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Psychological barriers have always had negative effects on English learning. This research was done to compare the efficiency of TBILT and TBLT on learners’ fear of negative evaluation. The statistical population included all 4200 Babol Azad University students of whom 320 were volunteers to participate in English language classes via public invitation. Then, 90 students were selected using available sampling model and were placed randomly in three groups (two experimental and one control). Before starting teaching, Leary’s fear of negative evaluation questionnaire with Cronbach’s alpha of .769 was administered, and then using three methods namely TBILT in the first experimental class, TBLT in the second one, and Traditional method (GTM) in control group, the teacher taught in 20 sessions, 90 minutes each. After the post test, the two-way single variable co-variance and the Post Hoc Tukey Test revealed that both experimental groups did much better than the control group (p <.001). On the other hand, the TBILT group acted much stronger than the TBLT one (p <.001).

The purpose of the present study is to compare the impoliteness strategies employed by Iranian and English students in English and Persian Languages. The participants consisted of 6o Iranian EFL learners at intermediate level of language proficiency, 60 Iranian non-English major students, and 212 native English-speaking students. The data were collected through an open-ended questionnaire in the form of discourse completion task where responses to different threatening situations were elicited. The questionnaire consisted of six situations with variations in social power. The data were analyzed based on Limberg’s (2009) model of threat responses. The findings showed variations in the use of strategies employed with variation of social power in different situations. Moreover, the overall findings displayed the frequent use of tendency strategies, that is, toward compliance, toward non-compliance, by the three groups of respondents. It is hoped that the findings of this study can add to the body of knowledge in impoliteness studies and to our understanding of how threat responses vary cross-culturally in particular.

This study explored both teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of teachers’ pedagogic strategies which may engender willingness to communicate (WTC) in an English as a foreign language class and the difference between their perceptions to detect how convergent or possibly how divergent these are. The project used a convenience sample of 300 students taking an intermediate English course and their teachers (N=60) in several English Language Institutes in Tabriz, Iran. The instruments included a Likert scale questionnaire on teachers’ pedagogic strategies and learners’ WTC completed by both teachers and learners. Based on the data collected from the questionnaires, it was revealed that the teachers and learners agreed on the role of teachers’ wait time in learners’ WTC but not on the other strategies such as motivating strategies, error correction strategies, and teachers’ congruence. The findings of the study have important implications for teachers in terms of reconsidering their pedagogic strategies to play their facilitating roles in engendering students’ WTC in the class. The results also have the implications for EFL teacher education in the new era of communication.

The purpose of this study was to examine the accords and discords between English language teachers’ and students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal behavior in four selected secondary schools in Ethiopia. The samples of the study were 48 English language teachers and their respective 420 students. In order to collect data, questionnaires were administered to both students and teachers. To analyze and interpret the data, a two-tailed independent sample t-test was used. Accordingly, the findings revealed that teachers rated themselves considerably higher for helpful/friendly, leadership, and strict behaviors and lower for uncertain, admonishing, student freedom/ responsibility and dissatisfied behaviors as compared to their students’ rating of them. However, no significant difference was found between the two bodies for understanding interpersonal behavior. Similarly, teachers notably felt they were highly in control of classroom communications and had more affiliation/ connection with the students in the process of communications than their students’ perceptions of them. Hence, there were much discords between English language teachers’ and students’ perceptions of teacher interpersonal behavior. Following the findings, some recommendations were forwarded.

The research objective of this study was to explore the cultural differences and challenges encountered by the Chinese Immersion Teacher (CIT) and how the CIT deal with the cultural differences in the immersion classroom. A qualitative case study approach was chosen for this research. The participant was a novice kindergarten immersion teacher who was born and educated in a Chinese-speaking country. There were 13 children with diverse ethnic backgrounds in the teacher’s classroom. Interviews and observations were the primary sources of data. The data collection and analysis stages were undertaken concurrently. The researcher used thematic analysis to analyze the data. The findings of this study show that a novice CIT typically faces several challenges owing to the differences between Chinese culture and American culture, including the differences in the expectations regarding learning, teacher status, teacher authority, teaching methods, and learning styles. Moreover, the study found that the CIT struggled with these differences and did not know how to do her job without considerable support and training. The research led to suggestions to improve cultural awareness, management of cultural differences, and CIT training.

The present study sought to explore the relationship between Iranian EFL teachers' brain dominance, teaching experience and their teaching style. The study population consisted of all EFL teachers of high schools in Shiraz holding a B.A degree, with the sample consisting of 100 participants recruited through convenience sampling. The study employed a descriptive correlational design. To collect data, a 40 Item-Teaching Style Survey, a 15 Item- Brain Dominance Questionnaire, and a 14 Item-Teaching Experience Scale were used. The data was presented in mean, standard deviation, graphs, and tables. Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression were used to test the research hypotheses. The results showed that there was a significant relationship between EFL teachers’ brain dominance, teaching experience and their teaching style. It was also found that EFL teachers’ brain dominance was a grater predictor of their teaching style than their teaching experience was. The results have several practical implications. The recommendations made include whole brain teaching and addressing the cognitive needs of EFL teachers.

This study attempted to investigate the level of EFL learners’ epistemological beliefs and learning strategy use as well as the contribution of epistemological beliefs to their learning strategy use in Bahir Dar University. Comprehensively selected 136 EFL students at the Faculty of Humanities of Bahir Dar University responded to modified versions of Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire and Motivated and Self Directed Learning Strategies Questionnaire. The descriptive statistics showed that the participants generally held a low level of epistemological beliefs (mean scores ranging from 2.49 to 3.09 on a five-point scale) and they moderately used cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies (mean scores ranging from 3.29 to 3.82 on a five-point scale). The results of multivariate analysis indicated there was a significant multivariate effect of epistemological beliefs on the various dimensions of learning strategies, contributing 15.8% of the variance. The follow-up univariate analyses also showed the difference in epistemological beliefs had a significant impact on their use of all dimensions of learning strategies except rehearsal strategy. This means that EFL students with sophisticated epistemological beliefs, compared to their counterparts with naïve beliefs, are more strategic in handling learning situations through deploying appropriate higher order cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies.

Culture is an inseparable part of a language. In other words, mastering a language and being able to communicate through it inevitably entails integrating with the culture of the speakers of that language which is the reflection of people's identity. The aim of the present study was designing a model of Iranian cultural identity. Initially, to select a homogeneous sample of learners at the advanced level, 300 language learners at the advanced level took TOEFL and 180 learners were chosen as the participants of the study. The cultural identity model was designed by the use of interviews and literature review to come up with main components of cultural identity. Afterwards, participants were interviewed about their identity and four components comprising Iranian cultural identity were identified. The results of the factors analysis showed that raw data converged to a pattern with four components which fit the hypothesized model of cultural identity. Then, the cultural identity questionnaire was given to participants. The results of statistical analyses indicated that there was a significant negative relationship between cultural identity and language achievement of the participants.

Learners can collaborate with each other to achieve a lesson objective. In the collaboration, they can provide each other with guidance in order to identify mistakes and improve their achievements. With the rise of online instructions, this small-scale exploratory study aimed to see how proficient learners guided their less proficient classmates in correcting the grammatical accuracy of sentences. Twenty three learners who were taking a blended-learning grammar class were assigned to post brief essays on Edmodo and the more able learners were instructed to help their weaker classmates find and correct the errors in their essays. A total of 18 essays and 15 lines of comments were generated in their online interactions. A coding was done to identify the moves of the learners as they gave and received peer corrections. The results indicated that the more able learners made seven types of moves for guiding their classmates, with only three sequences incorporating a relatively complete scaffolding moves. The weak learners, however, hardly responded to their more proficient classmates. Reluctance to prolong the discussion in online setting and the difficulties in dealing with detailed grammatical items in such setting may have been responsible for this low rate of responses.

This article presents the outcomes of how Dynamic Assessment (DA) may be organized to function within a class’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The testing field also has recently undergone noticeable changes leading to a shift to use technology that is emerged in our era. The study investigated college students’ barriers and motivations for testing reading comprehension ability using the newly designed software. To this end, 30 participants were interviewed and the related data were analyzed thematically to identify emerging themes relating to the current status of the new testing environment. Four themes emerged relating to potential barriers and motivations and the results showed that working with the software provided positive experiences of working in a supportive environment. The study found that using the newly designed software in the classroom generally enhances learning and other outcomes. This novel software does not only aim to reduce barriers in conventional testing environment but also highlights the positive aspects which enhance motivation.

This study aimed to investigate the effects of Systemic Theoretical Instruction (STI), grounded in Socio-cultural Theory and proposed by Gal’perin, on developing Iranian EFL learners’ knowledge of English tense-aspect system. To this end, two low-intermediate classes, including 24 and 21 language learners aged between 12-19, were taught the distinction between simple past and present perfect tense through STI and traditional method of grammar instruction. The learners sat for a pretest one week before the treatment and an immediate and delayed posttest, one and three weeks after the instruction, respectively. The tests included binary-choice and gap-filling items to evaluate the learners’ explicit knowledge of the target tense-aspect pairings and elicited imitation test items to check their implicit knowledge. The results obtained from a series of independent and paired-sample t-tests revealed a significant improvement for both groups in the immediate posttest both in terms of the entire test and its subcomponents suggesting that both types of instruction were effective in improving the learners’ implicit and explicit knowledge of the target forms in the short term. However, the significant outperformance of the STI group compared to the traditional group implied the superiority of this method. Moreover, the STI group generally outperformed the traditional group in the delayed posttest indicating the possibility of having a more lasting effect on developing learners’ knowledge when compared to the traditional method. These findings can have significant implications for teachers and materials developers in practicing the assumptions of more innovative approaches such as STI.

Kumaravadivelue’s (2012) language teacher education for a global society known as KARDS has gathered little momentum in the context of Iran due to scarcity of studies on it. To fill this gap, the present research investigated Iranian EFL teachers’ perceptions of KARDS with regard to variables including teaching context, gender, and teaching experience. To this end, a KARDS questionnaire was designed, constructed, and validated by the researchers, and the results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the validity of the questionnaire. Later, it was administered to 400 English teachers in Tehran. Then, 20 participants volunteered for follow-up interviews, and their verbatim interview transcripts were content analyzed. The results of descriptive statistics and MANOVA indicated that teachers’ perceptions were positive for the majority of items except theorization, observation of colleagues’ classes, and needs analysis done by outsiders, and there were significant differences in teachers’ perceptions of KARDS with regard to their teaching context, gender, and teaching experience. Also, the qualitative investigation of teachers’ perceptions confirmed the findings of the quantitative part.