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Different linguistic constructions, including comparative, superlative, similative, and equative constructions, are employed to convey the concept of comparison. Equative and similative constructions exhibit the highest semantic and structural resemblance out of all the specified constructions. In such constructions, two entities -referred to as the comparee and the standard- are compared based on a specific characteristic or quality. In equative constructions the comparison is based on a gradable property, where one of the referents has the property to a higher degree, while similative constructions compare the similarity in manner. This study explored the equative constructions in the Laki language by primarily relying on classification put forth by Haspelmath (2017). The data for the present study consists of 123 equative sentences taken from spoken interviews with twelve individuals residing in Noorabad city. The findings indicate that speakers mainly use seven strategies to convey the concept of equality in Laki. Furthermore, the data show that in numerous equative constructions in Laki, there is a preference for omitting the standard marker while retaining the degree marker

Higher levels of student engagement are positively linked to higher learning achievement. However, enhancing student engagement in underprivileged and crowded educational contexts, specifically where high-tech tools are not available can cause a major challenge for teachers. The current study attempts to enhance students’ engagement in their learning by incorporating mini white-boards (MWs) as low-tech response systems. To this end, in a time-series design, an instruction-feedback cycle via mini white-boards was manipulated over a semester. Ten 10th-grade students, all from similar low socio-economic backgrounds and living in rural areas, participated in this study. Data were collected through observing students’ behaviors using engagement checklists. An attitude questionnaire was also administered to assess students' perceptions of using mini white-boards in their learning context. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize individuals’ engagement patterns across the study period. Additionally, a mixed-effects model was employed to account for individual variability and to assess the effects of the intervention on students’ engagement over time. The results indicated that using mini white-boards caused significant improvements in students’ overall engagement and attitude. The findings suggest that using low-tech solutions in low socio-economic settings can foster student engagement by allowing real-time feedback, collaborative interaction, and personalized participation.

This study examined the correlation between advanced EFL students' syntactic knowledge and their writing and speaking proficiency to determine whether students' syntactic knowledge can influence their productive skills. A total of 50 advanced students aged between 18 and 25 were chosen purposefully to take part in the study. Four tests, including a placement test, a syntax test from Oxford University Press, a writing test, and one test for speaking proficiency were employed to collect the required data. Because the data for this study were quantitative, a correlational/descriptive design was chosen for the data to be analyzed. The researcher then decided to find a correlation between the students' writing and speaking scores and their syntax scores based on the obtained data. Both the t-test and the Pearson correlation demonstrated that there is no real correlation between the syntactic, speaking, and writing proficiency of the students. Further findings showed that there is no difference between the relationship between syntactic knowledge and speaking proficiency and the relationship between syntactic knowledge and writing proficiency. The implication of this study is that grammatical competence is not a valid predictor for the proficiency of students in writing and speaking courses. If a student’s grammatical competence is low, his proficiency in writing and speaking can still be average or even above average depending on the process of assessing these skills. Additionally, learners must understand that possessing a strong grasp of grammatical knowledge does not inevitably ensure their ability to produce language effectively in spoken or written form.

The present investigation aimed at studying the impacts of Iranian EFL learners’ gender, age, field and degree of study on their perceptions of mobile affordances. To this end, 159 Iranian EFL students studying at university were asked to fill Mobile Affordance Inventory (Rostami, 2021). To analyze the data, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, independent sample t-test, one way ANOVA, and Pearson’s correlation were run. The findings of the study indicated that no differences were found among EFL learners in using mobile learning affordances regarding their gender, degree, and field of study. Additionally, no significant relationship was found between the arcticians’ age and their mobile affordances. The results also showed that different affordances of mobile devices can provide new and important information for educators. They become more familiar with different mobile phones capabilities to use, and it makes their teaching more effective. Becoming familiar with affordances provides a situation for improving students’ learning as well as their self-control.

Despite its role in achieving the frontiers of knowledge and interacting with the international community, English does not have its proper place in the Iranian General Education system, resulting in poor English education in school, hence, students’ poor command of English. This study explores the feasibility of outsourcing English teaching and entrusting this enterprise to the private sector. To this end, a questionnaire was developed from expert interviews to canvass 376 English teachers, students, and parents, as primary stakeholders, across the country. An exploration of respondents’ attitudes toward outsourcing English teaching indicated the agreement of the majority of the respondents with this idea of English education privatization. Moreover, political and ideological perspectives imply that a shift from school to institute is needed if we expect effective communication-based language teaching and learning. This may necessitate a radical reform in the language policy of the country and may even lead to the decentralization of English education due to regional and cultural needs. The study has implications regarding possible fundamental changes in language planning in the formal education system of the country.    

This study was an attempt to explore the impacts of recast and prompt as two types of corrective feedback on the development of knowledge of past tense by Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners. This study followed quasi- experimental design including pre-test, treatment, an immediate post-test, and a delayed post-test procedure. Initially, the pretest data from learners' performance on the Oral Performance Test (OPT) and the Untimed Grammatical Judgment Test (UGJT) was collected. After administering the pretest, the researchers gave the treatment to two experimental groups. Recast corrective feedback was supplied to the first experimental group, prompt corrective feedback was provided to the second experimental group, and no specific corrective feedback was given to the control group. The immediate post-test was given immediately following the delayed post-test, which was performed three weeks later. The findings of the study showed that when it came to their explicit and implicit knowledge of past tense, students who received prompt or recast corrective feedback outperformed those who received no particular corrective feedback. The results also showed that in this area, students in the group receiving prompt corrective feedback still did significantly much better than those in the recast group. The findings of this study may be useful for all stakeholders in the field of education but particularly for language teachers and students. They would benefit language teachers, teacher trainers, and material developers interested in employing task-based approach with feedback in their pedagogical activities.

There have been a number of research concentrating on the request production of ESL/EFL, and native speakers. There have been some studies investigating the production of request speech act of EFLs and ESLs. However, no research has yet focused on the production differences of request speech act among Iranian EFLs and ESLs in terms of internal and external modification devices. First, the participants were given Oxford Placement Test (OPT) to determine their English proficiency level and 95 learners were chosen out of 123 ESLs and EFLs to respond to the scenarios adopted from Schauer (2009). Second, the scenarios were given to the participants via email or an already-made GoogleDoc link of the scenarios. The results of the independent t-test revealed that Iranian ESLs outperformed their EFL counterparts. The results regarding request head act, internal and external modifiers demonstrated that ESLs mostly applied conventionally indirect request strategies while EFLs mostly tended to apply direct request strategies. It was also revealed that requests produced by ESLs were more native-like with no or few grammatical mistakes and that both EFLs and ESLs utilized external modifiers more than internal modifiers. This study implies that due and sufficient attention is to be paid to EFLs since they lack sufficient exposure to L2 and such impoverished pragmatic input might result in inappropriate applications of speech acts in general and request speech act in particular.

This article attempts to shed light on translation in the multilingual novel, an operation carried out by the author himself. For this purpose, we have chosen Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini translated into French by Mille Soleils splendids. Persian-speaking just like his characters, the author adopts English as his writing language but feeds it with Persian idioms that he glosses in different ways during his story. The writer incorporation modes of the original language into novel's vehicular language as well as the translation strategies adopted for the transfer of meaning, are the subject of our research. Plurilingualism study in the novel genre, these facts and effects, constitute the theoretical framework on which the textual strategies analysis of translation in the novel is carried out. The translation processes which take care of the language referents strangeness and original culture's such as borrowing and transfer being the processes most used by Hosseini , his glossary practice which reassures an almost perfect understanding for the universal reader the peculiarity of writer-translator pen's