جستارهای زبانی (پژوهش های زبان و ادبیات تطبیقی)

This study sought to explore the association between English as a foreign language (EFL) students’ foreign language learning boredom (FLB) and foreign language enjoyment (FLE) (i.e., personal enjoyment, teacher appreciation, and social enjoyment) as well as the mediating role of student-perceived teacher humor styles (i.e., affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive, and self-defeating). In doing so, we firstly investigated the relationship between 229 (67 male and 162 female) Turkish EFL university students’ FLB, FLE, and perceived teacher humor styles. We then probed to determine whether perceived teacher humor styles predict their FLB and FLE. The results indicated that all three indices of FLE had significant negative correlations with FLB. While affiliative and self-enhancing humor styles were significantly and positively correlated with FLE, they were negatively associated with FLB. Aggressive humor had only a significant negative correlation with the teacher appreciation subscale of FLE whereas self-defeating humor indicated a significant positive correlation with FLB. The results also showed that FLE could negatively predict FLB. Finally, the results of the mediation analysis indicated two significant mediation relationships which were significantly related to FLB through affiliative and self-enhancing humor. Implications are discussed in the context of teacher education.

Power is understood as a process exercised and negotiated in an English-as-a-foreign-language interaction. This article aims to fill the gaps of literature in researching the relationship between teachers' power and students’ learning behavior in Vietnamese classroom interaction as there was little research on how teachers’ use of power can exert educational effects on students, and which changes the way students acquire or learn in general and particularly language. The data came from an ethnographic approach, including audio-recording, classroom observation, and teacher interviews. By employing the tools of critical discourse analysis, the analyses bring together the view of the subject of the study with classroom power relations to give deep insights into the microlevel classroom discourse and the macrolevel of professional discourse (in this case, it is understood as pedagogical discourse). The findings show how power was negotiated over in different forms of classroom behavior. Besides, the discursive classroom practices reveal the relationship between classroom behavior norms that the teachers attempted to impose and the well-known student-centeredness. Implications have been worked out through a proposal of a classroom interaction structure where a constructivist learning environment or a classroom of happiness is aimed to create, which helps increase the learning potential and capacity of students.

Learning-oriented assessment (LOA) has recently gained increasing attention among language researchers. It has been found momentous for both teaching and learning. However, its practical domain has remained under-researched and the current literature has mostly focused on its practicality. Nevertheless, the role of teachers’ assessment strategies in the implementation and success of LOA has been overlooked, to date. Moreover, there is a dearth of research on how English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers capture moments of spontaneous LOA. To fill these gaps, the present case study explored an Iranian EFL teacher’s questioning strategies as an aspect of spontaneous LOA. Utilizing Conversation Analysis (CA) and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), this study attempted to uncover the instances of LOA practice represented through questioning strategies during classroom interactions at a basic level. The findings revealed that two types of questioning strategies, namely metacognitive questions and designedly incomplete utterances (DIU), occurred when the teacher extended the main assessment task to focus on the earlier learning goals. In so doing, the teacher sought evidence of student learning status already elicited to take the next step. The study has insightful implications for EFL teachers and trainers concerning metacognitive questions and DIU as useful tools to practice LOA in L2 education.

This sociocultural theory-based study investigates how professional development activities mediated novice EFL teachers in their teaching careers. Four volunteer novice teachers in their two-year probation time participated in the study. Each novice teacher wrote a narrative every month in a semester and was interviewed at the beginning and end of that semester. Data from all the narratives and interviews disclose that the institutional context with much teaching workload, mandatory research, and involvement in administration-related work provide the affordances for the novice teachers to internalize their understanding of the duties of English lecturers and drive to practice those duties. Besides, the professional development activities in teaching, researching and others are reported to lead to growth in the understanding, experience as well as confidence level of novice teachers. From the findings, implications are put forward to how to provide support to mediate the professional growth of early-career teachers.

This study was conducted to examine learners’ attitudes and perceptions toward the efficacy of task repetition: whether or not they appreciated task repetition as an effective classroom strategy for enhancing their oral performance. To this end, a multiple case study approach was adopted in which six intermediate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners were investigated over a four-month period in an intact class. Four data collection tools were used: (1) multiple interview sessions, (2) learner diaries, (3) participant observation, and (4) classroom portfolios. In addition, 20 hours of the learners’ audio-recorded task performances across sessions were transcribed and analyzed for signs of improvements in qualities of oral performance. Results indicated that despite the fact that repeating reciprocal narrative tasks led to gains in oral performance, learners viewed task repetition as a futile activity that did not affect their performances over time. The findings are discussed, and implications are provided in the context of education.

Dyadic Data Analysis (DDA) has been suggested, in the existing literature, to be used to explore interpersonal variables which have long been conventionally investigated in isolation. DDA is effective in analyzing procedures that go on among dyads in studies of family relations, partnership, teacher-student affairs, and many other interpersonal relationships. Illustrative examples come from psychological, behavioral, and sociological studies that help develop the researcher's ability to investigate relationship processes, model and test for the effects of actors, partners, and relationships, and control for the statistical inter-dependence which can be conceived between partners. The present paper first reviews the distinctive features of DDA and the potential advantages it can have for language studies. Also, it shows how longitudinal DDA is strongly needed in the investigation of L2 affective variables in the Second Language Acquisition (SLA) domain to longitudinally explore the dynamic and developmental nature of language learners’ affective factors. Finally, it goes on with making suggestions for a future line of inquiry using this innovative analytic procedure and ends with several conclusive remarks about this analytical framework which is compatible with the complexity of dynamic systems theory (CDST).

Spelling is an essential part of literacy that helps students in all grades learn English successfully. EFL students have not been taught how to write words correctly. Even those few teachers who are instructing spelling based on traditional methods have failed to provide adequate help to their students because they are unaware of the most effective spelling methods and employ outdated spelling theories. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of the Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check (LSCWC) method on the English spelling performance of Iranian students. This study included 37 students in the ninth grade, ages 15 to 16, and was conducted at a public boys' school in Tehran, Iran. The study employed a quasi-experimental design with a pre-and post-test. The experimental group was trained to spell 120 words throughout 24 sessions using the LSCWC method, while the control group received no treatment. The instruments consisted of pre- and post-spelling tests as well as an attitudinal questionnaire. The Mann-Whitney U test results showed that the participants in the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group on the spelling post-tests. Moreover, according to the results of the attitudinal questionnaire, most respondents were satisfied with the LSCWC method. The LSCWC method needed less one-to-one instruction and increased students' confidence and autonomy when learning new words. The findings of this study will help policymakers, curriculum designers, materials developers, teacher trainers, and language teachers figure out how to assist junior high school students who have trouble with spelling.

This qualitative study examined the beliefs of Vietnamese primary teachers regarding writing instruction. The participants included 12 in-service teachers from five primary schools in a large city in Vietnam. The data consisted of in-depth semi-structured interviews. Qualitative analysis of the data showed several interesting insights into the teachers' beliefs about writing instruction for young learners and the challenges they faced in their classroom teaching. All the participating teachers believed that writing was very important for primary school learners, and teaching writing was one of the key tasks for primary school teachers. The teachers considered that students' lack of life experiences and creativeness was the most considerable challenge in teaching writing, but they faced several practical constraints in helping students overcome the difficulties. Notably, the teachers were supportive of methods to enhance the creativeness and emotions in students' writing, but they reported using model texts in teaching frequently. The socio-cultural contexts of teaching and learning were taken into account in the interpretation of the findings. This study is the first step to inform professional development programs and pedagogy to enhance the effectiveness of teaching writing skills to young learners at primary schools in Vietnam, and beyond.

Teachers’ classroom management plays a potent role in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, especially in relation to other psychological variables, namely self-efficacy and personality types. Consequently, the present study aimed at generating a structural equation model of evidence to better illustrate the relationship among classroom management, self-efficacy, and personality types as well as the pertinent sub-scales. A sample of 249 Iranian EFL teachers completed three questionnaires including the Behavior and Instructional Management Scale, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Personality Type, and Teacher Efficacy Scale. The structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and the schematic illustration confirmed the hypothesized model (x2df = 1.28; RMSEA=.03; RMR =.03; GFI =.98; AGFI=.95; NFI =.98; CFI =.99; IFI =.99; TLI=.98), revealing significant internal interplay among the classroom management approaches, self-efficacy, personality types, and their sub-scales. The results of multiple regression further confirmed the direction of the path model illuminating the predictability power of the teachers’ personality types and their self-efficacy concerning the EFL teachers’ classroom management approaches. In other words, EFL teachers’ personality types and self-efficacy can predict their classroom management approaches. The study offered pedagogical implications for teachers, policymakers, and stockholders.

Nowadays, the Flipped Classroom (FC) as a new model has become a trend in education especially due to the popularity of online education. Besides, today, social networking has found its way into education so that teachers and learners can use social media as a platform to streamline the educational process. Indeed, social networking has also become a well-known way of teaching that is shifting education while teachers and students work together in class. Furthermore, learners are often provided with new opportunities through social network platforms, and access to new models of communication to interact. Building on self-determination theories, the literature review considers the teachers’ motivation as one of the pivotal concerns about FC and it also puts more emphasis on the role of teachers’ engagement in higher education. Consequently, this review makes an effort to consider both issues, namely teachers’ motivation, and engagement within the process of FC through social networking. Overall, some implications are suggested for language stakeholders in an educational environment to consider the important issues in the process of implementing FC such as various kinds of educational platforms to increase their motivation and engagement.

Impressive speculation has been made to carry technology to schools and these ventures have for sure brought about a large number of “examples of overcoming adversity”. Nonetheless, there is one critical gap in the instructive purposes of technology that should be addressed. Research shows that although most teachers and students tend to use these tools in teaching language skills, they refuse to do so for fear of using technology tools in the classroom; therefore, to shed light on different aspects of this critical point, the present study reviewed the possible relationship between technology use and students’ fear and anxiety in the literature. The findings of this study showed that teachers and students who have a high level of computer knowledge are less afraid of technology. The findings also showed that another factor of the language learners’ reluctance of using technology is their teachers’ beliefs about the effectiveness of these tools. The results of the present study provide suggestions for training language teachers to educational planners about a more efficient process of language teaching due to the new needs in the use of technology in English language teaching. A significant implication, thusly, is that the training and preparation of teachers and directors ought to turn into a need in creating technology-related proficient turn of events.

This study focused on capturing the research landscape of past studies related to the effects of electronic books on young children’s reading development from 1999 to 2022 through a bibliometric analysis. All 99 included bibliographic data were extracted from the Scopus database. The findings show an increasing trend in publications and citations over the last twenty years. The publications were distributed over six continents, namely North America, South America, Europe, Oceania, Africa, and Asia. The United States was the most productive country with the highest number of publications, h-index, and g-index. The foci of the research are (i) the important role digital device plays in children’s book reading; (ii) strategies taken by families and teachers to support the emergent literacy skills based on e-book; (iii) cognition and language skills domains in e-book reading among preschoolers. The findings of this study help researchers to understand the current landscape of research on e-book reading among preschoolers and provide guidelines for researchers to understand the core issues.

L’apprentissage du vocabulaire est une tâche de longue haleine, mais nécessaire à la pratique aisée d’une langue. Ce processus pourrait être facilité par la gamification, qui a pour but d’augmenter la motivation envers l’accomplissement de diverses tâches parfois désagréables, et dont une variante accessible est l’utilisation des jeux numériques en ligne. Afin d’étudier la conception des étudiants iraniens envers les jeux numériques en général, l’utilisation de la gamification dans l’enseignement du vocabulaire en particulier, et les éventuels problèmes rencontrés, la plateforme d’enseignement virtuel de l’université de Téhéran (Elearn), basée sur le système MOODLE, a été utilisée. Le vocabulaire correspondant à quatre thèmes différents a été implémenté dans cinq jeux disponibles sur la plateforme qui ont été ensuite incorporés à un cours en licence. Après avoir joué à ces jeux, 14 étudiants ont complété un questionnaire et pris part à un entretien. L’analyse statistique du questionnaire a montré une corrélation significative entre trois variables de perception de facilité, de perception d’utilité et d’intention comportementale d’utilisation avec le niveau de français et l’habitude à jouer. Les étudiants rapportent des ressentis positifs de l’expérience et la majorité soutient l’utilité de la gamification pour l’apprentissage du vocabulaire. Cependant, un moindre pourcentage (35.7%) affirme avoir l’intention de répéter l’expérience. En conclusion, l’introduction des jeux numériques de la plateforme MOODLE est envisageable dans l’enseignement du vocabulaire. Il faudrait pourtant adapter les jeux, en fonction des avis et des propositions des étudiants, surtout concernant les questions, le vocabulaire utilisé, et le niveau de français.