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Scaffolding entails contingency, denoting teachers’ level adaptation in providing transient support. In this study, a symbiosis of the model of contingent teaching (MCT) and the contingent shift framework (CSF) was utilized. Therefore, 360 elementary and advanced EFL learners took a course and filled out two sets of related questionnaires twice, administered at the outset and the end of the course. The transcribed data including the class interactions and intervention strategies were organized into contingent or non-contingent fragments based on models’ criteria. According to the results of the Wilcoxon rank test and the Paired Sample t-test, there was a significant difference between the results of the pre and post-tests in the two mentioned levels for the two constructs. Furthermore, the results of the Single Sample t-test showed that the CSF was more utilized than the MCT in both levels. Moreover, the intervention strategies of the MCT significantly differed in the two levels. Questioning was a highly used strategy at both levels. Hints and modeling were the least utilized strategies in elementary and advanced levels, respectively. Therefore, such contingent symbiosis could have prolific results in self-regulation and gaining willingness to communicate

The present study is a methodological synthesis aiming to evaluate the adherence of Iranian L2 papers to the study quality standards. Ten Iranian journals were selected based on the latest ranking of Iran’s Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), and all experimental papers (N = 367) published from their beginnings were explored for study quality with regards to sampling, design, statistical tests, reporting practices and data sharing, and visual presentation. In the evaluation of the papers, the protocols proposed by Gass and Plonsky (2011) and Pagout and Plonsky (2017) were moderated and some recent issues proposed by APA’s (2018) Journal Article Reporting Standards and some scholars (e.g., Hu & Plonsky, 2019; Khany & Tazik, 2019; Larson-Hall, 2017) were added. The results showed that while there were issues, like acceptable sample size, use of pre-testing, reporting descriptive and inferential statistics, and ensuring the reliability of instruments, that were acceptably adhered to quality standards, problematic areas existed in all five facets of quality, and the majority of them stayed constant or changed slightly over time. The shortcomings caused by such lack of adherence are discussed to identify the challenges in the way of improving the papers’ quality. Although the results are obtained from a specific context, the implications may be generalizable to other contexts where English is taught and researched as a foreign language .

The purpose of this study was to examine teaching metacognitive strategies in online and face-to face classes, in IELTS writing task 2. The participants were 25 students chosen from 50 students in English Techno Science Institute (ETI) studying IELTS in both online and face-to-face classes. As a treatment, writing metacognitive strategies in the same length of time, same methods and same materials were taught to all participants in online and face-to-face classes and then through a questionnaire their attitudes were collected and finally with a post-test, the results were analyzed. The findings showed that the IELTS candidates in the online and face-to-face classes had totally the same rate of success in applying the strategies and got higher scores than their pre-test. The findings of this study can be highly useful for all IELTS candidates, trainers, and EFL writing learners.

Various types of focalization are important elements in creating suspense and surprise. This study finds use of narrative discourse analysis in order to discover the narrative affordances and limitations of internal focalization for creating suspense and surprise in Persian detective novels, specifically, Esmail Fassih’s The Falcon and the Owls . Duality (the existence of two temporal sets in the structure of the narrative), raising implicit questions in the first and other scenes of the novel, flashback, flashforward, different types of internal and external conflicts, spatial limitation of the focalizer and the suspense after the surprise are some of the affordances and limitations of the internal focalizer in creating suspense and surprise. In The Falcon and the Owls , the most significant strengths of the internal focalizer are the extensive attention given to narrative affordances such as raising implicit questions in the first and other scenes of the novel as well as going back and forth in time; while its weaknesses include giving insufficient attention to the tactic of multiple internal focalization, paying unnecessary attention to unimportant omissions and omitting important events.

This study focuses on complexity matching and lexical matching to investigate speech convergence in the conversations of bilingual Persian-English speakers in three language conditions namely Persian, English, and mixed in the context of lingua receptiva as an attempt to investigate such matching mechanisms between a Latin-based language and a non-Latin-based language. Complexity matching investigates convergence in terms of the hierarchical temporal structure of human speech while lexical matching explores convergence in terms of the frequency occurrence of the matched lemmas. For this purpose, 14 master’s students from the Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz majoring in English language conversed with one another in dyadic groups in three language conditions each of which had its own topic namely movies, music, and books. In complexity matching, Allan Factor analysis in terms of multiscale clustering of onset events was considered. In lexical matching, the focus was on the distribution of all lemmas and matched lemmas and the possible correlation between the two. The results revealed a gradual increase in Allan Factor log-log plots in relation to the longer timescales that correspond with discourse patterns for complexity matching. For lexical matching, the positive correlation between all lemmas and matched lemmas (r<sub>s = .607) suggested that as participants talked to each other more, they unconsciously tried to match their psychological perceptions with each other more. This suggests that speech convergence is vigorous in both bilingual and monolingual interactions.

Metaphor shapes our language as well as our thoughts by grounding the concepts related to our body within an experiential framework in which we can accommodate abstract concepts. Being aware of their underlying structure and mastering them are believed to be integral in developing metaphoric competence and communicative competence in a second language. Body-related metaphors are among the prevalent, yet under-researched metaphors of Persian that can pose substantial challenges for foreign learners of Persian. This study explores the body-related metaphor constructions utilizing Lakoff and Johnson’s conceptualizations in Persian language that can be problematic for learners of Persian. It was found that the Persian body metaphors are relatively rich and pervasive. In many cases, Persian speakers tend to use different metaphors as a kind of hyperbole to show the repetition and/or significance of a phenomenon or concept (both negatively and positively). It was also suggested that the primary function of metaphors in Persian could be explained based on the narrowing and expanding of meaning. The findings suggested that while systematicity is universal, there are also differences among the metaphor structures cross-linguistically and cross-culturally. The results could also provide another evidence for cognitivists’ claim that the conceptual system by which we understand and communicate (about/with) the world around us is mostly metaphorical. Finally, the significance and implications of studies of this nature for the learning and teaching of Persian as a second/foreign language were discussed.

Stress and anxiety might be destructive factors in the learning or teaching journey. Enough research is required to overcome the difficulties and understand the depth of these problems. The aim of the current study was twofold: 1) to design and validate a scale for evaluating English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instructors’ apprehension sources and, 2) to understand the relationship between apprehension and instructors’ gender. The module consists of four factors, including, organizational, attitudinal, L2-related factors, and classroom management. A 34-item scale on a 5-point Likert scale was developed. The scale was distributed between 100 EFL instructors from English institutions in Shiraz, Iran and the score of 700 students related to each teacher was used for analysis.  The questionnaires were examined with two other experts to guarantee the content validity of the scales and descriptive and inferential statistics were calculated. The reliability of the scale was estimated by Cronbach's alpha. The correlation coefficient was also used to demonstrate the relationship between students' overall achievement scores and their instructor's apprehension scale. Independent t-test and Pearson correlation test were used to recognize the meaningful relationship between apprehension and instructor’s gender. The results showed that the scale was adequate with empirical data. Moreover, the value of correlation coefficient indicated an inverse relationship between apprehension and gender. This implies that apprehension can impede learning in both genders. However, women’s apprehension is more than men. The findings can help instructors to enhance their personality and welfare for more effective education.

This study explored how much of the time Iranian EFL teachers partake in constant expert turn of events (CPD) activities and how powerful these activities were in improving their instructing techniques. The current review is meant to investigate the view of Iranian EFL instructors about CPD, additionally, various kinds of CPD activities for example CELTA/DELTA courses that they liked, and explored how frequently Iranian EFL educators partake in the accompanying CPD activities. The members were 55 EFL instructors educating at various language establishments in Tehran and Karaj city. The information was gathered utilizing a three-segment online overview. The survey had been arranged in light of a 5 point-Likert scale and had shipped off members by email. To address the review's exploration questions, enlightening and inferential insights were used. For quantitative investigation, the information was at first placed into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Then, at that point, utilizing enlightening measurable methodologies, different insights for the information were registered and summed up. The discoveries of this quantitative review uncovered that English educators take part in an assortment of CPD activities. The discoveries of the review have suggestions for explicit activities that might be impetuses in building uplifting perspectives towards other CPD activities for EFL educators.

This paper examined impoliteness strategies used by characters and their resulting reactions in five American comedy series. Drawing on Culpeper’s models (1996 & 2003), the comedy series were watched several times with one month interval to make sure that the impolite utterances and their reactions were put in the correct categories. The results of the study revealed that sarcasm was the most frequently used strategy among other strategies, and male and female characters were not distinct in using this strategy. However, male characters exploited the bald on record strategy more than their female counterparts. One striking result was the frequent use of offensive reactions by male actors. The reasons behind the variable use of these strategies are twofold. First, impoliteness is used as a tool to show off the power of the male characters. Second, using impoliteness strategies in comedy series reflect the entertaining role of sarcasm used by the actors.