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Teaching grammar has always created some challenges for EFL teachers. Therefore, this study explored the effect of four scaffolding strategies as contextualizing, modeling, metacognitive scaffolding, and bridging on Iranian EFL students’ grammatical knowledge. Moreover, this study examined Iranian EFL learners’ attitudes towards scaffolding strategies. To fulfil the purpose of this study, 40 language learners were chosen based on convenience sampling as the participants of this study. They were both males and females between 20 to 30 years old divided into two groups as the control and experimental groups. After assuring the homogeneity of the students in terms of their English proficiency in general and grammatical knowledge in particular, a parallel achievement test was administered to both groups as the pre-test. Following that, as the treatment, scaffolding strategies were applied for the experimental group to teach grammar and a traditional way of teaching grammar for the control group. After running the classes, a parallel achievement test was administered to both control and experimental groups as the posttest. The data analysis revealed that the experimental group that received scaffolding strategies significantly outperformed in the grammar part compared to the control group which received a conventional way of teaching grammar. It is believed that utilizing scaffolding strategies can motivate learners and facilitate the tough task of grammar learning and thereby make teachers aware of their ability to obtain success in their teaching process.

Although a plethora of research endeavors have investigated the rhetorical structure of the Research Articles (RAs) through the lens of move analysis, Move Recycling (MR) across RA sections has remained unnoticed. The current study sought to bridge this gap by exploring cross-disciplinary variations in the recycling of the Objective move (research questions/hypotheses/purposes) across four conventional sections (Introduction, Method, Result, and Discussion) of RAs. To this end, 600 English RAs from four prestigious journals in six soft science disciplines, published between 2006 and 2018, were selected. The quantitative data analysis results revealed that the Objective move’s recycling was sensitive to the disciplinary variations and RA sections. That is, Economics RAs were the main platforms for recycling the Objective move, and Psychology RAs witnessed the least amount of its recycling. Moreover, Objective move recycling was observed most frequently in the Discussion sections and least frequently in the Method sections of RAs. In the study’s qualitative phase, the RA authors’ rationales for MR, which were received via email, underwent content analysis. Based on the recurrent themes in the RA authors’ responses, four main reasons for MR, including editorial policy, readers’ guidance, discipline conventions, and RA length, were identified. This study’s findings might provide a concise view of MR for researchers, teachers, and students in various disciplines. EAP instructors can raise students’ awareness of MR and encourage them to use it in their RAs as a comprehension facilitator.

This study examines conceptions of outsiders to the polity, focusing on the lexical items migrant(s), refugee(s), and exile(s) in both internet- and print-based sources. Drawing primarily on a subsection of the Genealogies Internet Corpus consisting of left-wing sources, I argue that left-wing politics is currently caught up in the rhetoric of the right and of mainstream institutions in society, largely reproducing the same discursive patterns even as it sets out to challenge them. Dominant patterns in left-wing Internet sources reveal, for example, that the economic migrant vs. political refugee distinction enforced by mainstream institutions remains largely intact, that the assumption of a “refugee crisis” unfolding in Europe is accepted at face value, and that the left is entangled in the same politics of labeling imposed by the right, reproducing designations such as “undocumented migrants” uncritically. Refugees and migrants, moreover, are represented as victims with no agency, are discussed in legal terms that serve to dehumanize them, and are repeatedly “quantified” as a homogenous and potentially problematic category. Acknowledging the contagious nature of dominant discourses and the difficulty of finding an alternative language with which to argue against established institutional rhetoric, the study further explores historical models that appear more consistent with the values espoused by left-wing politics today. It examines a subcorpus of modern English translations of ancient Greek texts such as Thucydides’ The Peloponnesian War and Herodotus’s Histories to demonstrate the viability of adopting a different conceptualization of refugees and other outsiders to the polity that may be drawn from classical antiquity—and/or from nineteenth- and early twentieth-century receptions of texts originating in classical antiquity—and the possibility of developing an alternative discourse with which to speak about migrants in the present.

Linguistic and semantic differences are some of the main problems of translating the Holy Qur’an into English. The present study highlights the problem of lexical gap and examines a number of terms- totally 117 in 110 verses- of the Holy Qur’an, including the referential meaning of ‘sin’ and their English translations. The researcher aimed to find the strategies applied by three translators and three machine translation systems (MSTs) and to compare them.  In this regard, five frequent and common terms – ‘اثم’, ‘جناح’, ‘سیئه’, ‘ذنب’, and ‘وزر’-were selected. The strategies proposed by Mollanazar (2009) were employed to fill the gap.  To do so, the English translations produced by three machine translation systems (MTSs), namely Google Translate, SDL Free Translation and Systranet were compared with three human translation by M.H. Shakir, A.Qaraei and T.B.Irving. The results revealed that in most verses, almost in six English translations, a generic term was used without any additional information to make the sense clearer. There was no noticeable difference between human and machine translations in applying the proposed strategies to fill the gap and make the English version more meaningful in terms of these apparently similar but contextually different terms. Thus, it seems that these differences were not focused on, while rendering these given verses to English. 

This study was particularly concentrating on TOEFL type (CBT vs. P&P) and computer anxiety as independent variables, and test takers' performance as the dependent variable. The two TOEFL types (Paper-and-Pencil and Computer-Based) were given to 40 participants using counter balancing. The interval between the two tests was two weeks. The reason behind choosing this interval and counter balancing was to prevent the practice effect. Three days after the test, the computer anxiety questionnaire was also taken by the same participants. The results showed a high correlation between the scores on the two versions of the test (P&P vs. CBT), also there was no significant difference between the performances of t, and finally, there was no significant interaction between test type (P & high-, low-, and mid-anxious candidates on the two versions of the tesP vs. CBT) and computer anxiety level (high- anxious, low-anxious, and mid-anxious).

This study investigated the interplay of working memory capacity and language proficiency in the context of vocabulary acquisition through word-focused tasks. The involvement load hypothesis served as a theoretical framework, positing that the degree of cognitive engagement influences lexical learning outcomes. A total of 100 EFL learners participated in this study. They were divided into distinct groups based on varying levels of working memory capacity, language proficiency, and aspects of working memory (phonological short-term memory and executive working memory). The participants engaged in receptive and productive vocabulary tasks under different experimental conditions, including reading-only, reading plus blank-fill, and reading-plus production. The results revealed intricate relationships between working memory capacity, language proficiency, and vocabulary acquisition. While the efficacy of the hypothesis varied across conditions, its predictions were influenced by the nuances of individual cognitive capabilities and language competence. Learners with higher proficiency levels acquired more lexical items, both receptively and productively.  Although the difference with the phonological short-term memory was not significant, executive working memory was more facilitative of lexical gain. Additionally, the role of input modality in shaping vocabulary learning outcomes was highlighted. That is, reading plus production and blank-fill tasks resulted in more lexical gain than reading-only tasks.  The study contributes to the theoretical understanding of vocabulary acquisition by underscoring the complex interplay of cognitive processes and language factors. These insights hold implications for foreign language pedagogy, guiding educators in crafting more effective interventions for enhancing both receptive and productive lexical knowledge.

The present study was carried out with the purpose of examining the role of metaphorical language in the critical discourse analysis (CDA) of political texts based on a modern framework postulated by Kövecses (2015). The corpus of the study consisted of thirty-thousand words chosen as a textual sample to see which source conceptual domains are used and what generic/discursive attributes emerge upon the analysis. It was prepared through systematic random sampling from different editorial articles in Western political magazines on the relations between Iran and the West in the time span of 2010-2019. Then, Critical Metaphor Analysis was used to explain the trend and patterns in the political articles, mostly lending support to previous research by authority figures in critical and political metaphor analysis that metaphors are used in shaping political thinking, in aiding political persuasion, and in steering cognitive scenarios and models towards the shaping of interpretations of the nations as person or body metaphors. Finally, the study lent ample support to this latter view in its textual findings of the conceptual metaphors used. The findings of the study provide foreign language education in general and the EFL classrooms in particular, with some implications for further research.

This research study was conducted to investigate the most representative characteristics of the habitus developed by academically successful Iranian English majors. Learning a second or foreign language, like many sociocultural practices, from a Bourdieusian perspective, is informed by the interrelation between habitus, field, and cultural capital (CC). Within an exploratory qualitative design, utilizing the Biographical Narrative Interpretive Method of both semi-structured and unstructured one-on-one interviews, seven academically successful BA students majoring in English language studies were studied in an attempt to explore their CC and habitus. Each participant was interviewed in 3 separate sessions. The constructivist grounded theory method was adopted to analyze the collected data. Constructed on 75 initial codes, 22 focused codes, 10 categories, and 4 themes, two major themes were most relevantly indicative of theoretical associations with the research problem. The findings suggest that the habitus developed by the English majors in this study was representative of their accumulation of certain forms of CC. Their habitus seemed to have been developed under the influence of their interaction with the mediatory field of learning and majoring in a foreign language. In an exigency-driven social quest for certain forms of cultural capital, the participants’ habitus were majorly characterized and influenced by their strategic accumulation of institutional and social capital, their field-oriented social identities, and their strategic administration of CC in the field. The knowledge developed by the findings of this study can provide useful sociocultural insights into academic achievements of English language majors.

The present study was carried out to investigate the effect of short stories on students’ reading comprehension, vocabulary power and attitude towards the skill and the new instructional materials. The participants of the study were 120 grade 9 students of Dilla Secondary and preparatory school. In order to gather data for the study, pre- and posttest of reading comprehension, pre and post test for vocabulary power and questionnaire were used. The students were placed in experimental and control conditions for the purpose of comparing the mean difference between the two groups. The study followed a quasi experimental design, i.e. pretest/posttest control group experimental design. The study employed statistical techniques to analyze the data obtained from reading comprehension tests and vocabulary tests. To this effect, a 2-tailed independent samples t-test and repeated measures t-test were used respectively to examine if the reading tests and vocabulary tests mean differences between and within groups were statistically significant. The findings revealed that teaching reading skills through short stories is more effective than teaching through the passages prepared at the Ministry, and has a positive impact on students’ academic achievement in reading and vocabulary power.

Lesson plan is a written description of education process in which it is shown what, when, where and with which method learners should learn and how they should be assessed. Lesson plan is one of the key factors in the educational process. According to the literature available, unfortunately few studies have been conducted on this issue in the context of Iran. Therefore, the effect of EFL teachers' attitudes towards lesson planning on improving teaching process seems to be neglected to some extent. With regard to this gap, the present study was an attempt to survey 93 English teachers' views concerning lesson plan at secondary high schools and institutions. Participants in this study answered a Modified Questionnaire, adopted from Ramaila et al. (2014). This Questionnaire was used to measure teachers' attitudes towards lesson planning and the degree of educational differences among them. Data analysis was done by utilizing descriptive statistics and T-test. The results showed that English teachers agreed with utilizing lesson plan. No significant difference was observed among teachers' views concerning the given variable. The findings revealed that due to the importance of lesson plan, holding specialized workshops may provide information for developing better course plans.

While the bulk of literature repletes with studies on emotional intelligence and its effect on teachers' performance and students' academic achievement, few have been released as to the potency of the factors that can foster emotional intelligence inside classrooms. Accordingly, the present study aimed to investigate the extent to which spiritual intelligence could be a predictor of emotional intelligence. The data were collected through a merger of the Brief Emotional Intelligence Scale (BEIS-10) and Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory (SISRI).  The evolved 34-item questionnaire was translated into Persian to ensure maximum comprehension of participants. The sample of this study consisted of 847 undergraduate Iranian EFL learners from two provinces in Iran. Three phases were in this study. First, an exploratory factor analysis of SISRI-24 was performed. Second, confirmatory factor analysis of both inventories, individually, was done by IBM SPSS AMOS. This was followed by CFA of the 34-item questionnaire. Last, multiple regression analysis was modeled to find the predictive relationships. The results of PCA revealed a three-factor model of SISRI (18 statements). CFA also verified both inventories under investigation. The model fit estimated of the 34-item questionnaire was sufficiently adequate to approve the model. Multiple regression analysis also indicated that critical existential thinking could predict both appraisal and regulation of own emotions as well as utilization of emotions. Likewise, conscious state expansion could predict the utilization of emotions. It was also found that personal meaning production could predict the appraisal of other emotions.