سعیده آهنگری

The present study explored the effect of explicit Communication Strategies (CSs) instruction on Iranian EFL learners’ usage of these strategies in their educational tasks at different proficiency levels. To conduct the study, the researchers chose 20 Iranian EFL teachers and their 150 students at two universities in Tabriz, Iran. Accepting a mixed-methods design, the researchers used a questionnaire, an English language proficiency test, and a semi-structured interview to collect the required data. The findings indicated that after receiving communication strategy instruction, teachers and students had positive attitudes toward the usefulness of CSs in the language learning process. However, learners in different proficiency levels had different preferences toward CSs. While advanced learners showed their inclination to use compensation strategies, intermediate learners preferred to use metacognitive. Elementary learners favoured using cognitive CSs. These differences can be attributed to individual differences and contextual factors that suggest pedagogical implications for both teachers and students and provide tentative subjects for further studies.

Researchers have extensively studied factors that impact the development of fluency in L2 oral production while there is scant evidence regarding task variation-related effects. Therefore, this study sought to investigate the effects of task variation involving group dialogue, dialogue unscrambling, and dialogue completion on Iranian EFL learners’ oral speech fluency. To this end, 80 EFL learners were assigned to three experimental groups (EXG1, EXG2, and EXG3) and one control group shown as CONG. The EXG1 was treated by three tasks, i. e., dialogue completion, dialogue unscrambling, and group dialogue, the EXG2 through two tasks involving dialogue completion and dialogue unscrambling, the EXG3 by dialogue unscrambling task, and the CONG was instructed by teacher conventional method. The groups were pretested and posttested through the speaking section of Preliminary English Test (PET). The participants’ interview transcriptions were then coded for scoring and statistical analysis of fluency to show the effects of treatment for each group. The four groups received their required instructions for ten sessions. The findings revealed that task variation made significant differences in the learners’ oral fluency achievement. The analyses made through running ANOVA and Post Hoc yielded to the conclusion that EXG1, instructed through a combination of the three tasks, outperformed the other groups regarding fluency achievement. The findings of this study have pedagogical implications for teachers, EFL learners, and syllabus designers.

Many difficulties learners experience during language learning interfere with their performance, and those associated with their psychology play an integral role in this process. Underpinned by Bandura’s social cognitive theory and Dweck’s implicit theory of intelligence, this article explored how language mindsets influenced female EFL learners’ cognitive engagement through the mediation of risk-taking. Following a quantitative design and drawing on stratified sampling, the researchers ran the Power Analysis Calculator and selected 384 language learners from six institutes of Tabriz, Iran. The data were collected by three questionnaires, including the Language Mindset Inventory of Lou and Noels (2017), University Student Engagement Inventory (USEI) designed by Maroco et al., (2016), and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) of Patton, Stanford and Barratt (1995). The PLS-SEM analysis showed that learners’ growth mindsets were directly related to cognitive engagement. Furthermore, risk-taking significantly mediated this relationship. This finding provides some implications for school psychology to develop in students self-theories that highlight growth and competence instead of limitation and inactivity.

In the long process of learning English as a foreign language, learners may become exhausted and, if not treated properly, decide to give up learning temporarily and even permanently. Therefore, it seems necessary to explore the reasons for their temporal delays and consider them appropriately to avoid permanent give-ups. As an attempt to determine the reasons for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ delays, the researchers in the present study explored their contributing factors through application of a classical grounded theory approach which led to the development of Language Learning Procrastination (LLP) theory. The research data were collected through semi-structured interviews from 43 EFL learners in Tabriz, Iran, and were coded in open, selective, and theoretical coding stages through a Constant Comparative Method. The emerged theory involved a core category (i.e., Dilatory Behavior) indicating that EFL learners mostly procrastinate in five domains of doing exercises, preparation for exam, submitting projects, starting up speaking, and learning spelling. Furthermore, three major categories of Learners’ Characteristics, Environmental Conditions, and Task Features as the causes of Dilatory Behavior emerged during the iterative data collection and analysis procedures. The results of the study indicated that both EFL learners’ own characteristics and external factors related to the learning environment and language tasks are significant in shaping the EFL learners’ procrastination. The theory of LLP can be applied in EFL settings to recognize the learners’ sources of Dilatory Behavior and devise appropriate solutions for them.

Group Dynamic Assessment (G-DA), introduced by Poehner (2009), applies mediation through concurrent and cumulative approaches. This study investigated the effect of the two approaches on Iranian homogeneous and heterogeneous EFL learners' auditory memory in listening tasks. Eighty female intermediate EFL learners were chosen as the participants of the study. They were assigned to two groups of forty homogeneous and forty heterogeneous learners. Then, each group was divided into two experimental groups with twenty participants in each. Homogeneous and heterogeneous participants were assessed through both concurrent and cumulative approaches. To find out the main and interaction effect of concurrent and cumulative G-DA and homogeneity and heterogeneity of EFL learners, the post-test scores of the participants were analysed through a two-way ANOVA.  The results indicated that G-DA approaches on the one hand and homogeneity and heterogeneity of EFL learners on the other, had both significant main and interaction effect on EFL learners' auditory memory.  For the independent effect of both approaches, a one-way ANOVA was also used. The results indicated that cumulative G-DA had more significant effect than concurrent one on heterogeneous EFL learners' auditory memory. ANOVA analysis also proved that the two approaches did not differ in their effect on homogenous learners.  

Teaching and learning languages via the Internet is becoming increasingly common all over the world and therefore, the experts growingly debate around the positive or negative effects of online education. The present study aimed to critically investigate into science and technology lessons of the VOA English Learning Website in a two-year interval, which claims to teach new words and phrases through the authentic VOA world news. Applying van Dijk’s (1998) Ideological Square Model of CDA, the researchers attempted to critically analyze the representation of the key term the United States within the collected VOA news story transcripts in order to observe whether the Website was trying to manipulate the learners’ minds through in-group favoritism and out-group derogation. The findings revealed that the VOA online lessons promoted certain American political, economic, cultural, social, and ideological values through particular discursive structures that tend to describe in-group members in a positive or at least neutral manner. Thus, as McPhail’s (2006) Electronic Colonialism Theory assumes such free online lessons on the VOA Website, which is a core country multimedia giant, struggle to convert and capture the attitudes, desires, beliefs, faiths, lifestyles, and consumer behavior of the other countries. Therefore, it is highly recommended that English teachers and learners try to inspect the content, reflect on the purposes, and evaluate the merits of similar online authentic materials before and while applying them to facilitate the language learning process.

The current study examined the Iranian EFL teachers’ and students’ perceptions about Communication Strategies Teachability. The study was conducted with 20 teachers and 110 students from universities and private language Institutes in Tabriz, Iran. The literature regarding the teachability of communication strategies (CSs) has been far from conclusive. Some researchers reject the possibility of CSs instruction while many empirical studies support their teachability. Taking a mixed method design, the present study used a language proficiency test, a questionnaire and an interview for data collection. In the quantitative phase, the participants’ responses to questionnaire before and after a 12-week period of teaching CSs were statistically compared. The analysis of the quantitative data obtained from the questionnaire through Paired-samples t-test indicated that the students’ perceptions towards the usefulness of CSs grew significantly more positive after their instruction. The qualitative analysis of the interview data collected from the teachers indicated that most teachers found CSs useful and possible to teach. It was also found that these strategies improved capability of English language learners to speak and enhaned their conciousness of CSs. This study could offer pedagogical implications for both teachers and students and pave the way for further studies in the field.

Lexical inferencing has been recognized as an effective learning strategy in SLA. The present study investigated Iranian EFL learners’ development of reading comprehension as a result of exposure to lexical inferencing strategy instruction. To do so, 45 female participants studying in Simin Language Institute in Rasht, Iran were selected from among 60 students based on the results of a sample of Oxford quick Placement (OQP) test, who scored from 40 to 47. They were in two intact classes, assigned to one experimental (n=24) and one control group (n=21). The experimental group underwent the teaching of reading comprehension through lexical inferencing strategy to help learners infer the meaning of unknown words and promote their understanding of the text. However, the control group received the traditional instruction of reading comprehension concentrating on the translation of new words. The results of the pre- and post-tests of reading comprehension revealed the significant outperformance of the treatment group over the control group’s reading comprehension ability. It was concluded that lexical inferencing strategy teaching could develop the learners’ potential to improve their cognitive capacities in inferring the meaning of unknown words, which might be facilitative in their reading comprehension.

The effects different awareness-raising techniques might have on language learners’ performance have been studied by many researchers. The present study specifically focused on improving EFL learners’ oral narrative task performance in terms of accuracy, fluency and complexity by awareness raising through semantic fields. The participants in the study included 40 intermediate learners whose initial homogeneity in terms of language proficiency was assessed via a Preliminary English Test (PET). They were further randomly assigned as one experimental group and one control group, each comprising 20 participants. The amount of instructional time was 17 sessions, during which the participants in the experimental group received an awareness raising technique through 'semantic fields'. Before and after the treatment, an oral narrative test was administrated. The results of the data analysis revealed that the experimental group which received the awareness raising technique outperformed the control group in three measures of accuracy, fluency and complexity on their performance. The participants showed significant improvements in language proficiency as they retold the narratives. The findings of the present study can create the floor for researchers to go deep through the EFL contexts and find more about the probable effects awareness raising techniques might have on language learning and teaching.

In educational psychology, mindsets refer to a set of core beliefs about intelligence and its role in successful learning in a specific domain. This study investigated the extent to which, the EFL learners’ mindsets might predict their English achievement considering the mediating roles of engagement and self-regulation. The data were collected by means of three questionnaires: The Language Mindset Inventory (LMI), the University Student Engagement Inventory (USEI), and the Academic Self-Regulated Learning Scale (A-SRL-S), as well as the institutes’ reports on their English achievement. We analyzed the data quantitatively using the SPSS 20 and Amos 8 Software. The results revealed that there was a significant direct relationship between language mindsets and English achievement of the EFL learners. Besides, this relationship was significantly mediated by the learners’ engagement and self-regulation. Drawing on the findings of this research, the challenge for teachers is to cultivate in students the mindsets that emphasize growth and potentials rather than constraints and stagnation.

This study investigated the comparative effect of collaborative strategic reading (CSR) and metacognitive reading strategy (MRS) on the reading comprehension of Iranian extrovert and introvert EFL learners. To achieve the purpose of this study, a sample IELTS was administered to 325 students studying at Marefat Language Academy in Tehran from whom 225 were selected based on their performance on that test. Next, the above students sat for Eysenck Personality Inventory questionnaire to determine their level of extroversion and introversion. As a result, a total of 150 learners (75 extroverts and 75 introverts) were selected as four experimental groups and two control groups. The four experimental groups, comprised of 1) 25 extroverts undergoing CSR, 2) 25 extroverts receiving MRS, 3) 25 introverts undergoing CSR, 4) 25 introverts undergoing MRS while the two control groups, with 25 extroverts and 25 introverts, the learners experienced the conventional procedure of teaching reading comprehension in the language school. Ancova and two-way Ancova were conducted which revealed introvert learners with MRS outperformed the extrovert with MRS, introvert and extrovert with CSR, and control groups, suggesting a decisive role for personality traits in reading comprehension classes with different reading strategies instruction. 

It is one of the major areas of interest within the field of educational research to examine the role of teachers, their professional accomplishment and influential factors affecting or inhibiting the practice; of which, the study of teacher identity has taken on fundamental property. Thus, the present study explored different aspects of a language teacher identity which led to the development of the theoretical framework of Holistic Identity of Language Teachers (HILT) based on the grounded theory. The data were collected in semi-structured individual interviews from 64 teachers in Iran. Employing a version of Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) coding paradigm, emerged a framework of a set of categories in terms of ‘process’ (i.e., becoming a teacher) as well as the grounding categories of ‘Persona Grata’ and ‘Public Persona’, resulted in the core category of ‘Teacherality’, along with three categories of ‘Navigating Strategies’, ‘Conditional Contributors’, and ‘Contextual Patterns’. The final consequence of the framework is ‘Actual Teaching Approach’, referring to the eventual phenomenon of the evolutionary continuum of being a holistic language teacher. The most obvious finding of the study refers to the emergent as well as evolutionary nature of HILT. Following the interplay between self and society in emergence of HILT, the schema was proposed to round up all revealed and unnoticed aspects of language teacher identity which can be implemented operationally to redefine, highlight, and activate its unprecedented role in an Iranian context.

This study investigated the impact of interaction and output modality on vocabulary learning and retention of EFL learners. To investigate the impact of Interaction, solitary (n =69) and collaborative (n =62) groups served as experimental and No Interaction No Output (n =26) as control group. To address the effect of modality, spoken (n =39) and written (n =31) modalities served as experimental and No output modality (n =26) as control group. The study was done in 8 weeks. The groups read passages with target words highlighted. Solitary and collaborative groups reconstructed the passages individually or in dyads. The spoken and written modality groups reconstructed them in the respective modality. Then, pretest, immediate, and delayed posttests were administered. The ANOVA results showed that the collaborative group outperformed the other groups and spoken modality outperformed the written modality group focusing on interaction and modality separately. The 2×2×2 ANOVA results showed significant main effects for time, interaction, and output modality. An ‘interaction’ effect was found between time and interaction, time and modality, and modality and Interaction. The ‘interaction’ between time, Interaction, and modality was insignificant. The findings have implications for language teachers, syllabus designers, and language testing experts.

This study explored both teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of teachers’ pedagogic strategies which may engender willingness to communicate (WTC) in an English as a foreign language class and the difference between their perceptions to detect how convergent or possibly how divergent these are. The project used a convenience sample of 300 students taking an intermediate English course and their teachers (N=60) in several English Language Institutes in Tabriz, Iran. The instruments included a Likert scale questionnaire on teachers’ pedagogic strategies and learners’ WTC completed by both teachers and learners. Based on the data collected from the questionnaires, it was revealed that the teachers and learners agreed on the role of teachers’ wait time in learners’ WTC but not on the other strategies such as motivating strategies, error correction strategies, and teachers’ congruence. The findings of the study have important implications for teachers in terms of reconsidering their pedagogic strategies to play their facilitating roles in engendering students’ WTC in the class. The results also have the implications for EFL teacher education in the new era of communication.