مهدی واعظ دلیلی

The focus of this paper is to determine the extent to which changes in the ideological frameworks took place after 2003 when the removal of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist dictatorship set up a democratic system for Iraq. Using the frameworks of Critical Discourse Analysis, more specifically Fairclough's three-dimensional model and van Dijk's socio-cognitive approach, this study conducts a critical investigation into the reframing of national identity, ideological structures, and religious themes in presidential discourse. This article provides an overview of the major ways in which the Iraqi presidents have used language in an attempt to redefine national unity, balance references to Islam, and build legitimacy in light of continuing political transitions. The most important findings provide substantial shifts away from the authoritarian themes and toward inclusiveness, with each administration changing its speech to adjust to the increasingly complex sociopolitical situation. The purpose of this analysis is to identify the role that discourse plays for state-building as a process and to develop a model of political communication after a conflict. The most important findings provide substantial shifts away from the authoritarian themes and toward inclusiveness, with each administration changing its speech to adjust to the increasingly complex sociopolitical situation. The purpose of this analysis is to identify the role that discourse plays for state-building as a process and to develop a model of political communication after a conflict.

This study focused on the relationship between VIA (Values in Action) character strengths and the general second language (L2) proficiency of Iranian upper-intermediate EFLlearners. The researchers aimed to investigate the reletionship between six VIA virtues (courage, justice, humanity, temperance, wisdom, and transcendence) and learners' general L2 proficiency. The study involved 300 Iranian EFL learners enrolled in five language institutes in Isfahan, Iran. The participants' proficiency level was assessed using an Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT). Language proficiency was evaluated through the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) and a questionnaire was used to measure VIA characteristics. The data were analyzed using Pearson correlation. The findings showed a significant positive relationship between various subcategories of VIA characteristics and general L2 proficiency. These subcategories included wisdom, creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, courage, perseverance, honesty, humanity, love, kindness, social intelligence, justice, fairness, leadership, temperance, forgiveness, humility, prudence, self-regulation, transcendence, appreciation, gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality, and L2 proficiency. These results have implications for educational practitioners, such as school counselors, instructors, educational policymakers, and researchers, as they highlight the importance of VIA character strengths in promoting language learning achievement.

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 was an attempt to examine the effects of direct (DCF), indirect (ICF) and metalinguistic (MCF) written corrective feedback and the types of responses (i.e. + /– revision) on the perception of present/past perfect tenses by Iranian intermediate EFL learners. A pretest-posttest design was utilized to conduct the study with 210 intermediate EFL learners who were randomly selected based on their scores on Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT). They were assigned to 7 groups, each including 30 participants: DCF+ Revision, DCF – Revision, ICF + Revision, and ICF – Revision, MCF + Revision, and MCF – Revision, and a control group. All students were asked to take a multiple-choice test (i.e. perception test) as a pretest and a posttest. After administering the pretest and imparting the relevant treatment, the posttest was administered. Results indicated that all experimental groups improved their knowledge of past/present perfect tenses from the pretest to the posttest, the ‘DCF + Revision’ group outperformed all other groups, all of the groups doing revision (i.e. DCF / ICF / MCF + Revision) outperformed their counterparts without revision (i.e. DCF / ICF/ MCF – Revision), and the only groups whose scores were not significantly different were the ‘ICF + Revision’, ‘DCF – Revision’, and ‘MCF – Revision’ groups. The findings provide insights into new ways of helping students to improve their L2 writing skills in general and specifically teaching grammatical structures through effective combinations of written corrective feedback and follow-up revision.