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EFL teachers’ professional identity is a multi-dimensional and complicated concept. It is influenced by many other issues in the educational context such as reflective practice. This study intended to explore the relationship between professional identity and reflectivity of Iranian EFL teachers. It also aimed to examine how high and low reflective teachers perceive the professional identity components. The participants were 89 EFL teachers teaching at three universities in Shiraz, Iran. Their selection was based on convenience sampling. The participants were asked to fill out two questionnaires including teacher professional identity questionnaire (Liou, 2008) and teacher reflectivity questionnaire (Akbari et al., 2010). Pearson product correlation coefficient revealed that there was a positive relationship between EFL teachers’ professional identity and reflectivity. Furthermore, the findings of regression analysis indicated that reflectivity could predict EFL teachers’ professional identity. Furthermore, the participants were categorized into two high and low reflective groups. Two groups were interviewed to examine the professional identity perceptions used by high and low reflective teachers. The thematic analysis showed that high reflective teachers used and implemented much more professional identity components in their teaching practice in comparison to the low reflective teachers.

The current mixed-method research aimed to investigate the effects of self-constructs on self-regulation. To this end, a number of 127 Iranian EFL learners were chosen randomly as the sample of the study. To collect data, semi-structured interviews were designed. Also, correlation analysis and regression analysis were run on the data. The results of interview data suggested that motivated learners who reported self-regulation tended to display positive visualization of their ideal L2 self and self-efficacy beliefs. Besides, the result of correlation analysis indicated that ideal L2 self had stronger association with self-efficacy beliefs than with self-regulation, suggesting that it is necessary to hold positive beliefs towards language learning in order to visualize oneself as a proficient and successful language user. Of the two self-constructs, self-regulation turned out to be most strongly associated with self-efficacy followed by ideal L2 self indicating that what characterizes self-regulated learners is that their levels of self-efficacy is higher compared to those who are not. Finally, the result of regression analysis revealed that self-efficacy and, to the lesser extent, ideal L2 self were found as direct predictors of self-regulation. It seems unlikely to be a motivated learner without the actual beliefs in ones’ ability and a strong actualization of one’s image as a successful language user.   

Within the realm of lexis, the area of collocation is of prime importance to producing natural-sounding language for anyone learning a foreign language. This study aimed at investigating the effects of two modes of sentence writing versus multiple-choice test practice manipulation on Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ lexical collocation learning. For this purpose, to ensure the homogeneity of the participants, Preliminary English Test (PET) was administered to 87 students studying English at two English institutes of Ofoghhaye Nour and Nourmahdi in Roudsar, Guilan, through which 60 students were selected as the target participants. They were intermediate students with the age range between 17 and 23. They were then divided into two equal comparison groups: Sentence-writing Group (SRG) and Multiple-choice Group (MCG). A piloted pretest of lexical collocation was administered to both groups. Then both groups underwent a 7-session treatment. SRG was treated by the virtue of sentence-writing practice for the target collocations, and MCG was instructed through recognition practice, here multiple-choice practice. After the treatment period, the same version of lexical collocation test was administered to both groups as posttest to examine the effectiveness of the treatments. The results of paired-samples and independent samples t-tests indicated that both groups had collocation gains but the effectiveness of multiple-choice test manipulation on learners’ lexical collocation outweighed that of the sentence-writing mode of test practice manipulation. The implications and recommendations were also presented.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of psychological factors on teachers` attitudes regarding technology use. To this purpose, such factors as ‘perceived usefulness’, ‘perceived ease of use’, ‘trialability’, ‘subjective norms’, and ‘attitude’ were investigated. The participants of the study were high school English language teachers in Shiraz, who were selected through stratified sampling as a representative sample of the available population. In order to assess the extent of the effect of each factor, five questionnaires were administered. Then, the elicited data were analyzed by means of path analysis. The obtained results revealed that ‘perceived ease of use’ was affected by ‘subjective norms’, and ‘trialability’ influenced the attitude of teachers about using technology in their teachings. The results also showed that the most influential factor on attitude was ‘trialability’. Furthermore, the results displayed that ‘perceived usefulness’ had a significant effect and subjective norms had an indirect but meaningful effect on the teachers’ attitude. The findings of the study have implications for school administrators and teachers to use them in their planning and instruction and, as a result, boost the learning environment.

Most studies on Written Corrective Feedback (WCF) have focused either on ESL or EFL teachers’ beliefs and practices. However, it is still not known how teachers who teach second or foreign languages other than English will provide information on the learners’ written language production. To bridge the gap in the literature, this current study reports on an interview study investigating nine university lecturers’ beliefs and their actual practices about WCF on an assignment done by the third-year exchange student of Thai as a foreign language (TFL). Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through feedback tasks and semi-structured interviews. The findings indicated that there was alignment between teachers’ beliefs of their WCF practice and their actual practice in terms of types of WCF and feedback techniques. However, the amount of feedback provided and the teachers’ time constraint, not the level of students’ ability as they thought, appeared to be the reasons for these misalignments of TFL teachers’ beliefs and practices

One skill that student teachers need to develop during their academic studies is the capacity to produce accurate and well-organized texts. This study reports on the comparative impact of metalinguistic feedback (MLF), teacher interactive feedback (TIF(, and the peer-feedback (PF) on the accuracy and organization of postgraduate ELT student teachers’ writing. The participants were 57 postgraduate students who were recruited from a population of 70 postgraduate students, in three classes, that were randomly assigned as the MLF group, the TIF group, and the PF group based on the focus of the presentation and the feedback type they would receive during the 14 session treatment. A hybrid process-oriented and genre-based methodology was employed to teach the identical teaching materials to all the groups with a focus on grammatical features and relevant grammatical exercises in the MLF group,   on reflective and interactive negotiation of form and meaning in the TIF group, and on individual peer-assessment of the peer’s writing in the PF group. The results revealed significantly higher levels of accuracy among the MLF group with no significant difference in the organization of the groups’ writing. The findings underscore the role of MLF in enhancing accuracy. 

The present study explored the effects of three forms of reading-based L2 vocabulary tasks on learning and retention of 40 target words by Iranian intermediate and advanced male English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. To this end, 176 EFL learners were randomly selected and assigned to three experimental and one control condition across two levels of intermediate and advanced proficiency levels. The participants in the experimental conditions read 8 texts including 40 target words and performed word-focused (WF) tasks, oral reproduction (OR) plus summary writing (SW) tasks, and WF plus OR vocabulary tasks incorporating target words according to their task designation. The results of two-way MANOVA and Scheffe’s post-hoc test demonstrated that while all three experimental conditions significantly outperformed the control group in terms of learning and retention of target words, the WF plus OR task was found to be the most effective condition. The results are justified in light of Laufer and Hulstjin’s (2001) Involvement Load Hypothesis, Nation and Webb’s (2011) Technique Feature Analysis, the Skill Acquisition Theory, and Swain’s (1985) Output Hypothesis. The study concluded with pedagogical implications for language teachers and materials developers with regard to including both word-focused and meaning-oriented L2 vocabulary tasks in language classes and language textbooks.

The use of storytelling on students’ first language literacy and development were extended to foreign/second language learning, and a large number of researchers interested in the field attempted to use storytelling and story reading strategies in teaching oral language skills to foreign/second language learners. Despite the existence of a number of studies on the impact of storytelling on English language skills, the number of studies on the impact of storytelling and story reading approaches on pre- intermediate EFL learners’ oral language production and comprehension seems to be scanty. To do so, a quasi- experimental study was employed. Ninety Iranian language learners, from 6 intact classes (each consisting of 15), were divided to three sub-groups: storytelling, story reading and conventional groups. To one group, stories were told, one group only read the stories, and the third group received no stories. The data were collected through researcher developed oral language production and comprehension tests. One-way-ANOVA test and three independent samples-tests based on Bonferroni test were employed to analyze the data and locate the sources of the differences. Findings revealed that storytelling outperformed story reading groups on both production and comprehension tests. Story reading group outperformed the conventional group. It can be concluded telling and reading stories are effective techniques for improving EFL learners’ oral language production and recognition.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of oral and written contextualization of collocation teaching on the learning and long-term retention of semantically semitransparent collocations by Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 65 students were selected from a cohort of students who were studying English at an English language institute in Sanandaj, Iran. They were randomly divided into two groups based on whether they would receive oral and written contextualization. Then, each group was further subdivided into two groups based on whether they would receive instruction on the concept of semantic transparency, yielding two experimental groups each including 16 learners as the Written Practice Group plus and minus instruction on the concept of semantic transparency, two experimental groups as the Oral Practice Group plus and minus instruction on the concept of semantic transparency, including 16 and 17 learners, respectively. Their initial general English proficiency was measured through the Preliminary English Test (PET), and they were pretested on semitransparent collocations through a researcher-made collocation test. Finally, two equivalent researcher-made collocation tests were used to measure the participants’ learning and retention on the immediate and delayed posttests. The results of two-way ANOVAs revealed that the oral group outperformed the written group on the immediate and delayed posttests and the plus transparency instruction groups in each modality (oral and written) group outperformed the minus transparency instruction groups. The interpretations of the findings and their pedagogical implications have been discussed.

In translation, choosing appropriate equivalent is essential to convey the right message from source-text to target-text, and one of the issues that may have a determinative role in appropriate equivalent choice is the semantic prosody (SP) behavior of words and the relation existing between the SP of a word and semantic senses (i.e. negativity, positivity or neutrality) of its collocations in the context. This research explored the impact of Iranian translator trainees' semantic prosody knowledge on the appropriate selection of equivalents in translation. The probable influence of proficiency level or fields of study on the appropriate selection of equivalents with respect to SP was concentrated as well. To fulfill the aims of the study, a translation test including a number of near-synonym pairs with different SPs was administered among participants with different fields of study as well as different proficiency levels. Findings were analyzed based on Sinclair's (1996) hypothesis of SP as well as Stubbs' (1995) model of SP classification. The study showed where there is more than one equivalent of a word in another language, having the knowledge and being aware of the conditions of semantic prosody is necessary to select the appropriate, accurate equivalents and thus to convey the exact message from a source text to the target one. The results also revealed that proficiency level and field of study among language learners can have an influence on choosing appropriate equivalents with respect to SP. The findings of the present study can be beneficial for the instructors and learners in both fields of translation and Teaching English as a Foreign Language to improve equivalent choice appropriateness. Also, this study by highlighting the essential role of semantic prosody in selecting appropriate equivalents can be beneficial to dictionary compilers to include semantic prosody behaviors in the definition and information of words.

The focus of the present study was to explore the effect of self-directed learning method on Iranian EFL students’ writing achievement in two levels of language proficiency (pre-intermediate and intermediate). It also attempted to find out if there was any significant difference between two groups of learners, control and experimental, in each level regarding their development of writing skill. In order to reach this goal, 30 male EFL learners that were selected based on random sampling, participated in this study. After the treatment was over, both groups in each level were given the post-test, the results of which were compared with pre-test results. Then, an independent sample t -test was run to find the effectiveness of two approaches to detect the differences among the means of the two groups in each level. The results of the present research indicated that the self-directed learning method had significant effects on the pre-intermediate and intermediate students’ performance of English writing ability. The results also indicated that there was a significant difference between the two groups of learners in each level regarding their development of English writing ability.

Despite its direct relevance to second/foreign language learning, quality of life has been a neglected area within Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research. The present study sought to investigate the relationship between quality of life factors and speaking skill as one of the most challenging parts of L2 learning. To this end, an adapted version of life quality questionnaire originally devised by the World Health Organization (WHO) was administered to 100 female intermediate Iranian EFL learners. In addition, 30 of the participants were randomly selected to take part in follow-up semi-structured interviews which asked why the respondents felt the way they reported. The analysis of data obtained from questionnaire and interviews revealed that although all the four domains of life quality namely physical, psychological, social, and environmental domains had impact on the speaking ability of the participants, a number of facets in physical and psychological domains were more influential. Furthermore, the statistical Pearson correlation analysis demonstrated a positive correlation between life quality factors dominating learner’s success in speaking tasks. The findings of this study have implications for teacher educators and educational decision makers in bringing about higher levels of speaking ability and Quality Of Life (QOL) among English language learners.

Many studies have examined the effect of different approaches to teaching grammar including explicit and implicit instruction. However, research in this area is limited in a number of respects. One such limitation pertains to the issue of construct validity of the measures, i.e. the knowledge developed through implicit instruction has been measured through instruments which favor the recipients of explicit instruction. The present study expands on the previous studies by exploring the effectiveness of explicit and implicit instructions through administering a timed GJT and an untimed GJT. Data were collected from three different groups: (a) the explicit group was presented with rules of verb complementation, (b) the implicit group received visually enhanced texts, and (c) the control group received no instruction of the target feature. The results of the mixed between-within subjects ANOVA test revealed that the learners in explicit group outperformed the learners in implicit and control groups in post-tests and delayed post-tests even in the case of the implicit measure. Furthermore, the results indicated the more durable effects of explicit instruction compared with implicit instruction. Taken together, the study provided evidence for the efficiency of explicit teaching compared to implicit teaching in the context of L2 development.

This study sought to investigate the problems and challenges of the current state of teaching translation in post-graduate studies. In so doing, it used a content analysis design within a qualitative method. The participants consisted of 20 (10 males and ten females) translation teachers who were selected through purposive sampling. To collect the required data, a semi-structured interview was used in the form of individual and focus group interviews. To analyze interview data, the content of transcribed interviews was qualitatively analyzed by the researcher to identify the common themes and categories in them, based on an exploratory theme-based approach. The results of the thematic analysis of interview data led to the identification of some problems and challenges including students’ lack of willingness to learn translation, the emphasis on practical elements in teaching translation, lack of an effective teaching translation program, students’ demotivation, and so on. Moreover, a program consisting of five steps was suggested for using technology in teaching translation in post-graduate studies in Iran. The findings have some implications for translation teachers and students, and authorities.

In the present technology era, a new trend of using social media or social networking sites (SNSs) has been developed. Social media has a lot to offer when it comes to education in general and second language acquisition (SLA) in particular. This study aimed at investigating the impact of Telegram, as an available social network, on learning L2 vocabulary by Iranian EFL beginners. To achieve this aim, a quasi-experimental research design was used. Thirty one Iranian students, aged 10-14, were selected through the convenience sampling method. The teacher taught English vocabulary to the participants in two ways: for four weeks by using Telegram and for another four weeks through the traditional face-to-face classroom instruction. Comparison of the scores obtained from words taught through Telegram and the scores of the traditionally-taught lexical items gave rise to the conclusion that learning vocabulary through the social network was more effective than the traditional approach. This study could help the teachers and material developers to consider incorporation of technology and common applications in language classes for the purpose of L2 vocabulary acquisition.