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Virtual learning has been defined as any system of education and instruction that brings together participants who are separated by geographical distances or time. Significantly, in a virtual learning environment, interactive telecommunications systems are utilized to connect learners, resources, and instructors. As such, the present study sought to investigate the possible effect of a synchronous virtual learning environment on the reading comprehension of undergraduate EFL university students. To this end, from the population of students majoring in English translation at Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran, one control group, and one experimental group were non-probabilistically selected based on their availability. Indeed, thirty students were chosen for the control group and thirty students were nominated for the experimental group. Live interactive teaching rooms were utilized in the experimental group during the term, whereas asynchronous instructional practices were adopted in the control group within the study. According to the results of paired samples t-test, the experimental group, which was instructed by live interactive teaching rooms over the term, progressed at the end of the period as compared to the beginning of the term. Moreover, the independent samples t-test showed that the students' scores on the post-test in the experimental group were higher than that of the control group. Evidently, the results of the present study may have practical implications for EFL teachers, online instructors, distance education programmers, materials developers, and syllabus designers.

Based on the importance of virtual classrooms and due to the inevitability of using them in difficult situations such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the current study was an attempt to investigate the perception of high school EFL teachers toward virtual learning systems' experience. Also, probing the perception of high school EFL teachers toward virtual learning systems' opportunities, exploring the perception of high school EFL teachers toward virtual learning systems' challenges and threats, and informing the educational society of the solutions to the barriers of virtual learning systems based on the perception of high school EFL teachers were the other objectives of the current study. To this end, the attitudes of 120 EFL teachers (males=67, females=53) with the age range of 30 to 50 who were teaching at different high schools of West Azerbaijan province, Urmia, Iran, were gathered via a researcher-made questionnaire. The results of the study show that although high school teachers faced some barriers such as low internet access, low interaction, and low concentration by learners, actually they actually have positive attitudes toward the use of digital learning, particularly in virtual classrooms. Furthermore, the findings showed that data retention power and quick and easy access were favored by most of the teachers, and they believed these two items can be regarded as positive opportunities. In addition, teachers presented some comments such as adding visuals to the virtual classrooms, using chat boxes, and planning interaction hints to resolve the virtual classrooms’ existing problems such as poor connection and low concentration. The implications of the study will be discussed.

The article is devoted to linguo-imagological analysis of the image of Persia of the 19th century in the Russian language consciousness of the 19th and 20th centuries. The material for the study was the novel of the historian writer Yu. N. Tynianov's “Death of Vazir Mukhtar”, dedicated to the last year of life and the tragic death of the poet-diplomat A. S. Griboyedov. The subject of the description in the article was two realities of Persian being, usually the first arising in the minds of people who are not carriers of culture of that time-the Shah's harem and eunuchs. The key characteristic of the harem is the army, the eunuchs are emptiness. These realities, like all the others, are presented as objectively as possible, with artistic instructions on the cause and effect of all events, that is, Yu. N. Tynianov appears as a historian scientist and a talented writer.

This study was conducted to identify self-directed and external professional development obstacles facing primary school EFL teachers in Southern Zone of Tigray Region in Ethiopia. The participants of the study were 63 primary school EFL teachers, 10 school principals and 2 clusters of supervisors. School teachers were selected using random sampling technique whereas school principals and cluster supervisors were selected by using purposive sampling. To gather data for the study, questionnaires and semi-structured interview were used. The results of the study revealed that lack of interest, having dissatisfaction in their job, unattractive salary, lack of knowledge and skills in doing action research and misunderstanding of the concept of CPD and how to do it were the major self-directed obstacles of professional development activities. The study also revealed that in adequate in-service training, supervisors’ lack of knowledge, skills and expertise in teaching English as a foreign language, work load, and lack of support and recognition from stakeholders were the major external obstacles of professional development.

Scholarly mails apparently display stable conventional principles as an emerging genre. Thus, contributors should structure their electronic mails appropriately when writing for purposes of discussing professional topics. However, this requirement plunges many a scholar in dilemma as to how to go about this vital undertaking without written structural norms in electronic mail communication. This raises the question: what is the generic structure of the scholarly electronic mail? The aim of this paper therefore is to uncover the organizational structure of the scholarly electronic mail as an emerging genre of computer mediated discourse. A qualitative approach is adopted in the description of the generic structure. Through purposive and stratified sampling, twenty scholarly electronic mails were selected and closely studied based on the basic electronic schema model by Herring (1996) with a view to extracting the features of the genre. Findings revealed that the scholarly electronic mail has a generic structure which is signalled by typical linguistic elements. The paper recommends a genre-based approach to guiding upcoming scholars on how to construct a scholarly electronic mail that fulfils its communicative purposes.

This study investigated the effect of strategy-based methods vs. translation-based methods on General English and ESP reading comprehension of Iranian university students. 120 homogenous General English and ESP students were selected based on a Quick Placement Test. They were assigned into four groups. One experimental and one comparison group for General English and ESP students. A pretest of General English and ESP reading comprehension was administered to assess their General English and ESP reading comprehension ability. In both experimental groups, the strategy-based method, and in comparison groups, the translation-based method was used for teaching General English and ESP reading comprehension. After the post-test, the result of independent t-tests indicated that the comparison group outperformed the experimental group in the ESP course. However no statistically significant difference was observed between the two groups in General reading comprehension, it can be concluded that in ESP reading comprehension, the translation-based strategy is more effective than the strategy-based method however in General English reading comprehension, students can understand the text via both strategies. So, the strategy-based method was preferred in General English reading comprehension. These findings encourage English teachers to choose a proper strategy for teaching different materials in different contexts.

Online discussion forums (ODFs) offer students and teachers the opportunity to harness the endless power of the internet for educational purposes. This study investigates the impact of Edmodo as an asynchronous ODF on six of the most recurring reading comprehension skills in the TOEFL iBT test among Iranian learners. Online and offline treatments were given to 26 students in the experimental group and only offline treatments to 33 students in the control group. The statistical analysis of the data represents a large effect size (Partial η2=.234; r=.826; Partial η2=.397; r=.661) for identifying factual information, making inferences, guessing vocabulary from context, and inserting texts in the passage skills respectively, a moderate effect size (r=.363) for the understanding the rhetorical purpose of the passage, and a weak effect size (r=.156) for the identifying referential relationships between the words in the passage skills. The results tell us that Edmodo is effective in teaching reading comprehension skills by overcoming the usual time constraints and offering students autonomy in going online at the most convenient time and place. Finally, the findings are valuable for educational policymakers, curriculum designers, materials developers, language instructors, and language learners.

In the present study, we analyze the semantic fragmentation and conventionalization in Persian compound nouns ending in the verbal stems –andāz ‘throw’, -band ‘fasten/close,’ -foruš ‘sell’, -gir ‘catch’, -keš ‘pull’, -paz ‘cook’, -yāb ‘find’, and -zan ‘hit’ from the usage-based perspective. The analysis is based on a 800 data set extracted from diachronic and synchronic corpora. The words produced from the general compounding pattern [XV PRS]N can be categorized in a range of semantic categories, including agent, instrument, location, and object. In describing the semantic fragmentation of [XV PRS]N, we propose the human agent as the starting meaning, from which the instrument sub-pattern is derived by the mechanism of metaphorical extension. However, to justify the object and location meanings, we consider the metonymic extension mechanism to be involved. The sense extension mechanisms do not only apply to the individual words but can happen on the pattern level. It is also argued that these mechanisms are not mechanically applied to all the patterns ending in the verbal stems, instead, it is the usage and the communicative needs of the speakers that determine the semantic fragmentation of any patterns. To illustrate this point, as a case study, we focus on the development of instrument meaning in the pattern [X-paz PRS]N. We show that the instrument sub-pattern is a recent linguistic phenomenon that coincides with the introduction of modern cooking equipment with mostly English names to Iranian society. The increasing use of these types of equipment has led to a new communicative need for naming such instruments. This extra-linguistic factor has motivated the pattern [X-paz PRS]N to be extended through analogy with English compound instrument nouns. The findings of this study may contribute to the understanding of word-formation patterns in general and compounding patterns in particular.

The primary objective of this research was to explore how the mindsets and perseverance of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in Iran impact their well-being. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), data from 375 EFL teachers, selected through convenience sampling, were analyzed. The results revealed a direct and positive correlation between a teacher's growth mindset and their well-being. Additionally, the study found that the relationship between a teacher's growth mindset and well-being was influenced by their level of grit. These findings suggest that educators can significantly contribute to fostering growth mindsets and perseverance among EFL teachers, thus improving their well-being. Ultimately, this research underscores the importance of these teacher characteristics in enhancing the well-being of EFL instructors and offers practical guidance for educators aiming to support them.  

This study sought to identify the challenges and needs of TOEFL iBT candidates in achieving C1 level scores in the speaking and writing sections of the exam. To this end, the researcher employed a mixed-method approach to collect data from a population of 46 students, both male and female, between the ages of 22 to 30. The participants were enrolled in two TOEFL preparation classes at Universidad Nacional de Educación. The data were collected through a survey, class observations, and TOEFL speaking and writing mock tests, and were subsequently analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The findings indicated that the participants encountered challenges in discussing unfamiliar topics fluently, struggled with producing language at the C1 level while employing a variety of grammar and vocabulary, and demonstrated reduced accuracy due to influences from their first language (L1). To address these challenges, it is recommended to offer a bridging course prior to exam preparation courses wherein the primary focus is devoted to enhancing candidates’ accuracy and communicative competence in discussing unfamiliar topics through corrective feedback. The findings of this study could offer valuable insights to TOEFL iBT test preparation instructors, enabling them to better understand the challenges students face and plan strategies to address these challenges effectively within preparation courses.

This study investigated the effects of corrective feedback (CF) and the Flipped Teaching Model (FTM) on English language learners’ overall and categorical grammar accuracy. The study was conducted at Payame-Nour University (PNU) of Mahabad, Iran. A total of 80 Iranian EFL learners participated in the study. The participants were randomly assigned into two flipped and two non-flipped groups of 20: one in each pair of groups receiving explicit and the other implicit CF. Data were collected across two time periods (pre-intervention and post-intervention). Two measures of Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) were conducted. The results revealed no significant differences in the effect of CF type in the flipped classes, and both led to the learners’ higher level of overall grammar accuracy. However, the explicit group outperformed the implicit one in the non-flipped classes. Explicit feedback in flipped and non-flipped classes led to the learners’ outperformance in acquiring specific grammatical structures, such as adjective/reduced adjective clauses, but not in others, like comparative/superlative adjectives, gerund/infinitive, word forms, word order, and apposition. These findings have implications for language educators seeking to enhance learners’ grammatical accuracy in both flipped and non-flipped classrooms, particularly in relation to the use of explicit feedback for certain types of grammatical structures.

Studies in literary religious discourses, including recent Quranic studies, suggest that speech act theory provides the researchers with variable pragmatic tools to interpret meanings that are constructed upon the intention of the speaker. This study draws upon speech act theory (SAT) to analyse the two ubiquitous speech acts of promise and threat in the Holy Quran. Employing the speech acts of promise and threat in the Quran to the detailed analysis of felicity conditions, this study, while arguing for the compatibility of SAT to the language of Quran, concludes that the main impetus behind the speech acts of promise and threat is creating the motivation in the addressees to conduct good and avoid evil deeds; therefore, the rules and conditions that drive the illocutionary force of promise and threat perfectly align with the motivational language of the Holy Quran.