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This study takes a critical look at the purposive manipulation of discourse and rhetoric by the former Iranian President — Hassan Rouhani — when announcing the lockdown of holy sites during the COVID-19 crisis. A discourse analysis with a qualitative design was applied to study the political dimension of the discourse. This study is framed within the domain of systemic functional linguistics mood systems and the classical Aristotelian rhetoric trio — logos, ethos, and pathos. The results revealed that Rouhani mainly used the declarative mood in his speeches which performed three main functions: statements of opinion, statements of fact, and indirect directives. From a rhetorical perspective, Rouhani applied ethos considerably more than pathos and logos as a way to increase the credibility of his words while persuading the audience. Moreover, the researchers noticed that the former president employed multiple strategies to build pathos and ethos with the audience. These findings can suggest and encourage novel future research directions.  

Highlighting the inseparable link between language, culture, and technology in English as a foreign language education, this qualitative exploratory study examined the impact of cultural and multicultural awareness on Iranian EFL teachers’ professional development within augmented virtual reality (AVR)-based and conventional teacher education programs. Thus, 28 EFL teachers participated in semi-structured interviews and reflective inquiries following eight-week training courses. Data analysis was done manually via qualitative thematic analysis and by MAXQDA according to Guskey’s (2002) professional development model. Consequently, seven themes for the conventional group (maintaining a culturally responsive environment, enhanced teachers’ behavior, curriculum improvement, creative ideas, enhanced skills, efficient communication, and preparing students for effective communication) and five themes for the AVR group (experiencing authentic material and environment, accessibility features, less interactivity in the classroom, teachers’ passion and confidence improvement, and less cultural boundaries) were extracted. The study highlighted the crucial role of cultural and multicultural immersion and adaptive teaching strategies in creating culturally responsive environments. This approach equipped EFL instructors to address diverse student needs and foster inclusive learning spaces effectively. Moreover, the AVR technology deepened cultural immersion and supported modern teaching approaches, enhancing educators' ability to engage with diverse cultural classrooms. Despite the observed improvements in trainees’ passion and confidence, a need for reconsidering technological aspects in contemporary teacher education was identified. Ultimately, the findings offered pedagogical implications for EFL teacher education and teacher trainers to equip teachers with the necessary skills to address cultural and multicultural challenges in EFL teaching and stimulate their professional growth.

Materials evaluation plays an important role in language teaching as it helps practitioners to develop an awareness of the coverage and quality of the existing materials and as such, guides most instruction and revision decisions. Therefore, we sought to evaluate three English Vision textbooks exclusively written for Iranian secondary high school students through a comparison to the identical Interchange book series, the fifth edition. Following a model of nominal groups outlined here, the evaluation targeted the quantity and quality of the groups appearing in the two series as they are assumed to be an important part of authentic language. For the quantitative part, the results indicated a significantly higher use of nominal groups in the Interchange series. Similarly, in the qualitative analyses, we found higher quality nominal groups appearing in the Interchange books. The findings revealed inadequate inclusion of nominal groups' potentially useful structures in the Vision textbooks, supposed to help teachers to raise an awareness so as to come up with appropriate instructional policies, and the textbook developers to consider the findings when any revision is due.

This mixed-methods study was an attempt to ascertain if experienced EFL teachers’ classroom management is related to their burnout and organizational commitment. It was also intended to unveil their perceptions and attitudes regarding the sources of their burnout and organizational commitment. For this purpose, 50 male and female experienced teachers were chosen from three English institutes in Tehran and were asked to fill up the three questionnaires: Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Organizational Commitment Scale, and Attitudes and Beliefs on Classroom Control (ABCC) Inventory. They were further interviewed and observed in their actual classes. According to the obtained findings and results, the perceived classroom management of teachers did not significantly correlate with their actual management practice. Furthermore, there was a negative but statistically non-significant correlation between EFL teachers’ organizational commitment and classroom management. The correlation between teachers’ burnout and classroom management turned out to be positive but statistically non-significant as well. Considering the point that the correlations between the variables were non-significant, the predictability analyses were not conducted as the results would logically be non-significant too. Conducting the interviews, the majority of the teachers strongly believed that low commitment and burnout have nothing to do with their performance in classroom since there is something beyond the obligation to the organization, which is responsibility to learners, and no other external factors could interfere.

The present study investigated the effect of dialogue localization as a classroom activity on intermediate EFL learners’ classroom conversation. To achieve this, 60 intermediate language learners were selected as convenient sample. The participants’ proficiency levels were determined through the administration of the OPT test. The OPT test utilized in this study comprises a total of 30 questions, distributed evenly across three categories: listening, vocabulary, and grammar, with 10 questions allocated to each category. The proficiency level of the students was determined based on their scores, with a range of 0-10 indicating a pre-intermediate level, 10-20 indicating an intermediate level, and 20-30 indicating an advanced level. Then, they were divided into experimental and control groups. According to Farhady, Jafarpur, and Birjandi (1994), a pre-test of speaking consisting of 7 questions was administered to both groups, and the participants were required to respond orally. The scoring system used for evaluating the participants’ speaking skills was based on the guidelines outlined in the book "Testing Language Skills from Theory to Practice." The experimental group was then taught localized conversation while the control group was taught non-localized conversation. After ten sessions of the treatments, a post-test of speaking was administered in which the participants in both groups were involved in the same activity as the pretest. The data were analyzed through calculating independent sample t-test. The results indicated that the means of the two groups were significantly different, i.e., the experimental group outperformed the control group in the speaking achievement. This means that localization in dialogue has the potential to enhance students’ speaking abilities during classroom conversations.

In recent years, technology-mediated collaborative writing has received great attention in the research literature. The purpose of the present study is to compare the effects of online collaborative writing using Google Docs and individual writing in a face-to-face conventional classroom on the writing performance of Iranian EFL learners. To this aim, a sample of 32 homogeneous intermediate learners was selected as the study's participants. They were then randomly divided into an experimental group (N = 16) and a control group (N = 16). Then, the experimental group participants performed online collaborative writing using Google Docs while the control group fulfilled individual papers in the face-to-face classroom. Two writing tasks by the students were employed to gather the data. Later, data were analyzed through paired-sample t-tests to investigate differences in writing in each group. Finally, ANCOVA was used to investigate the difference in writing performance between the two groups. This study added further insights concerning the contribution of Google Docs in technological research in technology-mediated collaborative writing and provided some pertinent pedagogical implications

The studies on L2 argumentative writing have surveyed different dimensions of learners’ argumentative behavior and performance. However, less attention has been given to the strategies and techniques enhancing students’ argumentative repertoire. As such, the current study, taking a pedagogy-based perspective, examined the argumentative writing behavior of 30 Iranian IELTS candidates before and after the instruction in both English and Persian languages. The sample questions were of the previous IELTS Writing part 2 essays from a real test by Cambridge University Press, chosen by 3 IELTS instructors in the Institute to meet the research objectives. To this end, 180 IELTS Task 2 argumentative essays were analyzed by 30 volunteers, each having 6 essays, at least 250 words, (Persian and English). As for the students’ English and Persian argumentative writing performance, the results indicated that there were significant differences between the EFL learners’ overall means on English argumentative tests. Furthermore, the candidates chiefly applied ‘data’ and ‘claim’ most frequently in both languages with secondary elements of argument (i.e., counterargument claim, counterargument data, rebuttal claim, and rebuttal data) as the least produced elements detected in the essays. The results demonstrate that a sound pedagogy in argumentation can both influence the use of argumentation elements in both English and Persian written texts. The pedagogical implications for writing instruction and argumentative writing are discussed.

This study builds on previous reviews of technology-mediated feedback up to 2020 to provide an updated account of research conducted from 2020 onwards. It offers an overview of contextual trends, feedback focus, and the types of technology and software used. The analysis focuses on peer-reviewed studies examining technology-mediated corrective feedback on writing in EFL or ESL contexts, using quantitative or mixed methods approaches. Data were coded using an Excel sheet, and frequencies were reported as percentages. The major findings indicate that technology-mediated feedback is more prevalent in higher education, emphasizing the importance of leveraging technology for enhancing feedback practices. Additionally, half of the publications employed a mixed-methods approach, contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of the topic. However, some studies lacked methodological transparency; therefore, the study highlights the need for stricter reporting guidelines. Furthermore, the findings reveal that teachers and computers are the primary sources of feedback in technology-mediated settings, aligning with their significant roles in traditional and online learning environments. According to the findings, educators are encouraged to adopt technology-mediated feedback in higher education and engage in training and professional development in this area. Moreover, researchers are recommended to continue conducting mixed-methods studies by following more rigorous transparency guidelines.

Feeling anxiety and technostress can have harmful effects on EFL learners' language learning. On the other hand, having high academic enjoyment (AE) can generate positive impacts on English language learning. Concerning the psychological variables' role in English language learning, this investigation inspected the effects of digital literacy (DL) on technostress, foreign language anxiety (FLA), AE, and language achievement. To meet this objective, 70 intermediate subjects were selected and divided into an experimental group (EG) and a control group (CG). Next, the pre-tests of technostress, FLA, AE, and language learning achievement were administered to both groups. After that, the EG was taught the coursebook using technology. DL was also focused on it, and the students were trained to apply technology when learning new English materials. On the other hand, the same lessons were taught to the CG applying a traditional method. After teaching all classes, the mentioned scales were administered as the posttests of the study. The results of the One-way ANCOVA test indicated that the EG outdid the CG in the four posttests, implying that using DL reduced the anxiety and technostress of the EG but increased their AE. The ramifications of this investigation can inspire both EFL learners and educators to apply digital tools and technology in English learning and teaching.

The current study aimed to investigate EFL teachers’ use of different corrective feedback types in face-to-face and online classes across levels of proficiency, as well as their perceptions of the use of corrective feedback (CF) in their classrooms. To this end, six teachers (three face-to-face and three online) from two language schools were selected as the participants based on convenience sampling. It’s worth noting that in terms of design, the current investigation qualifies as a case study. In an attempt to triangulate data collection, both observation and interview were used as the instruments for data collection. In so doing, each teacher’s class was observed for two sessions, and the interaction between learners and each teacher was audio-recorded. Furthermore, structured interviews were conducted with the participants following observations. The study was guided by Lyster and Ranta’s (1997) and Sheen’s (2011) framework for CF types. As the findings revealed, recast was the most commonly used CF type in elementary and intermediate levels in both classroom modes, as well as the advanced face-to-face class, with the only exception being the advanced online class in which elicitation featured as the most preferred feedback type. Furthermore, the results of the interview data revealed that all teachers had positive perceptions of using CF in EFL classrooms. The findings offer some fruitful implications for EFL teachers who are engaged with face-to-face or online modes of instruction, particularly as they highlight the importance of offering more explicit CF types to bring about more noticing and uptake.

As a controversial subject, globalization has affected various aspects of our lives. Today, the intertwined world is run through complicated relationships and the education of competent human capitals has gained more significance than before. Recently, there has been a movement, known as Global Citizenship Education (GCE), toward a pervasive orientation to education in which issues such as Quality Education are the critical goals. The main aim of this study was to explore the extent to which The Iranian National Curriculum, The Doctrine of General Formal Education System and The Fundamental Reform Document of Education promote the GCE goals in formal English language education. Using a multi-concept model based on the GCE goals, the documents were the subject of scrutiny through document analysis. A survey questionnaire and a semi-structured interview were also utilized. Among 198 participants, 12 individuals accepted to be interviewed. The results of the document analysis and the questionnaire approved the documents’ theoretical promotion of the GCE goals. However, they were criticized for being idealistic and incoherent in the interviews and literature review. Also, their appropriate implementation, practical efficiency and convincing educational achievement were disapproved. The study emphasizes global-oriented approaches in the country’s formal education. 

House wives hold a specific position at home, as it is known to everyone. This study aimed at investigating the effect of virtual English language teaching on Iranian house wives’ emotional regulation, anger control, and domestic violence. In so doing, a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test control group design was used. The target population of this study included all Iranian house wives. From the population, about 60 Iranian house wives from different cities of Iran were selected through available sampling. The participants were randomly divided into two groups namely, the experimental and control groups. The required data were collected through the following instruments: The Persian version of Anger Control Questionnaire, developed and validated by Buss and Perry (1992); the Domestic Violence against Women, developed and validated by Mohseni Tabrizi et al. (2011) in Persian; and the Persian version of the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (Garnefski et al., 2003). The findings confirmed a significantly positive impact of virtual English language teaching on Iranian House wives’ emotional regulation, anger control and domestic violence. The findings have implications for top-level educational authorities, social emergency administrators, and future researchers.

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.