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Performance testing including the use of rating scales has become highly widespread in the evaluation of second/foreign oral assessment. However, few studies have used a pre-, post-training design investigating the impact of a training program on the reduction of raters’ biases to the rating scale categories resulting in increase in their consistency measures. Besides, no study has used MFRM including the facets of test takers’ ability, raters’ severity, task difficulty, group expertise, scale category, and test version all in a single study. 20 EFL teachers rated the oral performances produced by 200 test takers before and after a training program using an analytic rating scale including fluency, grammar, vocabulary, intelligibility, cohesion and comprehension categories. The outcome of the study indicated that MFRM can be used to investigate raters’ scoring behavior and can result in enhancement in rater training and validating the functionality of the rating scale descriptors. Training can also result in higher levels of interrater consistency and reduced levels of severity/leniency; however, it cannot turn raters into duplicates of one another, but can make them more self-consistent. Training helped raters use the descriptors of the rating scale more efficiently of its various band descriptors resulting in reduced halo effect. Finally, the raters improved consistency and reduced rater-scale category biases after the training program. The remaining differences regarding bias measures could probably be attributed to the result of different ways of interpreting the scoring rubrics which is due to raters’ confusion in the accurate application of the scale.

The use of smartphones in higher education has significantly impacted the global education landscape, particularly in Bangladeshi tertiary English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms. Despite their importance in improving students' communicative competence, listening skills are often overlooked in these classrooms due to limited access to listening equipment. This study, at the very outset, seeks to address their challenges while developing listening. Furthermore, it focused on identifying the perception of the learners and teachers towards the appropriate and effective use of smartphones to minimize their listening difficulties. This research design followed the sequential explanatory mixed-method approach to align the objectives. Convenience sampling was employed to select 11 participants for the qualitative component, ranging from lecturers to associate professors, as well as 159 students from 25 universities across Bangladesh for the quantitative component. A questionnaire survey and semi-structured interview were used to collect data. The study utilized SPSS 25.0 to analyze quantitative data presenting mean, median, mode, and standard deviation for the descriptive study, and a deductive thematic analysis technique was employed for qualitative data. The results showed that learners believe smartphones effectively help them overcome challenges like context sensitivity, pronunciation, missed or misperceived words, natural speech rate adaptation, accent comprehension, and vocabulary deficits. This study also finds that using smartphones to improve students' listening abilities in tertiary EFL classes is highly doable. This study also recommends that EFL teachers and administrative authorities work together in order to successfully integrate cell phones in an EFL classroom.

The present research aimed to investigate the effect of background Mozart Classical music on translator students' performance. In this study, the researchers focused not only on the relationship between music and translation but also on the relationship between music and personality traits. The main question this study tried to answer was whether using background music might enhance students' translation scores. To answer this question, 32 students from Islamic Azad University of Quchan, Iran, participated in this study. They were selected out of 40 students, employing Nelson proficiency test and were randomly assigned to two groups. The participants in experimental group were asked to translate three texts accompanied by background music, but the subjects in the control group were asked to translate the same texts without background music during three sessions. Students’ translations were scored based on Kim's (2009) meaning-oriented translation assessment model. Statistical analyses were applied for qualitative data and an interview was designed for the qualitative research question. Researchers concluded that there was a significant difference between the translation scores of the experimental and control groups. The former outperformed the latter group on the translation task.

There are different views on the relationship between language and culture. Some consider them as separate entities one being a code-system and the other a system of beliefs and attitudes. Some believe in a cause and effect relationship between the two; and yet others argue for a co-evolutionary mode of interrelation. This paper will subscribe to the Hallidayan co-evolutionary view of the relationship (cf. Halliday 1991), presenting the view that language and culture are both integrated into a unique socio-semiotic system always interacting with one another for the successful functioning of the system. It will discuss some aspects of this interaction and the implications for ESL/EFL education programs.