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The field of Interlanguage pragmatics has always reflected on its methodology, and the validity of the collected data through various data collection methods and whether they approximate the authentic data have always been serious concerns in the field. Drawing upon Schauer’s (2009) taxonomy of request speech act and its internal and external modification devices, the present study was an attempt to investigate the effects of enhancing DCTs. To this end, the requests of 30 EFL students produced by non-modified and modified DCTs were compared with their authentic requests recorded in the classroom institutional context. The findings revealed that modified WDCT and ODCT approximated Natural methodology in terms of request head act and internal modification devices but not external modifiers. To investigate the deeper layers of respondents' thoughts toward DCTs, unstructured interviews were also conducted. Although artificiality of the DCTs and their test-like nature in general were regarded as the weak points of the DCTs by the interviewees, they asserted that the modified DCTs improved their self-confidence and understanding of the scenarios. The findings cautiously suggest that modified version of DCTs enjoy the positive features of both non-modified DCTs, tapping pragmalinguistic and metapragmatic knowledge of respondents, and partly Natural methodology, eliciting the respondents’ sociopragmatic knowledge.

A close look at the education system reveals that too much attention is attached to text while visuals, such as pictures and cartoons, are often deemed as “decoration”, or are not incorporated in the textbooks at all. Visual texts constitute a part of daily communication, which can potentially bear many layers of meaning. Such a complexity involved in visuals turns them into an ideal resource for not only L2 learning but also the improvement of intercultural communicative competence (ICC), along with cultural awareness. The status of cultural elements and representation of culture in English instruction has proved to be a tricky issue. This is mainly because of the diverse range of contexts where English is used on an international scale globally. Given the integral relationship between language and culture, it is essential to teach cultural elements in L2 classes, in particular, the representation of cultural values and elements as an integral part of the L2 curriculum of English language teaching (ELT). Furthermore, from a critical linguistics viewpoint, language textbooks should be viewed as social and cultural vehicles. Therefore, the incorporation of cultural symbols and raising cultural awareness are considered essential issues in ELT textbooks, particularly in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL). Furthermore, multiple approaches to the analysis of textbooks and cultural contents have been adopted by different researchers. Here, the present study is based on the core principles of semiotic analysis which implies that texts, pictures, and other modes of communication can be used as potential semiotic resources. This review study can yield important theoretical and pedagogical implications for researchers, L2 instructors, and the developers of ELT textbooks to take the images into account to represent culture in the textbook.

As in many other countries, universities in Indonesia have been closed since March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, and lecturers have been forced to adapt to online learning. Students in this online course admitted to feeling anxious when studying public speaking. This descriptive quantitative study aims to analyze the potential factors (English oral proficiency, personality, lecturer's scoring criteria, classmates' responses, pronunciation, audience familiarity, unfamiliar speech topic, preparedness, English grammar, vocabulary) affecting the students' public speaking anxiety at four different stages. The respondents of this study were 60 undergraduate students. A questionnaire adapted from McCroskey (1970) was used, and data were analyzed using descriptive statistics of IBM SPSS statistics 26 software. The findings of this study revealed that the factors affecting the students' public speaking anxiety through online learning varied by stages. Through online learning, English oral proficiency and topic familiarity could be the most influential factors on students' public speaking anxiety. The findings of this study are useful for educators in helping EFL students overcome their public speaking anxiety and enabling them to perform better in public speaking.

This study was designed to highlight the potential effects of different types of Explicit Syntactic Markers (ESMs) on the sentence comprehension of EFL learners of different age-range and proficiency levels. Consequently, two hundred and forty beginners, intermediate, and advanced Iranian EFL learners were selectedfrom an initial pool of six hundred and sixty learners. They were selected based on their McMillan Placement Test (MPT) performance. Subsequently, they were categorized into two age groups teenagers and adults. An online software application (Com-Chron) was utilized to provide learners with a set of ESM and non-ESM English sentences on the screen to measure the accurate comprehension and the elapsed time needed for the perception of the presented sentences. Data analyses revealed that participants had a significantly superior performance for comprehending the ESM items (though they were longer sentences than non-ESM items). Furthermore, it was revealed that proficiency level, unlike age, caused a statistically significant difference in comprehending the ESM sentences. It was also concluded that different types of explicit syntactic markers imposed different degrees of comprehension difficulty both in terms of accuracy and the needed time for the participants’ comprehension; sentences with punctuation marks and conjunctions were the easiest for the participants, while those including determiners and link breaks were the most challenging. Results also indicated that all the ESMs (except for the link breaks) can significantly account for English sentence comprehension and can be assumed as comprehension predictors to various degrees .

This study aimed to investigate the immediate and long-term effects of the flipped classroom approach and language proficiency on the autonomy and anxiety of Iranian EFL learners. A total of 94 learners at the elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels were selected through convenience (availability) sampling procedure from Payam-e-Nour University and split into the experimental and control groups. The research method employed was based on a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design. Data were analyzed using a factorial ANCOVA and a sample paired t-test. The results of this study reveal that the flipped classrooms had a statistically significant impact on the participants' learner autonomy and language anxiety. However, different language proficiency levels had no statistically significant effect on learner autonomy and language anxiety. Findings also suggest that the flipped classrooms had a long-lasting impact on language anxiety and learner autonomy. It is concluded that, in many English language settings, the flipped classroom may be a suitable option with potentially positive outcomes. The findings of this study have some important implications for syllabus designers, curriculum planners, and language instructors of foreign languages.         

Since its introduction in 1980, the concept of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) has attracted much attention. Although many studies have been conducted in science and mathematics, there are insufficient studies to capture the PCK of EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers. Accordingly, the present study aimed to unearth EFL teachers' PCK through a grounded theory approach in the Iranian context. To this end, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 English teachers at senior high schools in three provinces of Ilam, Lorestan, and Kermanshah. The transcribed interviews were analyzed using coding procedures. The results yielded five main dimensions of EFL teachers' pedagogical content knowledge: English language proficiency knowledge, pedagogy knowledge, student knowledge, curriculum knowledge, and assessment knowledge. Data analysis also revealed the sources of EFL teachers' PCK construction and demonstrated that contextual and intervening conditions influence EFL teachers' PCK enactment. The findings may have theoretical and practical implications for high school EFL teachers, educators, and education programs.

Research has shown that classroom management plays a critical role in facilitating effective learning, making it a permanent concern for teachers as well as researchers. In the related literature, one area which needs further consideration is to explore the effect of different personal and contextual factors on the way teachers choose to manage their classrooms. Therefore, the present study aimed at exploring the effects of age, gender, teaching experience, teaching context, and academic degree on Iranian English teachers’ classroom management behaviors. To achieve this, a researcher-made questionnaire based on four classroom management questionnaires was developed. The questionnaire was distributed among 152 EFL teachers teaching in different settings in Iran. To analyze the obtained data, Point-Biserial correlation followed by an independent samples t-test, and one-way ANOVA were used. The results revealed that men and women were quite different with regard to the classroom management behaviors they showed. However, age, teaching context, teaching experience, and academic degree did not significantly affect teachers’ classroom management behaviors. Possible explanations of the results in light of the previous literature are further discussed.

Various types of focalization are important elements in creating suspense and surprise. This study finds use of narrative discourse analysis in order to discover the narrative affordances and limitations of internal focalization for creating suspense and surprise in Persian detective novels, specifically, Esmail Fassih’s The Falcon and the Owls . Duality (the existence of two temporal sets in the structure of the narrative), raising implicit questions in the first and other scenes of the novel, flashback, flashforward, different types of internal and external conflicts, spatial limitation of the focalizer and the suspense after the surprise are some of the affordances and limitations of the internal focalizer in creating suspense and surprise. In The Falcon and the Owls , the most significant strengths of the internal focalizer are the extensive attention given to narrative affordances such as raising implicit questions in the first and other scenes of the novel as well as going back and forth in time; while its weaknesses include giving insufficient attention to the tactic of multiple internal focalization, paying unnecessary attention to unimportant omissions and omitting important events.

This study attempted to determine the viability of the pedagogic interventions in ESP writing courses that fall within the ambit of Written Corrective Feedback (WCF). Considering this objective, 93 intermediate-level ESP learners in 3 intact classrooms of a medical sciences university in Iran were assigned to three groups. They were provided with corrective feedback; using three feedback strategies comprising direct, indirect, and metalinguistic WCF over ten treatment sessions. The researchers endeavored to itemize the utility of the interventions mentioned above via analyzing the participants’ performance on an immediate and a delayed writing posttest. The results displayed the efficacy of WCF for the betterment of the ESP learners’ writing performance. Furthermore, they accentuated the short-term and long-term supremacy of explicit WCF strategies (i.e., metalinguistic & direct) over the implicit ones (i.e., indirect). The findings might enable syllabus designers and curriculum developers to redress the English courses for students of allied medical sciences.

This quantitative study aimed to investigate Iranian EFL student teachers’ perceptions on the use of Machine Translation (MT) for foreign language learning in academic context. To this end, 107 EFL student teachers from a women-only state university in Tehran, Iran, completed a recently developed and validated questionnaire in the field. The findings revealed that most participants were familiar with digital technology including MT and its different types such as Google Translate (GT). Satisfied with MT output, the majority of the participants in the study installed MT apps on their smartphones or used its website on their computers to complete assignments or to translate from Persian to English and vice versa. However, they were neutral about whether their instructors confirmed their MT use, or whether they preferred their teachers know they use MT or not. They were also not sure whether consulting MT was against the regulations. The results showed that authorities in the field of foreign language teaching are required to take a positive stand on this emerging technology; in addition, considering the importance of training for both instructors and learners, they should hold workshops for more responsible and effective MT implementation.