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Among four language skills, writing is a complex and demandingcognitive process.Writing is an important tool in evaluationwhere English proficiency needs to be assessed. The present study aimed to explore the impact of feedback provided by Grammarly Software compared to teachers’ feedback on the writing ability of Iranian EFL learners. Through the nonrandom sampling method, 60 intermediate male and female EFL learners were selected, then they were randomly assigned to two main groups: the experimental and control group. The participants were administered the Oxford Placement Test (OQPT), Pretest of Essay Writing, Grammarly software program, Posttest of Essay Writing, and an attitude questionnaire in ten sessions. The data gathered from the comparison of pretest and posttest revealed that the experimental group members outperformed those in the control group, meaning that the Grammarly software program positively affected the EFL learners' writing ability. The results might have implications for language teachers, learners, and materials developers.

The coronavirus pandemic affected education enormously, and despite numerous previous efforts to achieve digitalization, virtual teaching revealed deficiencies in both the EFL teachers’ digital competence and in the peripheral use of Information and communication technologies (ICTs). This study focused on a sample group to analyze the relationship between the implementation of this model and the pre-pandemic digital approach in order to identify deficiencies that need to be strengthened to achieve increasingly effective integration of blended learning. A questionnaire was used to collect data from participating teachers in the areas of school digital strategy, digital competence, and teaching practice in blended learning. The data were analyzed through structural equation models, verifying the relation between variables and also according to specific training on ICTs. An active but insufficient effort on the part of the participants’ schools to promote digitalization was revealed. The implementation of blended learning has been favored more by the responsiveness of participating EFL teachers than by the provision of specific training on the part of schools, which lacked common guidelines from the public administration. These EFL teachers can respond to changes, but the schools’ support is essential for the successful implementation of blended learning, updating the approach of the digital strategy adopted so far.

Children need to start learning English from a very young age in this fast globalizing world. The knowledge of the English language can assist in providing several opportunities for them in the future. It is also essential to know how very young children acquire a foreign language and which content and activities should be selected for their age. This study aimed to observe and describe the procedure of the language development of very young children. Researchers employed a descriptive case study design to portray and assess foreign language learning of two three-year-old twins’ grammar acquisition, vocabulary gains, and fluency in the early years of life (3-4/5). Besides the methods firmly associated with qualitative study and case studies, there were four sources of data collection: observation, audio-video recordings, and diary records. The central unit of the twins’ language development analysis was their utterances. The findings supported using a naturalistic environment where very young children could be exposed to the English language informally in everyday contexts and activities. This research can share its findings with education communities and very young children’s teachers to promote a new professional development model for fostering language development in very young learners’ classrooms, assessments, and curricula.

This study is a longitudinal mixed method design investigating Iranian English learners' perception of native-speaker English teachers (NSETS) and non-native-speaker English teachers (NNSETS) in New Zealand and Iran within the conceptual framework of Kumaravadivelu (2003), Rudolf (2018), and Benson el al. (2013).  A semi-structured interview and a questionnaire (consisting of 21 Likert items and 3 open-ended questions) were used twice ten months apart in each context. An online narrative interview was employed in 2022 to supplement the data. Non-parametric data analyses were run on the Likert items. Several coding schemes were developed and a thematic analysis was employed. Findings revealed that NNSETS in New Zealand and NSETS in Iran were perceived by the learners as more effective in guiding their students toward developing a multilingual identity. This is interpreted as the "cross-actional influence of context in language learners' perception of teachers regarding L2 identity development in students" in this research. The findings also showed a shift in students' perception from NSETS to NNSETS in both contexts over time due to the better instructional strategies of NNSETS for teaching reading, listening, grammar, and their deeper understanding of the student's needs. This study informs language teachers, teacher educators, and education authorities on 1) the cross-actional influence of context on students' perception of teachers regarding L2 identity development as a normal procedure, 2) the pattern of a shift from NSETS to NNSETS due to the qualifications of NNSETS should be considered in teacher training programs to make the most proficient language teachers accordingly.

Technology integration has become increasingly significant in educational contexts, offering promising opportunities for the professional development of teachers, including EFL teachers. This study explored the transformative potential of integrating technology in the professional development of pre-service and in-service EFL teachers in schools, institutes, and universities. The research objective was to examine the impact of technology integration on teachers' anxiety levels and pedagogical practices. Forty-six pre- and in-service teachers (n=23 per group) participated in a comprehensive 10-session professional development program. The procedure included pre-testing the participants for anxiety levels, conducting the program (twice a week; from January to February, 2023), and administering post-tests after a one-semester interval (May, 2023) to assess changes in the teachers’ anxiety levels and pedagogical practices. The quantitative and qualitative findings revealed the compelling benefits of technology integration for the pre-service teachers, as they reported lower anxiety levels and a significant boost in confidence when selecting and utilizing appropriate technological tools, designing engaging digital activities, and effectively managing technology-related challenges. Conversely, the in-service teachers experienced no significant reduction in anxiety. Moreover, they reported fewer advantages from technology integration and tended to adhere to traditional teaching methods, predominantly due to the challenges of altering established instructional strategies. The findings underscore the critical role of prioritizing professional development for in-service teachers, considering their pivotal role in shaping the future landscape of education. Dedicated efforts should be aimed at supporting teachers to integrate technology effectively, foster better teaching practices, and facilitate optimal learning outcomes for EFL students.  

With the spread of English, the conception of English is currently changing into English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) worldwide. However, the form of English teaching and learning is still identified by reference to native-speaker norms. In response to the increasing use of ELF and an emergent need to describe it in various domains, the current study takes a preliminary step in linguistic analysis of the written mode of ELF. Adopting an exploratory case study, the morphological marking of third-person singular present tense main verbs, i.e., -s/es has been analyzed using the Written ELF in Academic Setting (WrELFA) corpus. The selected corpus included 82369 tokens. It was tagged by the LancsBox software, and all instances of variation were categorized into two groups: omission and addition of the suffix. The quantitative analysis revealed that most ELF writers conform to the grammatical rules of English simple-present tense, yet, there is a negligible amount (0.5%) of variation in the use of this suffix in a way that writers either drop it or overgeneralize it. Dropping the third-person singular suffix accounts for around half of the entire variety (56%), and overusing this feature accounts for the other half (44%). Moreover, through qualitative analysis, factors contributing to such variations were identified. The overall findings indicate that such minor grammatical errors shouldn't be overemphasized, as long as they do not hinder the reader's understanding. The results may contribute to constructing a framework for teaching ELF in general and English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP) in specific.

This study compared the Discussion section of theses written by M.A. English L1 and L2 students regarding lexical sophistication. Certain linguistic features were applied to investigate whether texts written in English L2 had any similarities or differences with native speakers’ (NSs) texts. To achieve this, 20 English L2 theses authored by Iranian M.A. students of Islamic Azad University of Isfahan (Khorasgan), were sampled. As such, 20 English L1 theses written by M.A. English NSs of the same major in the US and UK were randomly downloaded as a comparison corpus of English L1. The corpora were later uploaded to Coh-Matrix that processes text and discourse at different levels of language. Two main statistical procedures for data analysis were the MANOVA (Multivariate Analysis of Variance) and Discriminant Function Analysis. According to Coh-Metrix analysis, the results revealed certain similarities and differences between the corpora. Specifically, more CELEX content words were used in the NSs theses. However, the differences between the two corpora did not reach a statistical significance in terms of other indices of lexical sophistication (i.e., polysemy, concreteness, hypernymy, age-of-acquisition scores, and lexical diversity). Concerning these similarities and differences, academic writing pedagogy and theses writing abilities of Iranian English L2 learners can be improved by applying both word processing tools like Coh-Metrix, appropriate writing strategies and techniques according to the given results of current contrastive corpus study.

English as a First Language (EFL) and English as an Additional Language (The results indicated that both EFL and EAL students used a diverse array of linguistic features to express their ideas in academic prose, with the prospective categories being the most commonly used.

Many studies have advocated the importance of teaching critical thinking (CT) skills, and have also provided some suggestions for its effective pedagogy. However, there is a dearth of research examining the efficacy of such instruction. This quantitative(quasi-experimental) and qualitative study aimed to investigate the impact of explicit instruction of critical thinking (CT) on university students’ critical thinking skills measured through the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) used as both pre- and post-test. The participants comprised four groups of 15-16 students each. The groups received different CT treatments: Critical Linguistics (CL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (group 1), 11 Questions (group 2), CL and CDA followed by Peer Evaluation (group 3), and a control group (group 4) that only read about CT without practicing it. After receiving instruction on CT, the three treatment groups (1-3) critically analyzed 33 texts over 11 sessions. The results of the study indicated that Group 3 (CT & CDA followed by PE) had the highest improvement in their WGCTA scores from pre-to post-test, followed by Groups 2 and 1, while the control group showed no significant gain. The findings imply that reflecting critically on language learning materials can reveal hidden cultural and ideological elements within the texts. This can significantly enhance learners' advanced thinking skills, as well as support them in resisting cultural imperialism.      

The present investigation aimed at studying the impacts of Iranian EFL learners’ gender, age, field and degree of study on their perceptions of mobile affordances. To this end, 159 Iranian EFL students studying at university were asked to fill Mobile Affordance Inventory (Rostami, 2021). To analyze the data, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, independent sample t-test, one way ANOVA, and Pearson’s correlation were run. The findings of the study indicated that no differences were found among EFL learners in using mobile learning affordances regarding their gender, degree, and field of study. Additionally, no significant relationship was found between the arcticians’ age and their mobile affordances. The results also showed that different affordances of mobile devices can provide new and important information for educators. They become more familiar with different mobile phones capabilities to use, and it makes their teaching more effective. Becoming familiar with affordances provides a situation for improving students’ learning as well as their self-control.

Communicative and natural processing of language in the world of translation is substantiated through simultaneous decoding and encoding of information in the source and target languages. The researchers analy zed pragmatic strategies and approaches undertaken by the Persian and Kurdish translators of the Quranic discourse marker thumma. The source text corpus was selected randomly and the target text parallel corpora were selected based on purposive sampling. Theoretical perspectives in pragmatics and translation were employed in the analysis of parallel corpora in this investigation. The results revealed that various types and combinations of the Kurdish and Persian temporal discourse markers were utilized by these translators. Moreover, other Kurdish and Persian elaborative, contrastive, and inferential discourse markers were also used in rendering the discourse marker thumma in the Quran. This dynamic approach to the construction of discourse was substantiated based on the realization of different conventions in the construction of discourse in different languages and cultures. This dynamic system in the construction of a proper discourse for the readers is verified based on the application of different theories in discourse analysis and pragmatics and the application of context and text-sensitive strategies in the process of translation. The characteristics, bases, and resources of these dynamic translation strategies are discussed based on pragmatic awareness rising in various aspects of translation education and some suggestions were offered in the application of the findings in syllabus design, translation evaluation, and rethinking of approaches in lexicography.