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In a multicultural and multilingual country like Iran, where minority languages have undergone a degree of assimilation into Persian, certain cultural aspects of these minority languages, such as the Kurdish calendar for Kurdish people, have been ignored. This descriptive study tends to revitalize the overlooked calendars of Central (Sorani) and Southern (Kalhori, Feyli, Laki) Kurdish dialects by investigating the conceptual metaphors utilized in these dialect-specific calendars. To do so, the calendars of these Kurdish dialects have been sourced from reliable references. Subsequently, the names of the Kurdish months are analyzed using Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) conceptual metaphor model. The findings reveal that these Kurdish calendars exhibit ontological, structural, and orientational metaphors that conceptualize abstract time as a concrete entity through "physical experiences," including rituals and road blockages; "natural events"; and "spatial orientation," represented by the vertical movement of Kurdish people and leaves as well as the horizontal displacement between the months.

The increasing availability of scientific knowledge through digital platforms has transformed how scientific discourse reaches the general public. This study examined the use of interactional metadiscourse markers across four leading popular science subgenres: books, TV documentaries, magazine articles, and newspaper articles. The aim was to investigate the language features of these markers, focusing on how they engage readers and highlight writer presence in different subgenres. A corpus of 987,625 words was analyzed using AntConc software (Anthony, 2019) and 80,260 instances of interactional markers were identified according to Hyland’s (2019) Interpersonal Model of Metadiscourse. The study revealed how hedges, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, and engagement markers function to create persuasive and accessible content. Interestingly, interactional markers appeared most frequently in TV documentaries, suggesting a heightened effort to engage audiences through this medium. Chi-square tests revealed significant differences in marker usage across subgenres; however, the small effect sizes (Cramér’s V) indicated that these differences are of only modest practical significance. These results provided insight into how popular science writers adapt their rhetorical strategies to suit different communicative contexts and audience expectations. The findings also have pedagogical implications. Incorporating features of popular science into ESP/EAP materials, such as authentic texts and structured practice with interactional metadiscourse markers, can make scientific content more engaging and accessible for learners. Raising learners’ awareness of interactional metadiscourse markers can improve writing skills, especially for novice writers in non-English academic settings, helping them better engage readers and communicate more effectively.

Grammatical accuracy has always been a concern for most Iranian EFL learners. This grammatical variability is more visible in the writing of Iranian IELTS candidates. In this study, the impacts of (distributed, peer and reciprocal scaffolding on IELTS learners' horizontal grammatical variability were investigated. An explanatory mixed design was employed to measure the differences among scaffolding types and to develop a better understanding of teachers' and learners' perception toward them. 120 IELTS candidates were randomly selected from a pool of 367 candidates, and they were put in three experimental groups and a control group. Each scaffolding type was used in one of the experimental groups as the treatment. Five different essay topics were given to each student before the course and after the course. Two official IELTS mock examiners rated the writing performances according to the details of IELTS criteria about grammar accuracy and variability. Next, using an ANCOVA procedure, the data were analyzed. Moreover, the data collected in the qualitative phase were content analyzed. The findings showed that in distributed and reciprocal scaffolding classes, the differences were significant. The qualitative findings showed that although there was a discrepancy between the teachers' and the learners' attitude toward the possible success of the treatments, at the end, both parties confirmed that they can be beneficial. Due to the fact that 'time' has always been a precious parameter in IELTS preparatory classes, these findings can be of help to IELTS teachers and candidates.

The goal of this inquiry was to scrutinize how Iranian university students’ motivation, creativity, emotional intelligence (EI), and intellectual awareness (IA) were affected by artificial intelligence (AI). Sixty Iranian university students in Ahvaz, Iran, were chosen based on a convenience sampling method to reach this objective, and they were separated into two groups: the experimental group (EG) and the control group (CG). Both groups were administered four relevant questionnaires to gauge their proficiency in each dependent variable. Next, utilizing AI-ChatGPT, some modified materials (ten reading texts) were trained to the EG. The CG received traditional instruction using the same materials. Four questionnaires were given to each group as research posttests following the ten-week course of treatment. The results of ANCOVA and independent samples t-tests revealed meaningful differences; the EG did better than the CG on all dependent variables. Based on the gained results, the EG outperformed the CG on the posttests of motivation, creativity, EI, and IA. The research’s implications can encourage EFL teachers and learners to acquaint themselves with different AI applications and apply them in their teaching and learning. 

Critical Pedagogy (CP) is a prerequisite for a democratic society where pedagogy empowers teachers and learners to be both socially reasonable and knowledgeable. It is a novel and rather minimally investigated motif, being rarely noticed in the Iranian educational system. Recognizing the importance of fostering critical thinking and active engagement within educational settings, the current study intended to investigate perspectives on critical pedagogy among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers with different academic degrees and language backgrounds. Following a qualitative research design, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 18 EFL teachers to provide information on their perspective of CP to identify the challenges against CP awareness and solutions towards a balanced CP. Grounded Theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) as a thematic analysis approach was followed for the purpose of qualitative data analysis. The results showed that although teachers were aware of the importance of critical pedagogy, they did not have the freedom to put it into practice. The findings yield implications for teachers, students, and educational systems, highlighting the need for greater emphasis on CP in the Iranian context.

Stance has been examined extensively in the past few decades. However, the majority of the studies have been synchronic, with the few exceptions being snapshot diachronic studies without trend-related inferential statistics. This study adopted a trend-related inferential statistical measure and a more continuous diachronic dataset to examine the changes in using stance in the research articles of English applied linguistics from 2000 to 2020. To this end, 416 articles were randomly selected from 10 applied linguistics journals indexed in the first quartile of Scopus and probed using LancsBox for normalized frequency of Hyland’s (2005b) list of stance markers. Results were then analyzed for trends using the Jonckheere-Terpstra test. The results showed significant decreases for the overall stance markers (J=37168, z= -2.85, d= -.28, p= .004)), hedges (J=37014, z= -2.96, d= -.293, p=0.003), boosters (J=36298, z= -3.47, d= -.345, p=.001), and attitude markers (J=36647, z= -3.22, d= -.32, p=0.001), while self-mention markers were found to have experienced a slight, non-significant increase (J=42527.5, z= .94, d= .096, p=0.349). The functional analysis of the selected excerpts showed that the quantitative decrease in the use of stance markers has been compensated for, with an increase in the modification range and strength of the used stance markers as the two ways we could discover. After discussing the findings, the paper ends with some suggestions for further research. 

Most EFL schools, both government-run and private, use materials developed based on the curriculum developed by the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Education in Iran started to update English textbooks for junior and senior high schools to enhance students’ communicative competence. To achieve this, there is a need for changes both in methodology and content of the textbooks in assessment methods. This study aimed to investigate whether teachers’ tests align with the changes in textbooks or assess students' knowledge of grammar and vocabulary, regardless of their communicative competence. A mixed-methods design was employed, combining quantitative data collected through questionnaires, teacher-made tests, textbooks, and qualitative interview data to provide a comprehensive understanding of the match. Thirty Iranian English teachers from different provinces participated in the study and 100 teacher-made tests were compared with the content and purpose of the updated textbooks. The results analyzed through chi-square test and thematic analysis showed no match between the theory of the tests and the textbooks and revealed that teachers' attitudes towards change of assessment tools contribute to the development of communicative skills. 

The present study investigates the effectiveness of a conceptual approach, grounded in cognitive linguistics, in enhancing the comprehension and production of phrasal verbs among Iranian EFL learners of English. To this end, 38 participants (16 males and 22 females) at intermediate levels of language proficiency were randomly assigned to an experimental and a control group, and underwent instruction through the conceptual approach or the traditional method, respectively. A pre-test was administered to assess baseline performance, followed by the intervention and two post-tests (i.e., a cloze test and a story-retelling task) to measure changes in comprehension and production of the phrasal verbs. The cloze test measured differences in phrasal verb comprehension, while the story-retelling task assessed production and accuracy. The mixed between-within-subjects ANOVA (SPANOVA) revealed significant improvement in the experimental group on the post-test. Independent sample t-tests confirmed superior performance in the production and accuracy of phrasal verbs for the experimental group. This suggests that the conceptual approach offers a systematic method for learners to approach phrasal verbs analytically, contrasting with the traditional perception of these elements as non-analyzable. As a practical implication, educators in EFL contexts, are strongly urged to adopt the presented conceptual approach. This innovative pedagogical strategy not only enriches the learning experience but also addresses linguistic challenges associated with phrasal verbs, fostering creativity in the instructional process through situational presentations and orientational metaphors. 

Since teachers’ perceptions of work engagement can strongly shape their engagement level, it is imperative to explore how teachers perceive this construct and its associated dimensions. With this in mind, some researchers have evaluated teachers’ beliefs and attitudes towards this notion.  Notwithstanding this, to the authors’ knowledge, no study has examined language teachers’ viewpoints on this variable and its significance in online EFL classes. To bridge these gaps, this phenomenological study explored Iranian EFL teachers’ perceptions and experiences of work engagement and its value in online English courses. To this aim, using the purposive sampling strategy, a total of 21 EFL teachers were chosen from different state, private, and non-profit universities in Iran. To obtain the required data, all participants were invited to complete an open-ended questionnaire. To reach more comprehensive data, from among the 21 participants, nine willingly took part in a 20-minute interview session. Results obtained from content analysis revealed that Iranian EFL teachers considered work engagement as a complex variable with four related dimensions of emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and social engagement. The results also indicated that Iranian teachers perceived work engagement as an important professional behavior that results in increased academic achievements, professional advancement, improved teaching quality, and strong teacher-student rapport. Hence, education leaders and teacher educators should support Iranian EFL teachers in enhancing work engagement dimensions to improve professional growth and teaching quality.

Multilingualism and its tangled relationship with culture have been the center of debate for many years. It still sparkles various conceptual arguments and day by day, more academic research is circulating on this subject. The concept of multilingualism and the arguments around this discourse roots in the language itself. To fully grasp the notion of cultural multilingualism, first, we need to perceive how and where language and culture are interlinked. The study of culture has the originality of studying history itself. The first studies on both language and culture date back to the earliest time human attempted to analyze and perceive history. The globalization of multilingualism has led scientists and experts to analyze multilingualism through a cultural lens. It's only in a few decades that perceiving and understanding multilingualism through cultural perspectives has opened the eyes of experts to new horizons. Concerning this fact, this study has evaluated Never Let Me Go, a 2005 Nobel-winning novel by the Japanese-British novelist and screenwriter, Kazuo Ishiguro according to cultural multilingual values. Additionally, this study questions the concept of cultural multilingualism, together with its significance in shaping one's identity and self as the main key in Ishiguro's novel. Proven by the given facts, the current study illustrates how cultural multilingualism forms the author's writing style and mindset as a multilingual individual.