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The advent of AI technologies has been influential on the quality of language learning in EFL contexts. A plethora of studies have explored the employment of AI bots in academic writing. Yet, exploring the strategies employed by Iranian EFL learners while using an AI bot to complete academic IELTS writing task 2 has been underestimated. To address the lacuna, this qualitative study computer-recorded eleven participants’ interactions with AI bot to identify the strategies they employed to complete academic IELTS writing task 2. The researchers intended to clarify the intricacies of the human-AI interactions and infer the potential contributions of AI bots for academic writing in EFL settings. The findings revealed that despite the employment of several strategies by the participants to compose high-quality writing tasks, none of them fully trusted the AI outputs to use them without post-editing. They considered the AI bot as a writing assistant, used some revised segments of AI responses and added their own words respectively. The pedagogical implications for language teaching in general, and IELTS-oriented practices in particular to take advantage of the emerging AI technologies for better educational outcomes are provided. Moreover, avenues for future research on AI-assisted Language Learning (AILL) are suggested.

This study endeavored to explore the beliefs that Iranian English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teachers held and scrutinize the extent to which their beliefs can correspond to their actual practices in EAP context. To these ends, a mixed mehod study was conducted in which 40 EAP teachers (20 English teachers & 20 subject-area teachers) teaching EAP courses in Universities of Medical Sciences in Iran participated in this nationwide study. The quantitative data gathered through a belief questionnaire was analyzed by SPSS software and the qualitative data collected through interview and observation of EAP courses was analyzed through content analysis. Analyses of the gathered data disclosed that the participants held different beliefs in terms of teaching strategies so that they did differently in their reading-based performances as well as the teaching and learning strategies. Besides, it was revealed that unlike subject-area teachers whose beliefs and performance were derived from their content-related concerns, English teachers’ beliefs and performance were presided by the students’ real needs, interest, and what is substantiated in the current literature. Within the EAP community of teachers and teacher educators, not only novice teachers who aim to enter into the EAP teaching mainstream can benefit from the findings, but also EAP teachers currently teaching such courses can gain the advantage of reflecting upon the beliefs and their actual practices. In addition, the findings may have implications for all EAP teachers to verbalize tacitly held beliefs, think consciously about them, and be aware of existing challenges and critical areas in EAP teaching.

This study aimed to examine the effects of a teacher education course on EFL teachers’ self-efficacy in formative assessment. The researchers employed a mixed-method design that combined quantitative and qualitative approaches to investigate the effects of the course. Thirty EFL teachers participated in the study and completed pre- and post-intervention questionnaires to assess their formative assessment self-efficacy beliefs. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather qualitative data on teachers’ beliefs about formative assessment. The quantitative data were analyzed using paired-sample t-tests, and thematic analysis was conducted for the qualitative data. The results indicated a significant increase in teachers’ formative assessment self-efficacy beliefs. The findings suggest that providing teacher education courses focused on formative assessment can effectively enhance EFL teachers’ self-efficacy and utilization of such assessment methods in online classroom. The current study has some pedagogical implications and recommendations for the implementation of similar courses and potential areas for future research are also discussed.

This article analyzes complex words, morphologically and semantically, within the Perceptual approach introduced by Safavi (2020). The authors aim to examine the possibilities of word formation of complex words in Persian as their first objective. To achieve this goal, they examined 2850 complex words selected randomly from the Sokhan Dictionary (Anvari, 2004). Following the mentioned approach, word-formation patterns are determined based on whether the morphemes belong to closed or open classes. According to a predetermined agreement, A stands for closed class units and B stands for open class units. This study reveals 57 patterns of word formation, with ‘B + B’ appearing to be the most common among all the patterns examined. Next, the authors investigated how much closed-class units help Persian speakers interpret the semantic head of complex words examined. To reach this aim, 20 Persian speakers not having any knowledge of linguistics were given a questionnaire of 120 words made up of eight affixes selected by the authors and questioned about interpreting each word. Finally, data analysis related to the questionnaire revealed that the meaning interpretation of the words appeared to be significantly impacted by the morphemes belonging to the closed class.

The present study aimed to investigate vowel hiatus resolution and its relation to vowel shortening in Persian and Central Kurdish within an Optimality-Theoretic framework. The results showed that both Persian and Central Kurdish ​​use glide formation through vowel shortening to resolve hiatus in certain environments. Persian has its own way to resolve vowel hiatus. The two high vowels /i/ and /u/, as a result of glide formation through vowel shortening, are changed into a short vowel and the glides /j/ and /w/, respectively. In Central Kurdish, glide formation occurs in high vowels /iː, uː/ and mid-high vowels /ēː, ōː/. In Persian, glide formation involves a quantitative reduction in the long vowel /iː/ and a quantitative and qualitative alteration in the long vowel /uː/. On the other hand, glide formation in Central Kurdish involves only a quantitative reduction in long vowels. Based on an OT analysis, the main factor in resolving vowel hiatus in both Persian and Central Kurdish is the obligatory presence of onset in the syllable structure. In contexts in which glide formation occurs through vowel shortening, the ranking of the active constraints in Persian and Central Kurdish is: ONSET, AGREE(place) >> MAX, DEP >> IDENT(µ).  

 On the Elaboration of Contexts of Situation with Special Reference toRequesting Strategies in BaliI Made Netra  , I Made Suastra  , & I Putu SutamaAbstractOver the last two decades, the study of meaning has been done utilizing context of situation. It has been practiced in determining the speaker’s meanings in languages around the world. However, this research attempts to develop an elaborated form of context of situation in a culture-specific Balinese language and to explicate the speaker’s meaning bound by the elaborated context. To this end, an approach of participatory observation was applied which  was qualitative and  descriptive in nature. The data were collected from respondents and informants of Buleleng and Gianyar regencies,considering that although they share the same language, their understanding on requesting strategies, however, might be different. Requesting strategies in Balinese is contextually bound by a given and elaborated context of situation, which is referred to as Desa Kala Patra functioning both as a context of situation and an adjustment for language effectiveness.  The elaborated context is immensely applicable to different requests. The requests are articulated based on the Balinese cultural scripts. Again, as an elaborated context of situation, Desa Kala Patra can bind the requesting strategies.  As an adjustment for language effectiveness, Desa Kala Patra can mostly shift the direct strategies into indirect ones. Indirect requests can be expressed by asking, tag-questioning, giving information, giving advice, providing alternative points, offering, complaining, greeting, and inviting. The practices of requesting are configured by low-level scripts using exponents of philosophical aspects, Desa Kala Patra itself, “ if/then” condition, mechanism, results, and concluding statement.

In the context of language socialization, second/foreign language (L2) instruction is a crucial context for secondary socialization, especially when it takes place outside the learners’ culture of origin. This study explored how Iranian EFL learners socialize through the rules of EFL classes and how gender, parents, and native language affect their language socialization during the COVID-19 pandemic. We focused on two fundamental principles of language socialization (Lee & Bucholtz, 2015): agency and identity. In this ethnographic study, we collected the data by observing two classes in a WhatsApp group, interviewing the learners four times through Skype, asking them to write down their reflections about their class procedure, and writing our reflections about teachers-students interactions. We used Direct Qualitative Content Analysis method to analyze the data. To simplify data classification and interpretation, we utilized the MAXQDA-2020 software. The findings revealed two sub-categories for learners’ agency (talent and experience) and three sub-categories for learners’ identity (gender, parents, and native language). The results also showed that language socialization is bidirectional, and learners face forms of negotiating, accepting, or rejecting their agency and identity across this socialization process. The learners’ L1 and culture influence their opinion about the English language and culture. Whether this effect is negative or positive depends on proficiency level, gender, and social context. Finally, cyberspace provided a suitable context for language socialization, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Findings showed several pedagogical implications for EFL teachers and learners.تجزیه و تحلیل داده ها دو زیرمقوله برای عاملیت زبان آموزان (استعداد و تجربه) و سه زیرمقوله برای هویت زبان آموزان (جنسیت، والدین و زبان بومی) را مشخص می سازد. نتایج این پژوهش همچنین نشان می دهد که جامعه پذیری زبان دوسویه است و زبان آموزان در طی فرآیند جامعه پذیری با اشکال مذاکره، پذیرش یا عدم پذیرش عاملیت و هویت خود مواجه می شوند. فرهنگ و زبان اول زبان آموز بر نظر او راجع به زبان و فرهنگ انگلیسی تأثیر می گذارد. چه این تأثیر منفی باشد چه مثبت بستگی به سطح بسندگی، جنسیت و بافت اجتماعی دارد. یافته ها به چندین پیامد آموزشی برای معلمان و فراگیران زبان انگلیسی دلالت دارند.

The interplay of Iranian EFL learners’ tolerance of ambiguity and their performance encountering unknown vocabularies in reading comprehension while considering their L2 reading anxiety was investigated in this study. A sample of 70 intermediate-level EFL learners from a language institute in Shiraz, Iran participated in the study. The Second Language Tolerance of Ambiguity Scale (SLTAS) and the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) were used to measure participants’ ambiguity tolerance and L2 reading anxiety, respectively. To assess students’ performance in dealing with new words in reading comprehension, two vocabulary tests and two reading tests were given to them. The data were analyzed by both SPSS and PLS 4 software using Pearson correlation and structural equation modeling (SEM). The findings revealed significant relationships between ambiguity tolerance and reading comprehension performance encountering unknown vocabularies, between L2 reading anxiety and reading comprehension performance encountering unknown vocabularies, and between ambiguity tolerance and L2 reading anxiety. Additionally, L2 reading anxiety was found to play a significant mediating role in the relationship between ambiguity tolerance of Iranian language learners and their performance in dealing with unknown vocabularies in reading comprehension. Moreover, the study provides evidence that reading anxiety does not play a moderating and significant role in the relationship between ambiguity tolerance of Iranian language learners and their performance in dealing with unknown vocabularies in reading comprehension. The study suggests that ambiguity tolerance and L2 reading anxiety are important factors that influence Iranian EFL learners’ performance encountering unknown vocabularies in reading comprehension. This study highlights the importance of fostering ambiguity tolerance and reducing L2 reading anxiety in both language teaching and learning. In addition, it provides insights for syllabus designers to d

Motivated by the growing significance of research on language teacher emotion regulation, the present study investigated the contributions of an online asynchronous teacher education initiative to L2 teachers’ emotion regulation. Drawing on Gross’ (1998, 2015) model of emotion regulation, the data gathered from interviews with four teachers prior to and after the course, their reflective narratives, online discussions, and class observations were qualitatively analyzed. The analyses pointed to the microgenetic development of teachers in terms of the incremental learning and application of the course content (i.e., emotion regulation) to their instructional practice. In other words, the participants incrementally drew on the learned strategies to up/down-regulate their emotions as English teachers. Additionally, the participant teachers tended to articulate their thoughts via reflective narratives by adopting the professional discourse, further implying the participant teachers’ access to their cognitions.