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Despite widespread coverage of language policy in the literature, there has been scant research probing into English language education policy at tertiary levels in general and the higher education context of Iraqi Kurdistan in particular. The present qualitative study investigated EFL students' perceptions of English language education policy, current educational policies, and the purposes for learning in Kurdish contexts across genders and study fields. To this end, a version of Yang's (2012) questionnaire was adapted and administered to university EFL students majoring in soft and hard sciences (N=300, male 34%, female 67%) at two private and state universities in Iraqi Kurdistan. The statistical analysis of the obtained data revealed students' positive attitudes toward learning English as an international language in both soft and hard sciences. Notably, students stressed that all Iraqi Kurdish students should learn the English language in English- and Kurdish-medium classes. They also considered English competence as a significant academic accomplishment. However, some of them felt dissatisfied with the status quo of English education in their institutions. The findings of this study offer insights and recommendations for English education policymakers, administrators, and instructors at tertiary levels.        

Many difficulties learners experience during language learning interfere with their performance, and those associated with their psychology play an integral role in this process. Underpinned by Bandura’s social cognitive theory and Dweck’s implicit theory of intelligence, this article explored how language mindsets influenced female EFL learners’ cognitive engagement through the mediation of risk-taking. Following a quantitative design and drawing on stratified sampling, the researchers ran the Power Analysis Calculator and selected 384 language learners from six institutes of Tabriz, Iran. The data were collected by three questionnaires, including the Language Mindset Inventory of Lou and Noels (2017), University Student Engagement Inventory (USEI) designed by Maroco et al., (2016), and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) of Patton, Stanford and Barratt (1995). The PLS-SEM analysis showed that learners’ growth mindsets were directly related to cognitive engagement. Furthermore, risk-taking significantly mediated this relationship. This finding provides some implications for school psychology to develop in students self-theories that highlight growth and competence instead of limitation and inactivity.

The present research studied the disciplinary use of cohesive devices across academic writing, comparing Native English Writers (NEW) with Arab Writers of English (AEW). It centers around the research articles in the fields of Medicine and Education. The researchers adopted corpus-based analysis, presented by Halliday and Hasan's framework, 1976, in the exploration of cohesive device types—grammar and lexical ones—while considering frequencies along with discourse contexts. The results indicated significant disciplinary differences in cohesive strategies use among the NEW, i.e. additive conjunctions, which appear in the educational writing and facilitate argument development and logical flow between ideas (e.g., and, further); the collocations in medical writing reflect the exactitude of the subject and clarity to be expected in any sort of scientific discourse, no less with causal conjunctions. AEW also exhibited discipline-specific patterns, but their cohesive strategies are colored by the Arabic rhetorical traditions. AEW in education relied heavily on repetition to achieve thematic unity, which sometimes results in redundancy by the norms of English academic writing. AEW in medicine make more use of additive and causal conjunctions to achieve logical relations, although overuse sometimes led to long, unwieldy sentences. These findings have significant pedagogical implications for EAP instruction. They call for training in cohesive strategies specific to disciplines, especially for learners from an Arab background, as this helps learners adjust their writing practices in ways that will meet expectations in the English academic conventions while managing cultural influences.

This study investigated the attitudes of Iranian female and male elementary English as a foreign language (EFL) learners toward peer and self-assessment of descriptive writing. It also attempted to find any gender-specific differences in their attitudes toward peer and self-assessment of descriptive writing. In so doing, the study relied on exploratory sequential mixed-methods procedures including qualitative and quantitative phases. The first group of participants was 40 EFL teachers (20 males and 20 females). The second group of participants was 50 individuals (25 males and 25 females) who took part in a five-session descriptive writing course, participated in interviews, and filled out the questionnaires. The content of the course was a combination of Bartlett's (2015) peer and self-assessment methods and Spencer's (2005) models of assessing composition. In the qualitative phase, a thematic analysis of the interviews, known as the constant comparative method of analysis, helped to extract four main themes shaping the participants’ attitudes, namely ‘Cooperation’, ‘Knowledge’, ‘Motivation’, and ‘Practice’. In the quantitative phase, exploratory factor analysis and a one-way MANOVA test were carried out to examine any gender-specific impacts on the learners’ attitudes toward peer and self-assessment of descriptive writing. Finally, the results of the study implied that the participants had positive attitudes towards the descriptive writing course, although females were more positive than males. This study has some educational implications for those involved in peer and self-assessment.

The present study scrutinized the association between learners’ perceptions of EFL instructors’ interpersonal behavior and their English language achievement in Amhara regional state public universities, Ethiopia. In this correlational research, 177 participants who were first-year English Language and Literature students were selected using purposive and random sampling. The data were gathered through a questionnaire and an English language achievement test. Besides, the data were analyzed quantitatively using descriptive and inferential statistics, and multiple regression. The findings showed that understanding behavior was perceived as the frequent interpersonal behavior of EFL instructors followed by strict, student freedom, and leadership behavior, respectively. Apart from this, uncertain behavior was found to be the least perceived behavior in the classrooms. In addition, the findings indicated that instructors in the sample areas were less prevailing but more cooperative in the communique process with their learners. In line with relationships, it was found that optimistic and noteworthy correlations between students’ English achievement and their teachers’ understanding and leadership behavior. In the case of its contribution, understanding followed by leadership interpersonal behavior was found to be the most prevailing and substantial variable on the learners’ English achievement. It was, therefore, recommended that instructors should be given training continuously on instructors’ interpersonal teaching behavior and its relationship to students’ language learning.    

Exploring L2 affective variables requires innovative research analytic approaches that can adequately address the complexity and dynamicity of the variables. Not always can the normality of distribution and linearity of relationships be assumed. Neither can the homogeneity of variance be always met. Latent profile analysis (LPA) is suggested to deal with the heterogeneity of data and non-linear relationships. It allows for hypothesis testing and model testing to tackle the ergodicity issue in second language acquisition (SLA) research from a person-centered approach. LPA, which primarily serves to classify a population or sample into several sub-groups, can be effectively employed in SLA research to classify L2 teachers or learners in terms of the different positive and negative emotions (e.g., enjoyment, boredom, anxiety, etc.) they experience while learning a foreign or second language. A classroom-based L2 learning experience occurs interactively with several personal and contextual variables involved. The relationship between any single affective variable can hardly be conceived as linear. Thus, LPA holds promises for dealing with these non-linear relations and provides insightful information about the profiles of learners or teachers concerning a particular affective variable. The purpose of this conceptual analysis is to provide a review of the basic tenets of LPA and to explain how it can contribute to the exploration of emotional variables in SLA. By identifying distinct emotional profiles, the study offers guidance on tailoring instructional strategies to address the specific emotional needs of language learners, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of language acquisition interventions.

As the mainstream English course books on the market written by native speakers include concepts such as exchange students, host family, online dating, and the like not in line with Iranian/Persian culture and moral values, the present study worked on innovatively devising three contemporary storybooks. These storybooks were prepared based on shared moral themes extracted from the didactical Persian classic literature and further administered in practice. The current "classroom-ethnography" research explored the opportunities/challenges of practically implementing the locally devised materials for young learners in the real EFL context in Iran. These strengths/drawbacks were scrutinized through the "triangulation" technique in which the perceptions of the recipients of the storybooks, including the young learners and ten experienced teachers anticipating the process of study before the practical phase of the research were inspected. The researcher/teacher's observation of the study process and the class video recording were also investigated. Then, the common points extracted from the acquired data were classified and coded systematically. The research resulted in some opportunities, such as enhancing the young learners' English proficiency level and improving their critical thinking ability. However, the main challenges are the time restrictions and locating an appropriate English setting for the practical study of such local English materials. In alignment with the novelty of created storybooks and the entrenched moral themes illustrating Iranian moral values, the practical section discussing the strengths and drawbacks of implementing the devised materials in a real EFL context would differentiate the current research from the related literature in Iran.

The purpose of this cross-cultural CMC-based study is to investigate how the speech act of criticism is realized in the Instagram comments by Persian and English-speaking users in response to an announcement in Fall 2020 about school reopening during COVID-19. To this end, 400 Persian and English comments were collected in Fall 2020 from the Instagram pages of Iran and the U.S Secretaries of Education where they posted about the students’ return to school during the pandemic. The data were then analyzed based on Nguyen’s (2013) model of speech act of criticism. The findings show that both Persian and English-speaking users tended to use direct criticism over indirect criticism with an explicit expression of dislike and an explicit expression of disapproval as the most frequently used direct criticism strategies. Moreover, with regard to indirect strategies, Persian speaking users employed more request for change strategies while English speaking users outperformed hint strategies. Also, the uses of supportive moves and internal modifiers were similar in the two corpora. The findings of this naturally occurring observational study partially confirm the results obtained by elicited-based research method. The results showed that despite the similarities between the corpora, teaching criticism strategies and mitigating devices can help language learners perform the act of criticism more appropriately and avoid non-native like language use.

Dyslexia is a neuro-sensory issue that makes reading challenging. However, Dyslexic Phonemic R3 is a novel approach that improved the phonological development and resolved the reading challenges of dyslexia. The primary goal of the study was 1) to evaluate the current state of the phonemic and auditory symptoms of children with dyslexia and 2) To study the effects of the Dyslexic Phonemic R3 Approach on the reading development of children with dyslexia. The Dyslexic Phonemic R3 Approach was the only experimental group in the case study, which examined the prevalence of dyslexia among the participants. There was no control group. 45 students with dyslexia were the participants chosen from thirty schools in the Indian town of Silchar. These adolescents were chosen from a population of 12–13-year-olds with auditory and phonemic deficiencies after getting the consents of their parents. The Dyslexic Phonemic R3 Approach significantly improved the reading, and spelling habit of student with dyslexia. The dyslexic phonemic R3 approach was developed in Assam University, Silchar, India by Dr. Ananta Kumar Jena. Vowels in this context are phonemic patterns that are primarily divided into two types: long and short vowels, and syllables (closed and open). In many situations, short vowels are most frequently utilised. The Dyslexia-Phonemic R3 technique uses these three procedures to diagnose dyslexia.