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T his study attempts to examine the amounts, purposes, and reasons for using L1 by teachers as well as the amounts and purposes of its use by students in English as foreign language classrooms through investigating two pre-intermediate classes of an English language institute in Iran. Among students with an age range of 16-25 years, eight male and female students were in one class and 16 were in the other class (N = 24). Two native Persian teachers with master's degrees in Teaching English as a Foreign Language participated in this study: One was 40 years old with 14 years of experience and the other one was 32 years old with nine years of experience. Eight 90-minute sessions of each teacher’s class were audio-recorded. Following that, the two teachers were interviewed to report on the reasons for which they used their first language. The findings obtained from the classroom audio transcriptions were analyzed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches through the lens of Activity Theory. Moreover, the teachers’ interviews were thematically analyzed and the results of these analyses indicated that the teachers and their students resorted to the first language as an important cognitive and pedagogical tool on different occasions wherever needed during their teaching. The findings also revealed that teachers in this study maintained that using the students’ first language supports second/foreign language learning and teaching processes in the pre-intermediate levels.

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.

Chomsky cannot help wondering at the fact that we, despite so vast evidence, have little knowledge about the obvious evidence. A good example, I think, is the child’s way of first language acquisition. A great many researchers have studied various aspects of child language acquisition at different stages of the child’ life and have brought to light many details of language development. However, it remains uncertain how the child can cope with this heavy task of language acquisition within the first two years of his life. Since its birth, the child begins acquiring the intonation, the sound, the phoneme, the word, the meaning, and the structure of the language, to which he is exposed so fast that it is beyond our imagination. Mind that the same child is unable to do the simplest addition or subtraction of numbers within the early years of life. Thus, the intriguing question for Chomsky is: How is it that the child can acquire the complex system of a language such as English, Turkish, Japanese, Chinese … very fast despite so little and often deficient linguistic input?

This paper discusses the use of Persian in comparison with Dari, a dialect of Persian language used in Kerman, one of the cities of Kerman Province located in southeast Iran. It is based on a random selection of 47 subjects from different sex, age, and occupational groups of Zoroastrian people with different levels of education in seven domains, i.e. family, friendship, neighborhood, transaction, education, government, and employment. In this study, the subjects were asked to determine which language they use in different domains on Likert’s 4-point scale. After collecting the data by the use of a questionnaire with 30 situations in the seven domains and analyzing them, the researcher concluded that there is a Persian-Dari diglossia in Zoroastrian speech community in which Dari functions as the Low language whereas Persian is the High one. As a matter of fact, Dari has been restricted to family domain and the young generation has lost it to a large extent.

Language teacher immunity has recently attracted the attention of the scholars interested in teacher psychology. Following the previous line of research in teacher psychology, the present study explored the immunity types among 260 Iranian EFL teachers working in schools and language institutes. Drawing on Hiver’s (2017) categorization, this study found that the participants were classified into productively and maladaptively immunized teachers through cluster analysis. It was also found that gender played a significant role, and female participants were more productively immunized than men. Regarding the role of teaching experience, it was found that EFL teachers’ immunity fluctuated in the late stages of their practice to a more fossilized, negative one. Regarding age differences, the results also suggested different immunity types among the participants of different age groups. The results implied that teacher education programs should enhance EFL teachers’ understanding of language teacher immunity as an important factor in their effectiveness and well-being as well as students’ achievement.

One of the important abilities of learners is to monitor their own learning process and take charge of their development. To this end and based on the correlational nature of the study design, total of 125 students (for the Winter semester of 2017) educating at Zanjan Universities (89 B.A. students of Islamic Azad University and 60 B.A. students of Payam-e-Noor University) were chosen as the statistical population. Using Cochran formula and stratified random sampling method (each university was considered as one separate strata), the sample size was determined as 108 (65 students educating at Islamic Azad University and 43 students educating at Payam-e-Noor University). To gather the information, Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope’s, Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale, Sternberg’s Thinking Styles Inventory, and Learner Autonomy Questionnaire (LAQ) developed by Zhang and Li were used. The results of K-S test showed that non-parametric test was liable to be used in order to study the research hypotheses. Using Spearman correlation coefficient, a relationship was found between autonomy and language anxiety among Iranian university students. The other research question was an attempt to determine if there was a relationship between learner autonomy and thinking style which was confirmed through the use of Spearman correlation coefficient. Ultimately, the association between language anxiety and thinking style was addressed through the use of Spearman test which confirmed this relationship. Findings of the current study suggest pedagogical implications for second or foreign language teaching and learning as well as textbook writers and curriculum designers.

This study investigates the benefits of e-collaborative and collaborative writing tasks on the perception of Iranian EFL learners in a process-oriented approach. The study involved 74 intermediate Iranian EFL students at Islamic Azad University, Isfahan Branch. They were divided into three groups by random assignment as two experimental groups and one control group. The experimental groups were required to perform their tasks in collaboration; only one of these two groups had access to the Telegram Application outside the classroom. The control group, however, followed the conventional method of learning how to write. The participants were required to write two journals during the course. They were asked to write about their understanding, attitude, and experience on the writing activity. There were 136 diary entries to be analyzed in order to discover the themes in them. These themes were literally the emerging concepts in the diary entries related to research question of the study about the participants’ perception. After the identification of these dominant themes, content analysis was performed to interpret the data. According to the results of the study, a high percentage of students’ satisfaction showed positive perceptions of e-collaborative activities, and they reported that the instructional implementation of an e-collaborative writing project with a five-stage writing process did assist EFL learners to accomplish a collaborative writing task.

This study embarked on investigating the effectiveness of teaching ESP vocabulary via flipped classroom on improving Iranian students’ vocabulary learning. In addition, the attitudes of ESP learners towards the use of flipped classroom were investigated. In this study, a quantitative procedure was followed to collect and analyze data . In so doing, 60 ESP participants studying English in Payame Noor University were selected non-randomly based on their performance on Oxford quick placement test. All the participants were divided into two equal groups consisting of 30 participants and a pretest was administered. The participants of the experimental group received instruction through flipped classroom. The control group received vocabulary instruction through the conventional method that was popular in the university. A posttest was given to the participants of both groups in order to check the students’ vocabulary learning. To investigate the students’ attitudes towards using flipped classroom, a 10-item questionnaire was distributed among the participants after the treatment phase of the study. The results of one-way MANOVA showed that implementing flipped classrooms has significant effects on Iranian students' vocabulary learning in ESP courses. Furthermore, the participants of the experimental group acknowledged that implementing flipped classrooms has positive effect on their attitude in ESP courses. The findings regarding the effectiveness of flipped classroom and its prospected implications in developing vocabulary learning can pave the way for better communication in an ESP context and community.

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.

Developing, exploring and standardizing digital game based learning for EFL and English for Specific Purposes (ESP), requires a thorough understanding of learning context, gaming elements, ludical manners, as well as features of virtual reality in a real-life and career like setting. Unlike some traditional scientific approaches that focuses only on individual systems separately as a dipped in fashion approach, digital game requires a platform for understanding game genres, games’ use and various kind of games in order to define game design characteristics, theories of learning in digital era and to expand the characteristics and patterns of CALL application combined with linguametric perspective for digital games. It is a means and umbrella term for combined framework for multidimetional advancements, research and practices from major areas of inquiry, namely applied linguistics, psychometrics, and edumetrics of inter, supra disciplinary perspectives and emotional intelligence which gives importance to this discussion and a need to implement, develop, blend and use positive features of various digital game types in a user friendly and massively online course platform worldwide.

Frequencies and discourse functions of grammatical subject types were investigated in a corpus of forty results and discussion sections selected from four disciplines (Applied Linguistics, Psychology, Chemistry, and Environmental Engineering). The results and discussion sections were selected from research articles that were published in 2008-2012 issues of prestigious high journals of the four disciplines. The results and discussion sections were analyzed for realizations and discourse functions of grammatical subject types adopting the taxonomy suggested by Ebrahimi (2014). The results suggested that the selections, frequencies and discourse functions of grammatical subject types were highly imposed by the macro functions of the results and discussion sections and the conventional rules of writing in the disciplines. One immediate implication for the outcome of this study is that writers and instructors need to keep in mind that they must be fully aware (and follow suit) of how the implementation of grammatical subjects are imposed and restricted by disciplinary conventions.

Listening is regarded as an interactive process involving decoding of information. This study was launched to find out the impact of bottom-up (BU) and top-down (TD)techniques on Iranian lower and upper intermediate learners’ listening comprehension.We selected a total of 120 participants in six intactclasses, three lower intermediate and three upper intermediate. The proficiency level of the groups was further verified and groups at each proficiency levelwere randomly assigned as aBUgroup who were engaged in BUactivities during the pre-listening stage of each lesson throughout the eight-session treatment, aTDgroup who performed TD activities, and a control group (CG)for whom no pre-listening attention focusing activities were used. The One-way and Two-way analysis of variance of the listening post-test scores indicated that the lower-intermediate BU group and the upper-intermediate TD group did significantly better compared to the other groups.The findings suggest thatBU processing activities were more effective atlower intermediatelevelwhile TD processing activities played a more facilitative role for upper intermediateparticipants.The findings support the interaction between proficiency level and information processing techniques and imply a number of pedagogical implications.