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This paper aimed at examining the Iranian EFL teachers and learners’ preferences for two types of direct oral corrective feedback, including explicit correction and metalinguistic clues, and two types of indirect oral corrective feedback, including recast and repetition. The participants included 39 teachers and 84 EFL learners, selected through purposive sampling. A scenario-based questionnaire was constructed based on Lyster and Ranta’s (1997) typology of corrective feedback (CF) for the purpose of collecting data on the teachers and learners’ preferences for the type of CF. Feedback scenarios were extracted from the literature on CF. The questionnaire was distributed to the participants by one of the researchers. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted in order to triangulate the data gathered through the questionnaire. The results of the study indicated that the EFL teachers and learners preferred direct CF more than indirect CF. The results also revealed significant differences among EFL teachers with differing levels of teaching experience (i.e., low, moderate and high). The present study drew attention to the fact that direct types of CF were preferred over others in EFL context. This study has implications for EFL teachers, learners, and material developers.

Research has shown that writing skill of Iranian learners is not at a satisfactory level. One of the ways to develop writing ability is improving strategic behavior of learners. The current study set out to compare writing performances and patterns of using metacognitive strategies in bilinguals and monolinguals as well as senior and freshmen students. A total of 176 English major university students took part in the study (88 bilinguals and 88 monolinguals). Data were collected through three instruments: a background questionnaire, a writing metacognitive strategy questionnaire, and participants’ compositions. A two-way factorial ANOVA was used to analyze the data obtained through the strategy questionnaire. Since the composition data were not parametric two Kruskall-Wallis tests were employed for data analysis. The results revealed that bilinguals used more metacognitive strategies and had higher writing scores than monolinguals. In addition, seniors had better writing performance than freshmen while the difference between them in using strategies was not significant. Based on the results it can be concluded that teaching writing metacognitive strategies may result in better writing performance.

The present article studies Quranic quotations in the poetry of Mohammad Iqbal Lahori based on the approach of intertextuality. Iqbal is one of the greatest poets and intellectuals of the Eastern Muslim world. Quran is a source of inspiration both in his life and poetic career. His poetry is interwoven with Quran through intertextual Quotations. These Quranic quotations are central to the production of meaning in Iqbal’s poems. The present research limits itself to Julia Kristeva’s concept of intertextuality. Kristeva (1980) states that meaning is not inherent in the text rather it is produced through the intertextual relations between texts. This research aims to apply Plett’s (1990) set of structural codes of quotations to Iqbal’s poetic text to expose the role of scriptural quotations in his poetry. The findings of this paper show that Quranic quotations mostly follow the rules of general quotations; except that as authoritative words they are open to some transformations at surface structure but not at deep structure. The semantic fixity of Quranic quotations does not prevent their application as means of power for purposes not endorsed by Quranic instructions. Finally, the authoritative nature of Quranic quotations allows Iqbal not to employ quotation markers in his text wherever he makes use of them.

The status of teaching ESP has been studied both internationally and locally. However, it seems that the challenges of teaching ESP in medical universities of Iran have not been studied appropriately. The main objective of the present study was to explore the main challenges of teaching ESP in medical universities of Iran. Due to the nature of the study, a qualitative res earch design (Phenomenological) was used. The data were gathered through interviewing 25 ESP stakeholders from two universities of medical sciences in Tehran. The data were analyzed through content analysis techniques. The results showed that the challenges are classified into three main themes: institution challenges, learner related challenges, and teacher related challenges. Institution related challenges consisted of undetermined aims, structure of the curricula, and content of syllabus, evaluation, time limitation and classroom size. The learner related challenges included lack of motivation, poor GEL background, and learners’ focus on test, and learners’ inappropriate needs’ analysis. ESP teachers’ related challenges included teacher’s language proficiency, teachers’ content knowledge, teachers’ perception of ESP, teachers’ teaching method, teachers’ familiarity with material development, and testing skills. The findings of the study can be used to promote the status of teaching ESP in medical universities.

The present study investigated the possible difference between EFL teachers’ beliefs and their actual classroom practices. To this end, 210 Iranian EFL teachers (103 teachers from high schools and 107 from language institutes) participated in the study. The 45-item Likert-scale Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) developed originally by Horwitz, (1985) and validated by Kasraee Nejad (2014) for the context of Iran and an observation checklist, devised and validated by the researchers, comprised the data collection instruments adopted in the current study. The results of paired t-test revealed statistically significant differences between beliefs of Iranian EFL teachers and their actual classroom practices. Moreover, the results of Independent Samples t-test indicated that the two groups of high school and language institute teachers were significantly different with regard to their beliefs on language learning. In addition, the results of Chi-square analysis demonstrated 43 out of 45 teachers’ specific beliefs were significantly different from their actual classroom practices. In the light of the findings of the present study, educational policy makers and managers in both high schools and language institutes are recommended to introduce ways to raise EFL teachers’ awareness of their beliefs to enhance their efficiency in their actual classroom practices.

This paper aims to study Vygotsky’s (1987) sociocultural theory of learning with respect to how it relates to technology-based second language learning and teaching. The researchers selected their participants from advanced students from Payame Noor University. We divided the participants into two groups- an experimental group and a control group. After teaching the course an experimental group was asked to continue practicing language in an online learning environment, whereas those in the control group were not told anything about practice procedure. We found that students’ engagement in an interactive group activity in the online learning can be a useful approach to facilitating and motivating internalization, learning, and better performance.

The present study examines the role of Gal’perin’s Concept-based Instruction (CBI) as a pedagogical approach in teaching cognitive grammar-based (CG-based) concepts of tense and aspect to EFL students. Following the sociocultural theory of L2 Acquisition (SCT), arming L2 learners with scientific concepts can lead to L2 development by deepening their understanding and raising awareness of L2 structures. To this end, over the course of eight weeks 28 third grade middle school students (14 years old) received the concepts in the CBI framework and 30 third grade middle school students received a traditional type of instruction. There were three sets of data including definition of the concepts of tense and aspect before and after CBI, concept verbalization data during CBI, written discourse performance plus responses to a set of grammatical questions before and after CBI. It was found that although both groups improved significantly after receiving the instruction, the students who received CBI performed significantly better than those in the traditional group. The students who received CBI also produced a significant definition of the concepts and their written discourse performance and responses to the grammatical questions improved after CBI. The result provides insight into the application of scientific concepts in L2 instruction.

Although Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been widely advocated by a considerable number of applied linguists and English language teachers, its implementation in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts has encountered a number of difficulties.  Reviewing the literature suggests that one of the reasons for unsuccessful implementation of CLT may be neglect of learners' beliefs in the process of learning. Using a Likert-type scale, the current study was undertaken to explore 242 Iranian EFL learners' beliefs towards six core tenets of the CLT approach: namely, the importance of grammar; the use of group work and pair work; the role and contribution of the learners; the role of the teachers in the classroom; the quality and quantity of error correction and assessment; and the role of the learners' native language in EFL classes. Analysis of the data revealed that although in some cases learners had viewpoints that opposed CLT principles, a considerable percentage of the respondents appreciated and had a high perception of CLT principles, indicating a welcoming atmosphere toward the implementation of CLT in Iran.

The present study investigated the relationships among willingness to communicate, communication apprehension, and self-perceived communication competence in Persian (L1) versus English (L2). A total number of 235 adult native Persian EFL learners were selected through convenience sampling to participate in the study. The population consisted of 118 intermediate learners and 113 upper-intermediate learners. The transferability and predictability of these communication variables across L1 and L2 was checked through correlational analyses and linear regression. The findings showed that among these variables communication apprehension was more of a trait-like predisposition which was transferred across first language and foreign language. WTC in Persian had little predictive effect on WTC in English; also, self-perceived communication competence in Persian predicted only 15% of SPCC in English. Implications of findings could provide teachers insight into the extent to which these communication variables are trait-like or situational.

Understanding how to structure the “Statement-of-the-Problem” (SP) section of a thesis is necessary for EFL students to develop a logical argumentation for a problem statement. This study intended to compare Move structures of SP sections of theses written by native speakers of Persian (NSPs) and English (NSEs). To this end, 100 SP sections (50 SP sections written by NSEs and 50 written by NSPs) of theses in the field of English language teaching (ELT) were selected and analyzed by the researchers based on Swales' (1990, 2004) CARS models. The analysis of the data revealed that Move structures of SP sections of the two corpora were similar. In both corpora, the three Moves of “Establishing a territory”, “Establishing a niche”, and “Presenting the present work” were considered obligatory. There were some differences in the Steps and many Move pattern variations in the two corpora. The results can broaden the understanding of the nature and function of this genre and can have important implications for EFL instructors.

This paper presented two complex span tasks in Persian as measures of working memory capacity (WMC). Firstly, the construct of working memory (WM) and possible WM measures that could assess this construct efficiently were critically reviewed. Accordingly, as measures of domain-general components of WM, a reading span task and an operation span task which were documented to assess this construct efficiently were chosen and developed. Following this, the developed tasks were conducted on 151 teenage learners in a foreign language institute in West Azerbaijan Province. Then, the administration and scoring of the measures were described step by step. The tasks were validated against each other as well as against a digit span task which assessed the domain-specific aspect of WMC as well. The result showed a strong correlation between the reading span task and the operation span task, and a moderate correlation of either of the functions with the digit span task. Consequently, both of the developed span tasks can be valid indicators of WM capacity for Iranian individuals and can be used in a wide array of research domains in second language acquisition studies.

The aim of the current study was twofold: (1) to validate the internal structure of the general English (GE) section of the university entrance examination for Ph.D applicants into the English programs at state universities in Iran (Ph.D. UEE), and (2) to examine the factor structure invariance of the Ph.D. UEE across two proficiency levels. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the responses of a random sample of participants (N=1009) who took the test in 2014 to seek admission to English programs at Iranian state universities. First, four models (unitary, uncorrelated, correlated and higher-ordered) were estimated and compared to find the model that best represented the data. Then, the factor structure invariance of the test across two proficiency levels was explored using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. The higher-order and correlated three-factor model showed the best fit to the data. The result also showed that the structure of the test remained invariant across both proficiency levels. These results supported the multi-componential view of language proficiency. It was found that there is no relationship between levels of language proficiency and the structure of the test. However, the results called into question the score-reporting policy for the PhD UEE and led to the conclusion that a single total score does not reflect the structure of the test.