of linear regression analyses and comparing the β values revealed that impulsive EFL learners’ OCS cannot significantly predict their WTC whereas reflective EFL learners’ OCS can significantly predict their WTC. In general, the obtained results confirmed that OCS can positively affect EFL learners’ WTC, although attention should be paid to learners’ impulsivity o reflectivity prior to planning the pedagogical practice.          

This study intended to compare the effects of prescriptive and collaborative models of observation on EFL teachers’ perception of their self-efficacy. From among 80 participants, 40 teachers, including 20 novice and 20 experienced teachers, were randomly assigned to the collaborative observation group (experimental group) and another group of 40 teachers, which comprised of 20 novice and 20 experienced teachers, were randomly assigned to the prescriptive observation group (control group). A sequential explanatory design was employed so that both quantitative and qualitative data collection/analysis procedures could be employed. The quantitative data were collected through The Ohio State Teacher Efficacy Scale (OSTES) (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001), and the qualitative data were elicited through semi-structured interviews. The results of both quantitative and qualitative data revealed (i) the significant difference between prescriptive and collaborative observation in terms of teachers’ perception of their self-efficacy, and that (ii) in the collaborative observation group, there was a significant difference between novice and experienced teachers’ perception of their self-efficacy. The study has implications for both teachers and teacher educators, suggesting that collaborative observation could enhance EFL teacher development.              

This study aimed to investigate the effect of task-based language teaching on news-story writing in Iranian EFL context. To this end, a quasi-experimental, pre- and post-evaluation research design was employed. First, 78 Iranian BA sophomores majoring in translation at Islamic Azad University, Hamedan Branch, were selected through convenient sampling as the participants of the study. They were then randomly divided into two treatment and control groups--task-based group (TB) and conventional teaching group (TC) respectively. Both groups were initially given a test on news story writing to measure their writing ability at the pre-treatment stage. Then, the control group was taught through explanations abstracted from some deductive plans and reading-oriented method of teaching news story structure. The other group was exposed to a six-weak TB treatment based on Willis’ TBL framework. The post-treatment researcher-made test was then administered to compare the participants’ writing progress. The obtained statistical results showed that the employment of the task-based language learning scenario does not lead to an overall significant improvement of Iranian EFL learners’ performance in news-story writing as compared with the conventional teaching of the same skill. This is perhaps due to learners’ negative attitude towards TBLT, which originates from the inconsistency of TBLT with the educational philosophy in Iran. Therefore, TBLT programs may need to be modified on the basis of the local and traditional specifications of the education in the target community to be able to develop the learners’ news-story writing skill.             

Recent studies within the past four decades have confirmed the effectiveness of Student-Centered Learning (SCL) over Teacher-Centered Learning (TCL). Furthermore, the emergence of 21st-century learning skills and competencies necessitates education systems to change their previous practices and equip their students with these skills and competencies. However, implementing SCL has not gained considerable attention among education authorities and EFL teachers in Iranian high schools. This study aims to explore EFL teachers' understanding of SCL and their perceptions of the obstacles to implementing it in Kermanshah, Iran. To this end, the study employed a convergent mixed-methods design that combined 24-item questionnaire data with 9 structured interviews using the NVIVO Software Version10. The questionnaire analysis revealed that there is a wide gap between the participants’ perceptions of SCL and their practices in the classroom. Moreover, the analysis of the interviews led to extracting three main themes of institutional, teacher-student-parent, and socio-cultural obstacles that impede implementing SCL in EFL classes and indicate that TCL practices are still running. The results revealed that teachers hold general perceptions of SCL. However, due to some constraints, they adhere to the TCL.            

The present study aimed to rediscover the global criteria for English language teacher evaluation. To do so, a large body of research was reviewed, and the characteristics of effective teachers along with their indicators were compiled. Nine characteristics which proved to be the most frequently indorsed by scholars were selected as the global criteria of teacher effectiveness. Then, these criteria were utilized to employ five English language teachers in a language institute in Kerman, Iran. The classroom performance of these teachers and that of five others formerly employed based on some local criteria was observed by the institute supervisor. At the end of the semester, perceptions of the students of both groups of teachers were explored through a questionnaire developed by the authors. Finally, the performances of the two groups of teachers were compared in terms of the students' and the observer's perceptions. The results showed that the teachers employed based on the global criteria of teacher effectiveness outperformed those recruited based on the local criteria. This indicates that the selected criteria of teacher effectiveness can be reliable for English teacher performance evaluation.                 

The study of second language learners' engagement with language learning tasks has become an enchanting line of research since several studies in general education and second language literature have proved its significant effects on learners' ultimate educational success. However, there are several niches in the literature which have not been occupied yet. One of these niches, addressed in this study, is the examination of the effect of computer-mediated condition on second language learners' emotional and social engagement with speaking tasks. Using a repeated-measures design, 40 intermediate language learners performed computer-mediated and face-to-face speaking tasks in a counterbalanced fashion. A questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were employed to collect the required data to respond to the questions. The results showed that learners were more emotionally and socially engaged with the computer-mediated speaking tasks. It was also revealed that low-intermediate learners’ use of social engagement indicators was significantly higher in the computer-mediated condition; however, the change in the condition did not significantly affect the quantity of social engagement indicators provided by high-intermediate ones. The findings also indicated that different engagement dimensions are interconnected, and the change in one of them can affect the other ones.  

The current study aimed at investigating the impact of Personal Response System (PRS) on Iranian EFL learners’ English language performance, class communication, and comfort level. To this purpose, a mixed methods design was used. The participants comprised 60 male-female Iranian grade eight junior students studying at Bahonar secondary school, Kazeroon, Iran. They were selected through convenient sampling method from two intact classes and divided into two experimental and control groups. The needed data was collected using the following instruments: Oxford Placement Test (OPT), Preliminary English Test (PET), Observation Checklist, and PRS. The two groups of the participants attended twelve English class sessions of the high school once a week. The only difference between the two groups was that during the class sessions, the experimental group attended PRS. Data analysis was conducted through descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests and qualitative content analysis of the observation data. The results showed that PRS had a statistically significant impact on English language performance, class communication, and comfort level of Iranian EFL learners. Accordingly, EFL teachers are recommended to use this tool in an attempt to enhance EFL learners' general English language performance.