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Scaffolding and shadowing techniques have been shown to improve language learners’ reading comprehension. However, little attention has been paid to the comparative effectiveness of these techniques. This study investigated the effect of three selected scaffolding techniques (peer scaffolding, distributed scaffolding, and reciprocal scaffolding) versus three types of shadowing (complete shadowing, partial shadowing, and interactive shadowing) on L2 reading comprehension. To this end, 120 intermediate level EFL learners (in 6 groups of 20 members each) were selected through convenience sampling from three language institutes in Qazvin. Each group was randomly assigned to one of the shadowing and scaffolding techniques. One way ANOVA and independent samples t-tests were used to analyze the data. The results indicated that among the three scaffolding techniques, distributed scaffolding was the most effective technique on reading comprehension. The most effective technique among shadowing groups was interactive shadowing. A significant difference was also found between the shadowing and scaffolding techniques in favor of scaffolding techniques. These findings may have theoretical and pedagogical implications for researchers, learners, teachers, and syllabus designers.

Teacher professional identity is widely acknowledged as a multi-dimensional dynamic evolving concept contributing to teachers’ self-perception about their professional roles. This qualitative study aimed to explore how different instructional settings of teaching English as a foreign language in Iran impacted on teachers’ professional identities in a comparative way. To this end, 25 English teachers from public schools and private institutes of Kerman were interviewed to collect data and to examine how teachers conceptualize themselves at schools and institutes. All 25 participants (13 school teachers and 12 institute teachers) had a BA degree in English. Data analysis revealed that teachers of public schools had comprehended, strong, and thick initial professional identity in comparison to those teaching in private institutes. However, such an ideal professional identity was more vulnerable to professional identity shock that resulted from the discrepancy between initial professional identity arisen from pre-service training programs and an emergent one derived from the identity-in-practice in class life. In terms of preparation to teach, the findings showed that the teachers of public schools had more extended viewpoints towards teaching and its significance. Moreover, they believed that their identity influenced the teaching profession while the institute teachers believed in teaching influence on their identity that provided evidence for the variable nature of teacher professional identity resulting from parallel interconnections of different macro and micro factors leading to its steady reinterpretation and reshaping. Keywords: dyna

In spite of the importance of teacher's motivation only a limited number of studies have been conducted on teacher's demotivation in Iran. This study was an attempt to investigate demotivating factors among Iranian EFL language institute teachers in terms of years of teaching experience. To this end, the researchers tried to utilize a questionnaire as a research method. To collect data, a validated questionnaire was administered to a sample of 77 English teachers who were teaching in Iranian language institutes in Najafabad, Isfahan, Iran. A convenience sampling was used in this study. The data were classified and analyzed based upon the relevant research questions. The one-way between-groups ANOVA conducted on demotivating factors showed that there was a significant difference between professional development and other domains of demotivating factors among the groups of English teachers. Moreover, it was uncovered that insufficient income was among the most crucial factors providing dissatisfaction for Iranian EFL teachers in the field of teaching process. Therefore, it is important for educational institution to improve teachers’ perceptions of their job through improving job environment and condition or payments to manage language learner institutes better than before.

This study explores the relationship and interconnections between EFL teachers’ beliefs and their motivational practices in the classroom. The present study combined qualitative and quantitative methods of research. First, the motivational practices of 30 teachers in two private language schools in Tehran were explored with a classroom observation instrument, the Motivation Orientation of Language Teaching (MOLT) which was used to estimate the time that teachers spent for each motivational strategy. Then, teachers’ beliefs were examined through the Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) and an open-ended questionnaire aimed to assess beliefs about motivational strategies. The quantitative results indicated that the higher the teachers’ scores on the BALLI, the less frequently their use of motivational strategies in the classroom. The findings based on qualitative data, drawing largely on data from observations and the open-ended questionnaire, showed that although teachers were observed to generally follow their beliefs, there existed several points of difference between their beliefs and practices. Also, there was evidence that what teachers practice in the classrooms does not always impact their beliefs.

A narrative monologue skill is required in learning English. Delivering a monologue is a challenging skill for most of the EFL students since it is difficult for them to utilize their lexical and grammatical knowledge. This study investigates the effects of narrative sequential images on the Iranian intermediate EFL students’ monologue skill. To this end, the study was conducted in two intact classes (one as the experimental group and the other as the control group) of 32 students within 2 months in a high school in Isfahan. To select homogenous participants, Oxford Placement Test and Oral Proficiency Interview were administered. A monologue pre-test was used at the beginning of the study. And the specific treatment was administered to the experimental group. Then, a parallel post-test was conducted. Based on the results, there was a significant difference in the scores of the experimental group in all aspects of fluency, coherence, lexical resources, grammar and accuracy, and pronunciation in using narrative sequential images before and after treatment. In other words, experimental group performed better on the four subscales of monologue skill than did the control group. Results, also, suggested that teachers use sequential images as a part of their instruction to help students develop their monologue skill.

This case study examined the adaptivity of learning transfer from an English for general academic purposes course to different disciplinary writing contexts. Data were collected at the end of one academic semester from 7 students of engineering disciplines enrolled in the writing course. Their EGAP writing course lasted for 16 weeks over which they were taught The St. Martin's Handbook, 6th Edition. The participants’ disciplinary writings together with interview transcripts served as the data sources for the extraction of adaptive transfers and also the processes of realizing the transfers. Adaptive transfers were identified by participants. Findings indicated that learning outcomes can transfer adaptively through a variety of processes to accommodate to the new writing demands. The results showed that the participants could adapt their learning along two broad dimensions of transfer, ‘idea generation’ (IG) and ‘text construction’ (TC) with the former involving ‘explication’ and ‘integration’ of knowledge and the latter achieved at macro and micro level. Within these adaptive transfers, we found a range of writing issues pursued including ‘goals, topics, logics, propositions, integrity, disciplinarity, linearity, paragraphing and linguistic resources’. Furthermore, the findings displayed two broad categories of ‘higher order’ and ‘lower order’ processes employed for the realization of adaptive transfers. While higher order processes operated through ‘transformative and evaluative’ mechanisms, the lower order processes involved two categories of ‘avoidance and affordance’, with the former as an attempt to refrain from going wrong and the latter as an effort to generate adaptivity. The findings for L2 writing are theoretically discussed.

This action research examines the concept of Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in a second language acquisition context. The researcher investigated the contributors of WTC in a foreign language classroom setting. Therefore, a multiple assignments method and sequence was applied. Participants of this study were students who matriculated in a United States (U.S.) undergraduate program, studying German at a public Midwest University. Findings of this study suggest applying various speaking activities and providing the opportunity to practice assessment-like activities prior to the evaluation, which enhanced second language WTC. In addition, the present study found three major factors that contributed to second language WTC: student preparedness, student feelings, and speaking capacity influences. Findings of this study can be implemented into any language classroom. The teaching methods and sequence of activities can be integrated into language curriculum. This study provides insight on a successful language teaching model that prepares students to engage in any oral communication with more confidence and less hesitation.

Television can be considered a rich, helpful, and valuable source to expose L2 learners to huge amounts of comprehensible input so that they can improve their L2 knowledge and, in particular, their L2 vocabulary knowledge. This study aimed to discover how effective sustainable and extensive TV viewing can be in L2 vocabulary learning, considering the language of the on-screen text (L1 or L2) and instruction type (preteaching L2 items or not). Eighty L2 learners (58 female and 22 male), who had an intermediate English proficiency and were divided into four groups, participated in the intervention over an academic term in a language institute. Participants viewed 14 episodes of a TV series under four experimental conditions: (1) captions and preteaching, (2) captions without preteaching, (3) subtitles and preteaching, and (4) subtitles without preteaching. A pre/posttest design to examine the gains regarding both L2 vocabulary meaning and form was adopted. Results suggested that extensive exposure to TV series positively affected the participants’ L2 vocabulary learning, both in terms of meaning and form. Participants exposed to L2 captions outperformed those who had received L1 subtitles, concerning both L2 vocabulary meaning and form. Finally, the analyses showed that, overall, the groups that had undergone preteaching performed better, regardless of the language of the on-screen texts.

This study sets as its purpose to explore Young Learners’ (YLs) channels to voice their perspectives on English language classroom-based assessment, schooling, and school experiences. Qualitative research design was used to collect data through focus group interview from 42 participants drawn from English-medium primary schools. Their selection was by purposive sampling from 7 schools. Field notes were also employed to highlight salient points and corroborate participants’ opinions. Findings indicate that pupils are afraid of answering a question in class wrongly; their peers give them this fear of being laughed and mocked. There is lack of solidarity amongst the pupils. They wish for a variety of assessment methods and techniques but parents seem to maintain a strong position in the children’s lives so that they would not want to disappoint parents by not doing well in their assessments. Teachers’ feedback does not seem to be transparent, even though pupils did not mention this in the group interviews. Pupils have many beliefs when attributing success and failure and some of these beliefs are superstitious, and they go to school for instrumental as well as for reasons of knowledge acquisition.

Extracting incompatible values in the best-sellers current in ELT markets is a real concern. In this study, the researchers tried to bring some claims/counterclaims for hidden ideologies regarding two imported English language teaching coursebooks-Four Corners and Impact Values Series, which are commonly taught within Iranian English language institutes. The main intention was that they might transmit incompatible English culture to the Iranian learners. Through a qualitative design, vigorous content analysis was conducted over diverse randomly selected texts/topics and images in the two books, it was found out that regarding images, four themes instantiated incongruent values to the local context for Iranian learners including A) boy-girl relationship, B) imbalance of religious norms as opposed to other religions, C) incongruent lifestyles, and D) the proportion of the male vs. female images in the two books. As to topics included in the books, mismatching items were detected within seven main categories including A) Cross-gender relationship, B) disregarding the importance of family, C) excessive Use of Internet, D) Mobile Phones, and Computers, E) food and drink prohibitions, F0 forbidden or inappropriate habits,G) incompatible jobs and professions, and H) showing disrespect for older people. Finally, some suggestions regarding compatibility issues with local cultural input enrichment with the Iranian culture were given.

This review article examines the underpinning of the little-researched, influential elements that create linguistic injustice in the specific contexts of linguistic imperialism through standardization. To this end, with a review of critical views that includes argumentation and discussion of theoretical and empirical studies, we further aim to highlight linguistic injustice in writing for publishing. The domination of the English language as a lingua academia has not happened neutrally and can create unjust and unequal situations. In knowledge construction, the prosperity of researchers and academics is tied to international publication, and this action supports globalization, individualism, and standardization in favor of native English users. The domination of the English language in academic settings may be a hegemonic practice of native Anglophones to maintain power.  In this review, we underline the possibilities for privileged communities to pinpoint linguistic inequality and injustice.  The nature of academia should be liberal and liberating; however, in reality, academic settings are politically partisan and at the service of the powerful and wealthy. Still, there is slim hope that the system can change, and one of such profound changes may happen with equal access to resources and mentors for marginalized communities. In this case, the minorities’ voices may also be heard and respected globally.