درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

A long-standing concern reverberating over the minds of intercultural scholars is how best to incorporate intercultural issues in English language teaching, an issue on which there has been little research in EFL contexts. To fill this gap, this qualitative study examined the efficacy of interculturally-laden tasks in promoting Iranian learners’ intercultural competency in Anzali, Guilan province, Iran. Thus, a group of 22 Iranian intermediate EFL learners were recruited through convenience sampling from a pool of 44 according to their score on Oxford Quick Placement Test. All the participants were 12 females and 10 males aged 21-30. Then, they attended eighteen sessions of intercultural training using Mirrors and Windows: An intercultural communication textbook and completed seven intercultural tasks as a pretest and posttest. Data was collected through seven intercultural tasks and reflective worksheets. Drawing on the qualitative content analysis of intercultural tasks, the findings revealed that the tasks could help the participants increase their intercultural competence. Moreover, three themes were emerged from the analysis of the reflective worksheets as follow: (1) the participants’ evaluation of the ICC course and intercultural tasks, (2) perceptions regarding intercultural development and (3) language skills and anxiety. The implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.

This study aimed to examine the effects of a teacher education course on EFL teachers’ self-efficacy in formative assessment. The researchers employed a mixed-method design that combined quantitative and qualitative approaches to investigate the effects of the course. Thirty EFL teachers participated in the study and completed pre- and post-intervention questionnaires to assess their formative assessment self-efficacy beliefs. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather qualitative data on teachers’ beliefs about formative assessment. The quantitative data were analyzed using paired-sample t-tests, and thematic analysis was conducted for the qualitative data. The results indicated a significant increase in teachers’ formative assessment self-efficacy beliefs. The findings suggest that providing teacher education courses focused on formative assessment can effectively enhance EFL teachers’ self-efficacy and utilization of such assessment methods in online classroom. The current study has some pedagogical implications and recommendations for the implementation of similar courses and potential areas for future research are also discussed.

This study investigates the effects of summative, formative, and combined assessments on the development of listening and reading comprehension skills on advanced Iranian EFL learners. Data were collected from 40 advanced EFL learners, aged 19 to 35, from intact classes at a higher education institute, divided into three experimental groups, each receiving one of the assessment types (summative, formative, or a combination of both), along with a control group. Learners’ progress in listening and reading comprehension was measured over a four-month period using pre- and post-tests administered at the end of the term. Data analysis involved ANOVA, ANCOVA, and post hoc LSD tests. The findings of this longitudinal study revealed that while the combined application of formative and summative assessments had a significant positive impact on listening comprehension, neither assessment type alone contributed to improvement in this area. In contrast, the results showed that all forms of assessment—whether summative, formative, or combined—led to notable improvements in reading comprehension. These results highlight the differential effects of assessment types on listening and reading skills, suggesting implications for assessment practices in EFL contexts.

English language education in Baluchistan, Iran, faces unique challenges due to the region's socio-economic conditions and limited access to resources. This study investigates the specific teaching and learning difficulties within secondary schools in this region. A mixed-methods approach was employed, gathering quantitative data from 80 teachers through a questionnaire and qualitative insights from 57 students via semi-structured interviews. The findings reveal that teachers encounter obstacles such as unclear course objectives, inadequate instructional methods, time constraints, and insufficient administrative support. Students, on the other hand, struggle with curriculum disengagement, a lack of authentic language practice opportunities, low motivation, and emotional barriers like anxiety and fear of judgment. Additionally, the limited integration of technological resources hampers effective language learning. These insights challenge the assumption that resource availability alone can improve language teaching, underscoring the importance of proper resource utilization and teacher training. The study advocates for a localized approach to curriculum design that aligns global language learning goals with Baluchistan’s socio-cultural context. Practical recommendations include modernizing teacher training, addressing emotional barriers, and creating a more supportive environment for teachers and students alike.

Discourse markers (DMs) play a significant role in both written and spoken language since they function as coherent devices, offering cues and guidance for the understanding of the reader or listener. The frequency of DMs in a language may have a substantial influence on an individual’s competency and overall English abilities. With an increased frequency of using these markers, individuals enhance their ability to form cohesive and logical sentences, hence improving their proficiency as speakers or writers.The goal of this study is to compare how the illustration-interaction-induction (III) and present-practice-produce (PPP) approaches affect the frequency of DMs in the expository writing of Iranian high school students. The study involved a sample of 30 intermediate Iranian EFL learners enrolled in state high schools in the city of Kelachay, Guilan, Iran. The research was conducted across three settings, namely pre-test, treatment, and post-test. Participants were asked to write an expository paragraph as part of the pre-test. During the treatment phase, after the instruction of the DMs using the PPP approach, the participants were asked to write a second expository paragraph. Following the implementation of the III approach as the second intervention phase in the study, the subsequent post-test was conducted, wherein participants were asked to compose one additional paragraph. The three sets of paragraphs were compiled into three learner corpora and analyzed to determine the frequency of DMs. The log-likelihood and effect size calculators demonstrated the superiority of the III approach in terms of the frequency of DMs used in the expository paragraphs of Iranian EFL learners in state high schools. The findings provided robust support for the efficacy of the III approach in the context of teaching DMs.

This study sought to determine the impact of self-regulation and emotional labor on reflective action among Iranian EFL teachers in online EFL classes using structural equation modeling. To achieve this, a combination of cluster sampling and stratified random sampling of 500 people was recruited. The participants were administered with the English version of Dutch questionnaire of emotional labor, Teacher Self-Regulation Scale and Teaching Reflection Inventory. After collecting data using three distinct questionnaires pertaining to latent variables, SEM analysis was conducted using IMB SPSS version 28.0 and Amos version 24.0 to analyze the path model relationships. To this end, a hypnotical model was proposed, evaluated, and specified to fit the data. The confirmatory factor analysis was employed to assess the hypothetical model by employing goodness of fit indices and analyzing all the convergences between the latent variables and the related sub-scales. According to the criteria for a good model's fitness, all of the model's values are above 0.90, indicating that the model has good fitness. And it was concluded that there was statistically significant relationships between the variables of the study.

With the spread of English, the conception of English is currently changing into English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) worldwide. However, the form of English teaching and learning is still identified by reference to native-speaker norms. In response to the increasing use of ELF and an emergent need to describe it in various domains, the current study takes a preliminary step in linguistic analysis of the written mode of ELF. Adopting an exploratory case study, the morphological marking of third-person singular present tense main verbs, i.e., -s/es has been analyzed using the Written ELF in Academic Setting (WrELFA) corpus. The selected corpus included 82369 tokens. It was tagged by the LancsBox software, and all instances of variation were categorized into two groups: omission and addition of the suffix. The quantitative analysis revealed that most ELF writers conform to the grammatical rules of English simple-present tense, yet, there is a negligible amount (0.5%) of variation in the use of this suffix in a way that writers either drop it or overgeneralize it. Dropping the third-person singular suffix accounts for around half of the entire variety (56%), and overusing this feature accounts for the other half (44%). Moreover, through qualitative analysis, factors contributing to such variations were identified. The overall findings indicate that such minor grammatical errors shouldn't be overemphasized, as long as they do not hinder the reader's understanding. The results may contribute to constructing a framework for teaching ELF in general and English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP) in specific.