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Given the complexity of spoken interaction, acquiring conversation skills has been difficult for most EFL learners, and as EFL classrooms largely depend on hypothetical scripted material, learners lack explicit exposure to naturally occurring language essential for real - life interaction . This paper reports on a quasi - experimental study aiming at assessing the impact of conversation analysis- ( CA ) informed language - in -( natural )- talk log assignments on the development of Thai EFL learners ’ conversation skills . Eighty - eight second - year undergraduates at a university in southern Thailand took part in the study . As part of a monitored self - study task, the participants completed ten language - in - talk log assignments with self - selective use of audiovisuals available online . The quantitative data was collected using pre - and post - test role - plays . The qualitative data was assessed through completed log assignments, close analysis of the role - plays, and written interview for data triangulation . The findings suggested that the log assignment intervention significantly enhance participants ’ conversation abilities, including turn construction, turn delivery , and the sequential organization of turn - taking . The qualitative results also show that via CA - informed requirements of the log assignment, students became more aware of conversation mechanisms and language use in real - life interaction . This paper recommends that language - in - talk log assignments be incorporated into existing EFL conversation lessons .

The present study intended to address the impact of the socio-economic status (SES) on the Iranian EFL learners’ language achievement and identity processing styles. To attain this goal, 148 students studying General English were designated on the base of purposive sampling from Yasuj University of Medical Sciences (YUMS). At the first step, questions related to social, cultural, and financial background was asked of 20 participants (sample) by an interview. Then, a the researcher constructed a questionnaire from the information attained from the interview, regarding the factors related to the social, cultural, and financial factors (variables) and was distributed among the population (148 students) of the study. The participants’ English University Entrance Exam Score (Achievement test) scores were obtained from the Education Office of Yasuj University of Medical Sciences. Afterward, Berzonsky’s forty item revised version of the identity style inventory (ISI3) (Berzonsky, 1992) assessed the identity style of each participant. Examination of the results indicated that the structural relationship between the variables of identity processing style and language skills was 0.84 and its standard value was equal to 0.345. This value indicated a positive and average relationship between the two structures. That is, with the change of identity processing style, the language skills of the participants have changed.

Situated-learning translation training approach has been proven to be an efficacious translation training approach in cultivating translators' long-life learning, translation competence as well as translator competence. However, previous studies have mainly delved into the effect of simply one single trend of this modern translation training model on student translators' competencies and sub-competencies and have not compared the effects of different situated-learning trends. To fill this gap, this mixed-methods study was set out to explore the comparative effects of cognitive-apprenticeship (CA), simulated project-based (SPB), and integrative (I) training methods on students' legal translation quality (TQ), their critical thinking ability (CTA), as well as employed problem-solving strategies (PSS). To this end, 71 undergraduate translation students were assigned to three experimental groups of CA, SPB, and I. The quantitative phase involved a quasi-experimental, pretest-treatment-posttest design and the qualitative phase was established on the grounded theory method. Data analysis results indicated that CA and I groups outperformed their counterparts in most subscales of TQ and CTA. The results of the thematic analysis of TAP data also showed that the largest variety of linguistic and non-linguistic PSS was respectively used by G3 and G2.

The current study was an attempt to investigate the impact of grouping type on the grammatical accuracy of Iranian EFL learners in collaborative writing. Through administering the Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency, 64 female university students available participated in this study and were assigned to two groups--heterogeneous and homogeneous. The treatment process lasted 12 weeks of collaborative writing and revising, with emphesis on the development of the the participants’ written grammatical accuracy. They were pretested and posttested through a descriptive free writing measure. The results revealed that the participants in both groups had higher posttest scores. Using ANCOVA, it was found that there was a differential effect of grouping type on the grammatical accuracy of homogeneous and heterogeneous pairs, indicating that the participants in heterogeneous group had significantly higher posttest scores than those in homogeneous group. Furthermore, although the grammatical accuracy of both groups increased, a significant difference was observed between them, revealing that the participants in heterogeneous group outperformed those in homogeneous group. The findings of this study can be interpreted in terms of the sociocultural theory and Vygotsky’s idea of the zone of proximal development.

The focus of current research is the translation of psychology book titles. There are numerous studies in the field of titles translation, but they are restricted in Persian context. The aim of this study is thus to investigate the translation strategies used by Persian translators when transferring English psychology book titles into Persian. To achieve this objective, 245 titles of translated psychology books published from 2007 to 2013 in the field of personal success were first gathered from Isfahan Municipality Library, some local bookstores and online sources. Then, the types of original titles and their translations were examined based on Genette (1989) categorization. The findings thereof revealed that most of the titles had the form, title plus subtitle in both languages in terms of structure. The forms of the titles were also analyzed, and it was discovered that nominal titles were the most frequent ones in the source text and translators preferred not to change the original structure. Next, the corpus was analyzed based on Vinay and Darbelnet’ (1995) model and the findings showed that the modulation was the most frequently-used translation strategy. It was also revealed that the translators were inclined to change the semantics and point of view of the source language. The second most frequently-used strategy was literal translation, showing the popularity of direct translation strategies. Finally, the functions of titles were analyzed based on Nord’s (1995) model. Since functions are highly subjective and cannot be tabulated, they were discussed one by one in the discussion section of the study. The findings of this study can boost the theories of title translation and provide the functional issues of translation studies with new insights.

Unlike Lexical Projections, Functional Projections (Extended Projections) are more of an ‘abstract’ in nature. Therefore, Functional Projections seem to be acquired later than Lexical Projections by the L2 learners. The present study investigates Iranian L2 learners’ acquisition of English Extended Projections taking into account their level of grammatical proficiency. Specifically, the aim is to identify the level of grammatical proficiency at which the acquisition of Extended Projections could occur in the process of learning English by the Iranian students. Two hundred and seventy Iranian female L2 learners of English participated in this study. Participants were administered three tests with a ten-day interval between each test. First, an Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was used to classify the participants’ level of grammatical proficiency. Second, a Grammaticality Judgment Task (GJT) was administered in order to assess the learners’ ability to recognize grammatical problems in Extended Projections. Finally, a picture description task (PDT) was administered to examine the learners’ ability to produce grammatical Extended Projections. The results indicated that the learners are able to recognize and produce English Extended Projections even at lower levels of grammatical proficiency. The results also showed that the learner’s recognition and production of English Extended Projection improves with their increased level of grammatical proficiency.

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.

Corrective feedback refers to a teacher or student’s reaction to a learner’s target language production containing an actual or perceived error. The last three decades have witnessed a large amount of research on the impacts of various types of corrective feedback on students’ written production. Along the same vein, the present study seeks to explore the effectiveness of providing teachers’ metalinguistic feedback vs. peers’ collaborative feedback on students’ writing performance. In so doing, the present study adopted a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design including three upper-intermediate groups (i.e., two experimental and one control). The participants of the study were a total of 62 English as a foreign language (EFL) freshman students from two public universities in Tehran, Iran. The writing tasks utilized in the present study were adopted from IELTS writing Task 2. The results of one-way between groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that students produced significantly more lexically diverse as well as grammatically accurate language as a result of both treatments. Moreover, it was observed that collaborative peer feedback led to significantly higher lexical diversity than those of other two groups. The findings of the present study suggest that L2 teachers can opt for a combination of corrective feedback strategies to help learners improve their writing performance.

The current study aimed to evaluate the content of the English textbooks taught in Iranian senior high schools. To this purpose, the study relied upon a descriptive survey design. Through a stratified random sampling, a total of 12 senior high schools were selected from the high schools located in Isfahan. To select the teacher participants, a convenience sampling method was employed. Then, a structured questionnaire was administered to the selected teachers and students. The obtained data were statistically analyzed and item analysis revealed that the accessibility and affordability of the textbooks were the most-favored features. However, most of the students wondered whether the textbooks were equipped with supplementary (online and offline) materials. The post-hoc analysis results revealed the significant overall teacher-student disagreement towards the textbooks. Generally, the results showed that there is a need to adapt the teaching materials to the target situation of use. As a practical implication, the findings may urge the developers of the textbooks to launch a modification project in order to get more conscious in developing future textbooks. Moreover, the findings are of use for the teachers of the textbooks as well as the pedagogical policy makers. 

Many L2 teachers baffle when it comes to classroom participation scoring(CPS) of their students. Through a researcher-made questionnaire, this study explored EFL teachers' perceptions of classroom participation scoring(CPS) in Iranian private language schools. Moreover, it investigated the participants' views on a newly-developed objective and analytic rubric as part of this study for CPS. To this end, 120 EFL teachers completed the questionnaire on the typical CPS framework they used in English classrooms. Detailed analysis of teachers' perceptions of CPS  indicated that most Iranian EFL teachers used holistic and subjective CPS approach and had little knowledge of the objective methods of CPS. After having been introduced to the proposed analytic CPS rubric, the participating teachers showed a positive attitude to the rubric and reported the rubric's applicability and flexibility in assessing EFL learners' classroom participation. The findings suggest adopting more objective assessment rubrics for  CPS.

The Online Interaction Learning Model was founded on constructivist learning theory. It is an input-process-output model based on moderating variables, the inputs, which includes all of the characteristics of the courses, the instructors, EFL learners, and the technology. Due to the fact that the studies considering the pivotal role of the Online Interaction Learning Model are scarce in number, this study was conducted to validate a newly-designed questionnaire via exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Two hundred fifty-nine Iranian university and higher education institutes EFL learners were asked to participate. The newly-developed questionnaire consisted of 35 items measuring the five constructs of the Online Interaction Learning Model (Course materials, Instructor performance, Learning practices, Student-to-student interaction, and Access to technology). The results from EFA, CFA, and reliability analyses revealed that the new questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument measuring Online Interaction Learning Model. Moreover, there was a significant positive correlation between each component of the Online Interaction Learning Model and EFL learners’ GPA as well as between the total Online Interaction Learning Model and student academic achievement. Male and female EFL learners’ scores on the online interaction learning model were quite different from each other.

This study examined the effect of rater training on promoting inter-rater reliability in oral language assessment. It also investigated whether rater training and the consideration of the examinees’ expectations by the examiners have any effect on test-takers’ perceptions of being fairly evaluated. To this end, four raters scored 31 Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ oral performance on the speaking module of the IELTS in two stages (i.e. pre- and post-training stage). Furthermore, following Kunnan’s (2004) Test Fairness Framework, a questionnaire on fairness in oral language assessment was developed, and after pilot testing and validating, it was administered to the examinees at both stages. The examinees’ expectations were taken into account in the second round of the speaking test. The results indicated that rater training is likely to promote inter-rater reliability and, in turn, enhances the fairness of the decisions made based on the test scores. It was also concluded that considering students’ expectations of a fair test would improve their overall perceptions of being fairly evaluated. The results of this study sought to provide second language teachers, oral test developers, and oral examiners and raters with useful insights into addressing fairness-related issues in oral assessment.

    Munday asserts that there exist particular norms belonging to each specific time. In other words, each era is of distinguishing norms; sometimes, transgressing these norms results in unsatisfactory outcomes. On this account, translators ought to apply appropriate norms in each era in the act of translation. The present study aimed to investigate the application of Toury’s initial norms in two different translations of The Catcher in the Rye before and after the Islamic Revolution. Firstly, the study investigated the orientation of adequacy and acceptability in both pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary translations. Then, it questioned the appropriateness of the applied norms in these two translations to each era. Accordingly, the results revealed that in the pre-Islamic Revolution translation, acceptability greatly predominated over adequacy; quite the contrary, in the post-Islamic Revolution rendering, adequacy chiefly prevailed over acceptability.