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Nowadays computers are increasingly being incorporated into school curriculums and serious games are occupying the educational games markets. This article addressed the integration of serious games as tools for learning and teaching English in Iranian schools to zero-beginner students. An experiment was concluded using Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) to investigate the effectiveness of using serious games; namely, Mingoville English as an educational aid and also to examine parents, students and instructors’ attitudes towards using serious games. To this end, 60 female students were chosen and divided into two groups. The control group was taught in the conventional way and the experimental group received the educational aiding material Mingoville, a web-based serious game program, as the treatment. The results of the analyses revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group as the method of teaching was changed. The study also showed the willingness of children, their parents, and teachers toward using such games. It can be concluded that using serious games such as Mingoville can be regarded as an effective tool in teaching English to Iranian EFL children at schools and language institutes. The study can benefit teachers and heads of institutes to add serious games as aiding instructional materials to their English classes.

This study reports on the development and validation of a questionnaire for exploring the different types of EFL teachers’ possible selves. First, a theoretical framework behind possible selves theory and its types was cultivated through an extensive review of the related literature and content analysis of 24 transcribed semi-structured interviews with ELT experts. Second, the questionnaire was developed and validated through collecting three types of evidence: content, reliability and construct. Content validity was insured by submitting the questionnaire to expert judgment, and Cronbach’s alpha was checked to measure the internal consistency reliability of the scale and its subscales. Finally, confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses as well as SEM were used to estimate the construct validity of the instrument administered to 380 EFL teachers. The results indicated that the questionnaire was both a valid and reliable measure of EFL teachers’ possible selves and the resultant model hypothesized based on the data collected from the questionnaire enjoyed acceptable fitness indices. The model of EFL teachers’ possible selves (L2 selves) consists of four types including ideal, ought-to, actual and feared selves. The paper is concluded by presenting the different senses of selves within each type which together constitute the whole model of L2 self-development and how the model can be used in future studies.

The present study aimed toassess the target and present reading comprehension needs and abilities of Iranian medical students with different levels of Englishlanguage proficiency. A total of 283 medical students and 23 ESP instructors were chosen through cluster sampling. The data collection instruments included the Persian version of Atai and Nazari’s (2011) needs analysis questionnaire and a 40-item language proficiency test. The obtained results indicatedthat ‘general vocabulary’and ‘medical terminology’were considered ‘important’ in facilitating the comprehension of medical texts. In addition, the findings revealed that medical students need to improve all reading sub-skills. Furthermore, the respondents’ perceptions were significantly different with regard to students’ target needs and present abilities in reading comprehension. Finally, there was no statistically significant difference in students’ target and present needs and abilities across different levels of language proficiency. The findings have potentialimplications for the improvement of medical EAP courses.

Placing non-native speakers of English into appropriate classes involves mapping placement test scores onto proficiency levels based on predetermined cut scores. However, studies on how to set boundaries for different levels of proficiency have been lacking in the language testing literature. A top-down approach to standard setting in which a panel of experts set cut scores has dominated the typical standard setting procedure. A less utilized approach is to proceed bottom-up by clustering learners based on test scores. The purpose of this study was to fill this gap by examining Education Testing Services (ETS)’s mapping of TOEFL® iBT Test scores to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) levels. The study examined TOEFL® iBT score data from ICNALE (International Corpus Network of Asian Learners of English) and conducted optimal Kernel Density Estimation to find peaks in the distribution of test scores. In addition to the number of peaks, the local minima of the resulting distribution were chosen as boundaries of cut scores for delineating different ability groups. This method of separating scores, also known as contrasting groups, finds clusters of test takers based on maximum differences in scores. The results showed that ETS’ guide for cut scores linking to CEFR levels was comparable to Kernel Density Estimation with some exceptions, namely two out of three cut scores were found to be similar. Implications are discussed in terms of test-centered versus examinee-centered method of standard setting and the need to consider the demographics of the examinee population in determining cut scores.

The relationship between identity and language learning has attracted the scholars` attention in the fields of second language acquisition (SLA) with considerable focus on social and cultural dimensions of language learning. However, relatively little research has been devoted to examining the identity construction of language learners in virtual communities of practice despite the global trend of foreign language instruction. Consequently, the current mixed methods classroom-based study investigated whether the implementation of intercultural movie clips in virtual communities of practice could contribute to social and cultural identity improvement of participants in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context. To achieve this goal, two intact classes in an institute were assigned to experimental and control group, each containing thirty EFL learners. This study was implemented on the pre-test post-test equivalent-group design. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative analysis, using two questionnaires, and a semi-structured interview, the results indicated that positive changes took place in social and cultural identity of the participants. Moreover, by getting access to new social, cultural and linguistic resources and as a result the adoption of new identities, some special features such as fewer psychological barriers to understanding others, increasing courage to accept new norms, and feelings of unity and equity were obtained by the learners.   

For many English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, working contingently with language learners' problematic learner contributions in classroom interaction remains a challenge. Drawing on conversation analysis methodology and using sociocultural and situated learning theories, this longitudinal case study traces the progressional changes in one Iranian English language teacher's repairing practices (his orientation to repairable, repair completion type and trajectory) along with the changing impacts of different organizational patterns of repair and interactional awareness on learning opportunities. The data material consists of video recordings of EFL oral classroom interactions (11 lessons) and reflective conversations (seven sessions) between the researcher and the participant teacher at one private language institute in Iran over a period of six months, in two phases. Qualitative results from the first (descriptive) phase indicated that the teacher's provision of repair in meaning-oriented contexts was generally convergent while in form-oriented ones divergent. The qualitative changes revealed the teacher's increasing attention to lexical errors and use of self-repair types, particularly in form-oriented contexts and the teacher's progress in interactional awareness including identification of contexts and repair organization, use of metalanguage and critical self-evaluation This study makes a contribution to conversation analytic research and our understanding of English teacher professional development.

Despite appealing notion of research based language teaching, we argue that scientific way of conducting research on English language teaching (ELT) is problematic since it ignores language learners’ subjectivity, instructors’ professionalism, practitioners’ culture and learning particularity. Positivists pedagogical arguments neglect the social nature of meaning making instructional practices and emphasize objectivity and measurability criteria which lead to instrumental rationality. A critical discourse analysis of practical arguments proposed in pedagogical implications section of empiricist research articles revealed that positivists assumptions manifest themselves as the rules and regulations of carrying out scientific research. These yardsticks give power to the neoliberal tendencies to present reasons as premises of arguments to restrict and control the agency of ELT teachers as well as to deprofessionalize them. Since there is a close affinity between this paradigm world views and neoliberal policies, positivists research articles lead to the domination of neoliberalism on TEFL discourse. This indicates the ideological function of the article genre and awareness of that is crucial for the sake of democratic and fair education.

Acquiring vocabulary, as a significant and challenging part of language learning process, has always been consistent with reading. In this study, the researchers examined the effect of enhanced extensive reading on EFL learners’ incidental acquisition of English vocabulary, with specific focus on phrasal verbs. Twenty five homogenized participants were selected and divided into two groups of A (experimental group) and B (control group), with 12 and 13 students in each group respectively (N=25). The experimental group received enhanced extensive reading instruction, while the control group received unenhanced extensive reading instruction. After administering a pre-test and a post-test, collecting data and statistical analysis, the results revealed that the learners who received enhanced extensive reading outperformed the ones who received unenhanced extensive reading instruction.