لعیا حیدری دارانی

This study intended to explore Iranian EFL teachers’ life satisfaction as well as their empathy levels. Furthermore, the relationship between Iranian EFL teacher’s life satisfaction and their empathy was investigated. To achieve these objectives, a group of 245 male and female Iranian EFL teachers with the age range of 20 to 55 years old participated. Data were collected through Life Satisfaction and Empathy Questionnaires. Results revealed that EFL teachers were satisfied with their life and were empathic teachers. Moreover, a significant relationship was found between these two variables. The main conclusion is that life satisfaction can have positive impacts on certain aspects of life; hence, it is recommended that proper conditions be provided for the EFL teachers. Additionally, having empathy with students may create happiness in both students and the teacher. Such happiness can presumably make the student bear a positive perspective towards language learning, thereby making them more motivated to learn English.    

The Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) Approach claims that there are some universalities in all languages. Speech acts seem to be present in all languages, but considering this approach, research has not indicated whether request speech act differs from one language to another. Thus, this study intended to investigate whether request strategies are used differently in English and Persian romantic novels and whether Natural Semantic Metalanguage Approach can be considered in English and Persian requests. To reach these objectives, the corpus consisting of two English and Persian romantic novels were used. It was analyzed using Blum-Kulka and Olshtain (1984)’s classification. Results indicated that mood derivable was the most frequent request strategy in both novels. Moreover, a statistically significant difference was not observed between request strategies in English and Persian romantic novels and thus the Natural Semantic Metalanguage Approach can be considered in English and Persian requests. The conclusion drawn is that considering the applicability of this approach, both American and Iranian native speakers can presumably use imperative structures, with the politeness marker please or without it, as a request strategy, when the interlocutors are close friends or members of the same family.

This study aimed to investigate whether there is any significant relationship between the readability and vocabulary profile including the most frequent words (K1 words) and academic word list (AWL) of reading passages of Four Corners series which were EFL textbooks. To determine the readability of the texts, the Flesch–Kincaid (1975) readability test was used, while the texts' academic word list and most frequent words which were the indicators of vocabulary profiler were calculated by Cobb's (2002) vocabulary profiler test. In order to analyze the data obtained Pearson Product-Moment correlation coefficients were exploited. With respect to the relationship between readability and most frequent words, there was no significant correlation between readability and K1 words. This means that whatever the text is more difficult, the number of K1 words does not change while it was thought if the text is more difficult the number of K1 words is lower. Concerning the relationship between readability and academic word list, no significant correlation between readability and academic word list was observed, either. In other words, the readability of these texts is not due to their academic word list. It can be concluded that some other factors such as sentence length, syntactic complexity, and learners' background knowledge might contribute to the difficulty of the texts.

This study investigated the effects of prompts as corrective feedback strategy on teaching /θ/ and /ð/ sounds to Iranian EFL learners. To achieve this objective, after 30 students studying English at a language institute took a placement test, the intermediate-level students were selected based on their scores on this test. They were randomly assigned to one experimental group and one control group. The experimental group was instructed these two sounds giving prompts as corrective feedback, while the control group received no feedback. In this experimental study, two teacher-made tests on sounds /θ/ and /ð/ were administered to the participants before and after the treatment. After collecting the data and confirming normality of them; through employing two independent-samples t tests and two paired-samples t tests, the collected data were analyzed. The results indicated that language learners in the experimental group did not significantly outperform in the posttest; thus, it can be concluded that prompts were not an effective feedback in teaching these two sounds to Iranian intermediate EFL learners. Findings of the present study can help language teachers and teacher trainers in teaching these complex sounds to Iranian EFL learners

The study intended to examine the effects of Telegram on Iranian EFL learners' vocabulary knowledge and the attitude of them towards vocabulary learning. To this end, a group of 100 Iranian advanced EFL learners participated in an experimental design project. The participants were selected after they took the Oxford Quick Placement Test and they were divided into experimental and control groups. The participants of both groups had a three-week vocabulary instruction. The treatment was similar for both groups except for exercises done after the class. The participants in the experimental group were asked to fill out an attitudinal questionnaire after the treatment. Then, a vocabulary test was administered among the participants of both groups. Results of the independent-samples t-test run on the collected data indicated that participants of the experimental group outperformed those of the control group. The findings of the attitudinal questionnaire showed that the participants had positive attitude toward using Telegram. The conclusion drawn is that those in the experimental group were free in using the online group to interact with each other. Within this framework, learners in the experimental group indicated that they enjoyed this instruction as it was fun to embark on new technological learning methods

This study investigated the impact of code-switching on speaking ability of Iranian low proficiency EFL learners. Moreover, it was an attempt to show what functions existed behind code-switching strategies used by the EFL learners. To this end, 60 male and female Iranian EFL learners age-ranged between 20 and 30 participated in the study. Data collection instruments which were used were the Interchange Objective Placement Test, a pretest, a teaching material, and a posttest. The speech of 60 Iranian EFL learners was recorded while they were performing some picture-description tasks. Then, their speech was transcribed and analyzed. The collected data were subjected to independent-samples t-test. The results indicated the two main functions of code-switching were equivalence and floor-holding. Furthermore, the findings of the t-test demonstrated that code-switching was an effective strategy among low proficiency level EFL learners and it could increase their motivation and interaction in the class discussions. Thus, they can speak in a positive environment and speaking is not an inhibitory factor anymore in their English learning.

در این مقاله به بررسی این مسئله می پردازیم که آیا زبان آموزان ایرانی از گونه های مختلف زبان انگلیسی که در سراسر جهان صحبت می شوند آگاه بوده و به گونه خاصی از آن تمایل دارند یا خیر. همچنین به بررسی نگرش زبان آموزان ایرانی به گونه های بومی و غیر بومی زبان انگلیسی می پردازیم. بعلاوه تلاش می کنیم دریابیم که آیا این نگرش جنسیت محور هست یا خیر. بدین منظور 30 زبان آموز دختر و پسر با سطح متوسط زبان انگلیسی که سن آنها بین 22 تا 30 سال می باشد به عنوان نمونه انتخاب شدند و به سه پرسشنامه پاسخ دادند. سپس اطلاعات جمع آوری شده از طریق تحلیل واریانس یک طرفه با اندازه گیری های مکرر (one-way repeated measures ANOVA)، آزمون LSD post-hoc فیشر و آزمون t مستقل مورد ارزیابی قرار گرفت. نتیجه اصلی حاصل از این پژوهش این بود که زبان آموزان ایرانی دیگر به وجود یک گونه واحد از زبان انگلیسی اعتقاد نداشته و به تدریج به « انگلیسی های دنیا » معتقد شده اند. در حقیقت آنها از یک گونه انگلیسی کامل و واحد چشم پوشی کرده و برای برقراری ارتباط با دیگر افراد در سراسر جهان گونه های دیگری از انگلیسی را نیز می پذیرند. بعلاوه با وجود اینکه شرکت کنندگان در این پژوهش گونه های غیر بومی زبان انگلیسی را پذیرفته اند، گرایش داشتن آنها به گونه های آمریکایی و بریتانیایی نشان می دهد که آنها به یادگیری زبان نگرشی مثبت دارند

It was claimed by variationists that languages experience variation at all levels, which is supposed to be patterned. The present study aimed at exploring how variation occurred in English and Persian wh-questions. More specifically, it investigated whether such a variation was systematic and patterned. To this end, a modified version of the Edinburgh Map Task was used in data collection. The population of this study was 60 Canadian and Persian native speakers who performed the task through the construction of wh-question variants. The results indicated that both languages experienced variation in the construction of wh-questions. However, Persian proved to be more variable than English because it allowed more wh-question variants to be produced. Moreover, this variation was patterned in English and Persian individually, yet a systematic variation could not be observed between these two languages. It followed that the different mind-sets of the Canadian and Iranian participants which were affected by social and cultural factors might account for such a variation.

This study investigatesvariability in English yes/no questions as well as the commonalities among yes/no question variants produced by members of two different varieties of English: Canadian English native speakers and Iranian EFL learners.Further, it probes the role of gender in theEnglish yes/no question variants produced by Canadian English native speakers and those produced by Iranian EFL learners. A modified version of the Edinburgh Map Task was used in data collection. 60 Canadians and Iranians performed the task and made English yes/no question variants considering the informal context. Based on the results, the same types of yes/no question variants were produced by both groups. However, with respect to quantity, Canadians made more variants while the context of use was similar. Another difference noticed was the most frequent variant: Iranians’ frequent variant coincided with the informal context, yet the Canadians’ frequent variant did not. Regarding gender, Iranians did not produce any gender-based variant; while Canadians showed that their production of yes/no question variants was gender-oriented. These findings revealed that both Canadians and Iranians from two different varieties of English syntactically behaved similarly, but their sociolinguistic behavior was not the same.