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EFL learners’ ability to use advanced and varied vocabulary is a crucial issue in writing performance. This study aimed to investigate the effect of writing task type on lexical diversity and sophistication. The relationship between lexical sophistication and lexical diversity in the narrative, argumentative, and descriptive task types written by upper-intermediate EFL learners was also explored. To this end, 70 EFL upper -intermediate learners, enrolled in advanced writing tasks, were selected as the participants. They undertook narrative, descriptive, and argumentative writing tasks in a counterbalanced way. Then, Vocabulary Diversity (Voc-D) and Measure of Textual Lexical Diversity (MTLD) were used to measure lexical diversity. Lexical sophistication was measured using CELEX log frequency and Beyond 2000 Words (K3+). The writings were pasted into Coh-Metrix measure MTLD, Voc-D, and CELEX. VocabProfiler was also used to measure K3+ of the writings. In lieu of the purposes of the study, the research design involved repeated measures and correlation. Using Multivariate Analysis of Variance and Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient, the findings revealed that lexical diversity varied significantly across the three writing tasks. The highest scores of MTLD and Voc-D belonged to the narrative, argumentative, and descriptive writing tasks, respectively. Moreover, EFL learners used more advanced words in argumentative task type according to the measurement of CELEX and K3+ level words. However, learners' lexical sophistication in narrative and descriptive writings did not emerge as significantly different when measured by K3+. The significant positive relationship between lexical sophistication and lexical diversity was evident in all three task types.

Applying metacognitive strategies leads to better listening comprehension and optimal use of learners’ other cognitive skills. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the metacognitive strategies that non-Iranian Persian learners employ to comprehend oral texts and whether gender and mother tongue have any effect on it. This research is a field study in which after calculating the item reliability of the questionnaire, data were collected quantitatively through Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) developed by Vandergrift, Mareschal, and Tafaghodtari (2006). One hundred nineteen adult Persian learners from eight countries participated in this study. Data analysis indicated that non-Iranian Persian learners use problem-solving, direct attention, planning-evaluation, personal knowledge, and mental translation strategies respectively. Furthermore, the findings showed that male Persian learners employ metacognitive strategies more than female learners, even though this difference was not very significant, and that mother tongue has no effect on the use of these strategies. Research findings will help Persian language teachers to take into consideration each group of learners’ preferences and extent of their use, as well as variables such as gender and nationality.

This study analyzed the requirement of English education for arts students and the language needs for arts administrators in the workplace in Taiwan. A total of 83 participants, comprising 37 graduate students majoring in the arts and 46 company administrators in art-related jobs, responded to a questionnaire requesting their opinions concerning English education. The results indicated that the language skills that the students required were similar to those that company administrators used in the workplace. Reading was the skill that company administrators used the most, and speaking was the least used skill. However, among the 30 language tasks, the comparison of mean scores indicated a discrepancy in needs between the students and company administrators. The arts students required sufficient vocabulary and adequate reading practice, because they were required to take English proficiency tests as a graduation requirement and their course materials included English articles and journal papers. Regarding the company administrators, introducing artwork and presenting products were crucial because they must sell artwork. The results can serve as fundamental information for reforming and preparing English curricula and courses tailored to the needs of arts students in Taiwan.

Group Dynamic Assessment (G-DA), introduced by Poehner (2009), applies mediation through concurrent and cumulative approaches. This study investigated the effect of the two approaches on Iranian homogeneous and heterogeneous EFL learners' auditory memory in listening tasks. Eighty female intermediate EFL learners were chosen as the participants of the study. They were assigned to two groups of forty homogeneous and forty heterogeneous learners. Then, each group was divided into two experimental groups with twenty participants in each. Homogeneous and heterogeneous participants were assessed through both concurrent and cumulative approaches. To find out the main and interaction effect of concurrent and cumulative G-DA and homogeneity and heterogeneity of EFL learners, the post-test scores of the participants were analysed through a two-way ANOVA.  The results indicated that G-DA approaches on the one hand and homogeneity and heterogeneity of EFL learners on the other, had both significant main and interaction effect on EFL learners' auditory memory.  For the independent effect of both approaches, a one-way ANOVA was also used. The results indicated that cumulative G-DA had more significant effect than concurrent one on heterogeneous EFL learners' auditory memory. ANOVA analysis also proved that the two approaches did not differ in their effect on homogenous learners.  

The Persian translation of the emotion regulation strategies inventory (Gross & John, 2003) was validated among Iranian EFL teachers. The predictive power of variables, i.e. educational background, working experience, gender, and age was also appraised. To do so, 250 EFL teachers with at least five-year teaching experience at the universities of two states, Isfahan and Fars, were invited to take part in the study. The non-random convenient sampling technique was then adopted. Filling out the inventory was done after the class time. The results of the principal component analysis (varimax rotation) verified the original two-factor model. The multiple regression analysis done by AMOS software also revealed that demographic variables could significantly affect teachers’ emotion regulation, though their effect in the present sample was small (R2=0.08 and R2=0.02). The results also suggested that the teachers disagreed about the use of expressive suppression in their classes (m=3.28) and were rather undecided as to the use of cognitive reappraisal in their teaching (m=4.49).

This study analyzes official public talks by two Iranian presidents—Hassan Rouhani and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—within the framework of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS). The study focuses on discoursal features in addresses of these presidents to the United Nations General Assembly at the micro-level (25 discursive devices) and the macro-level (positive self-representation and negative other-representation). The investigation attempts to determine whether significant differences existing in the micro and macro structures of these political discourses may be reflective of such factors as dissimilarities in political stance, world view and personal background. Combining quantitative and qualitative elements of analysis, the study demonstrates that consensus , illustration , hyperbole and polarization were used more frequently, whereas lexicalization and vagueness less frequently by Rouhani than by Ahmadinejad. At the semantic macro-level, Rouhani employed more positive self-representation s and Ahmadinejad relied stronger on negative other-representation .   Results are interpreted within the CDS framework of political discourse.  

The study compared the pedagogical effects of early versus delayed Form Focused Instruction (EFFI vs. DFFI), both subsumed under Isolated Form Focused Instruction (IFFI), on the achievement of three target structures with relative degrees of complexity by monolinguals and bilinguals. Six intact Gilaki-Persian learners of English as L3 and six groups of Persian learners of English as L2 participated in the study. They were all male beginning learners of English in Iranian public high schools who followed a pretest-treatment-posttest procedure. Four groups (grade 7) received instruction for the simple structure; four other groups (grade 8) were taught the moderately complex structure and four groups (grade 9) were exposed to the highly complex structure instruction. Within each grade, one group of Gilaki and one group of Persian natives received EFFI while their native counterparts benefited DFFI. The overall results revealed that when the method of instruction was the same, Gilaki natives outperformed Persian natives both in the post and delayed tests regardless of complexity. The groups that received the simple structure via EFFI did better than their native counterparts instructed via DFFI in both the post and delayed tests though a significant difference was only observed in the latter test. In contrast, DFFI groups outperformed their native counterparts taught via EFFI on the fairly and highly complex structures in the post and delayed posttests. Further analysis of the data demonstrated that DFFI contributes better to the durability of gain effects for more complex structures regardless of linguistic background of the learners.

The Online Interaction Learning Model was founded on constructivist learning theory. It is an input-process-output model based on moderating variables, the inputs, which includes all of the characteristics of the courses, the instructors, EFL learners, and the technology. Due to the fact that the studies considering the pivotal role of the Online Interaction Learning Model are scarce in number, this study was conducted to validate a newly-designed questionnaire via exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Two hundred fifty-nine Iranian university and higher education institutes EFL learners were asked to participate. The newly-developed questionnaire consisted of 35 items measuring the five constructs of the Online Interaction Learning Model (Course materials, Instructor performance, Learning practices, Student-to-student interaction, and Access to technology). The results from EFA, CFA, and reliability analyses revealed that the new questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument measuring Online Interaction Learning Model. Moreover, there was a significant positive correlation between each component of the Online Interaction Learning Model and EFL learners’ GPA as well as between the total Online Interaction Learning Model and student academic achievement. Male and female EFL learners’ scores on the online interaction learning model were quite different from each other.

This study sought to compare Iranian EFL novice and expert teachers regarding their professional knowledge at Iranian language institutes and universities. To achieve the aim of study, a questionnaire was developed based on the literature, the theoretical framework and the results of a qualitative study carried out by Yazdanpanah and Sahragard (2017). This questionnaire was administered to the whole sample of the study who was 200 Iranian EFL teachers from different genders and educational contexts. The participants were selected conveniently as going through random sampling was not possible. Based on the results of the exploratory factor analysis, six factors emerged under the main category of professional knowledge for Iranian EFL teachers. The findings of this study revealed that: (a) Iranian EFL expert teachers have higher levels of professional knowledge than Iranian EFL novice teachers (b) expert teachers have higher levels of knowledge about language and knowledge of language skills and components than novice teachers (c) expert and novice participants of this study are more or less similar in the modification they make in their teaching presentation, and d) there was not a significant difference between Iranian EFL expert teachers and Iranian EFL novice teachers due to knowledge of language teaching, knowledge of teaching methods and knowledge of language learning.

In English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and bilingual language classrooms, code-switching is widespread among teacher-student and student-student interactions; however, there seem to be few or no studies tracking the perceptions and practices of EFL learners toward code-switching. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify the perceptions and practices of high and low achievers toward teacher code-switching with focus on the possible limitations and benefits that it might have in language classrooms. For this purpose, the researchers used a qualitative design in the form of grounded theory. Accordingly, 11 high and 13 low achievers were interviewed individually and in focus groups. Further, the elicited responses were transcribed and codified using Straus and Corbin’s (1998) constant comparative method. In addition, for the purpose of validation, real observations of 10 university classes in different English courses were made.  The findings revealed 4 major themes and 26 categories for high and low achievers. Consequently, the findings implicated that code-switching was an advantageous tool at the disposal of English teachers.

 Juxtaposing the ubiquitous facets of mobile technology as everyware (Greenfield, 2010) and vocabulary as one of the most axial aspects of language learning (Bowles & Cogo, 2016; Schmitt & Schmitt, 2020) , besides the importance of considering learners’ attributes and needs (Taghizadeh, 2019) while developing a mobile vocabulary application (app), necessitates analyzing the relationship and impact of all these elements in a single structural model. To tackle the issue, first, via a mixed-methods design, the researcher developed a bespoke mobile application using the task model and the principles of agile methodology. and then investigated the impact of using the app on a sample of 62 Iranian EFL university students’ vocabulary recognition and recall, the results of which were published in two other articles. In this study, the researcher integrated the obtained data within a proposed structural model and assessed the model's fitness to investigate the interaction and interrelationship among the latent variables mentioned above. The results obtained from SEM-PLS analyses revealed that within the unified structural model, the learners’ preferences and needs were favorably influenced by their learning style orientation and technology savviness. Similarly, the findings verified the positive impact of considering learners’ preferences and needs during the agile app development lifecycle on the target participants’ vocabulary knowledge, encompassing vocabulary recognition and recall. Finally, the fitness of the proposed structural model was verified based on the criteria for model assessment mentioned by Sparks and Alamer (2022) . The SEM-PLS data analyses and the implications of the study are presented and discussed.

This study investigates the role structural priming plays in production of passive structures among Iranian EFL learners. In order to answer the research question, which asked whether structural priming effects result in an increase in the production of the target structure (i.e., passive structures), 60 Iranian EFL learners participated in the study. After taking the placement test, they were divided into four experimental and control groups, namely Experimental High-Proficiency, Experimental Mid-Proficiency, Control High-Proficiency, and Control Mid-Proficiency. Participants then took part in picture description sessions the results of which were subjected to a 2 x 2 analysis of variance. The results of the experiment showed that priming resulted in increased production of the target structure in question by experimental groups as compared with production by control groups. In addition, the results indicated that EFL level of proficiency made a significant difference in production of the target structures. It is believed that structural priming can be employed as an alternative technique for presenting certain grammatical structures