علی شفایی

The present research study examined the distribution of metadiscourse markers, i.e., boosters and hedges, in the introduction section of Journal Citation Reports (JCR) medical research articles. To this end, 30 research articles published in the field of medicine between 2018 and 2024 were chosen on the basis of purposive sampling. Then, the introduction sections of the selected articles were taken into consideration with respect to hedges and boosters. They were analyzed in accordance with Hyland’s (1998) hedge and booster taxonomy. The results of the data analysis revealed that the most frequently utilized kinds of hedges in the corpus consisted of adjectival, adverbial, and nominal modal phrases, modal auxiliary verbs, approximators of degree, quantity, time and frequency, modal lexical verbs, if clauses, introductory phrases, and complex hedges , respectively. In addition, the results of the chi-square test indicated no significant difference between the frequency of hedges and boosters in the introduction section of medical articles.

Teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, and identities are regarded as the key elements in boosting their effectiveness in improving their learners’ performance. Professional identity as a quality of a teacher can be evolved in a constant and continuous process. It is usually shaped in educational and social contexts. Among the teacher characteristics which influence teachers’ performance, professional identity and self-efficacy are considered to be vital characteristics. The current study was set to explore the association between Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ professional identity and self-efficacy. Therefore, in order to gather the data required for the aims of this research, 92 English language teachers were chosen as the participants of this research study. Two questionnaires were utilized to gather the data. The data collected was analyzed via Pearson’s correlation coefficient. The results revealed a positive bond between Iranian EFL teachers’ professional identity and self-efficacy. The findings of this study can be of help for teacher educators and English language teachers.

In the realm of second language acquisition (SLA), task-based language teaching (TBLT) and input enhancement (IE) have been the focus of a great number of studies. However, the idea of investigating the effects of focus on form instruction through input-enhanced tasks along with pre-task planning time as one of the features of task-based language teaching has been rarely explored in the field of SLA. Therefore, the current research set out to examine the impacts of focus on form instruction via textually-enhanced reading tasks along with strategic pre-task planning on L2 learners’ grammatical development in terms of learning English passive voice. For the purpose of the study, 60 intermediate learners of English were selected and divided into two groups of thirty namely as enhanced and unenhanced. Then, each group was divided into two sub-groups of fifteen as +planning and -planning. The participants were provided with a pretest prior to the treatment, then, they were instructed via the materials chosen for the purpose of the study for ten sessions and at the end they were provided with the posttest of the study. Their performance on the pretest and posttest were analyzed to find out the possible effects of the instruction provided throughout the treatment phase. The results revealed that learners who were exposed to enhanced reading tasks along with strategic pre-task planning time outperformed the other learners. The findings of the present study can be of use for language teachers, syllabus designers, and task designers.