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The rapidly growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to fundamentally transform the realm of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instruction. This research studied this emerging trend through a qualitative research synthesis of 24 peer-reviewed articles published between 2021 and 2024. It examined them to highlight the diverse applications, challenges, and teaching practices associated with AI in EFL education. Methodological rigor was ensured through established inclusion and exclusion criteria for selecting the articles. The qualitative synthesis and thematic analysis revealed five prominent themes that illuminate the current landscape of AI in EFL instruction: 1) conceptualizations of AI within EFL settings; 2) factors influencing its adoption; 3) challenges faced when integrating AI into EFL settings; 4) limitations of AI-based tools and methods; and 5) potential avenues for future investigation. Although integrating AI into EFL pedagogy is still in its early stages and presents various challenges, the findings provide valuable insights and practical recommendations for effectively using AI in EFL education, enhancing teaching methods, and improving student learning outcomes. Educators can make informed decisions regarding its implementation while navigating the evolving EFL instruction landscape by cultivating an understanding of AI's potential benefits and inherent limitations.

This study aimed to examine the cross-lingual recognition of French and English words and their pseudo-homophones to verify the presence of Grapheme-Phoneme Conversion (GPC) for the word recognition of foreign language learners. Considering the study's purposes, 100 Iranian advanced English and French learners were chosen and recruited for the study through the convenience sampling procedure. The participants' homogeneity and proficiency level were checked with the aid of an English proficiency test (McMillan Placement Test (MPT)) and a French proficiency test (Test d'Évaluation de Français (TEF)) before the examination phase. To investigate the participants' reaction times for recognizing the real words, illegal nonwords, and legal nonwords (pseudo-homophones), a computerized test was designed that sought the participants' judgments about the presented linguistic construct on the screen. The employed words were chosen according to their morphological complexity, frequency, and length from the learners' course books. Data analysis revealed that pseudo-homophones were more challenging for both English and French learners to recognize; this was shown by their higher reaction time needed for recognizing pseudo-homophones compared with the real words and the illegal nonwords. Although the occurrence of GPC for both groups was attested, it was significantly stronger for the French learners. These findings suggest that word recognition is inherently a phonological process (not an orthographic one) among foreign language learners. 

AI-enabled solutions and systems, including AI chatbots, are revolutionizing teaching and learning processes in language education programs and language classrooms, profoundly changing traditional methodology and pedagogy. This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of implementing and utilizing three AI chatbots, Claude, Chat GPT, and Google Gemini, with traditional instruction in an academic writing course at Ilam University, Iran. To this end, of 39 TEFL MA students enrolling in an academic writing course, four homogeneous classes of nine students were organized. In three classes, the three AI chatbots were used for providing feedback, correction, revision guidance, and tips for outlining, moves, and paragraph organization. A class with traditional teacher-centered instruction was also organized. At the end of the course, students in all four classes were tasked with writing two essays. A team of three raters was asked to rate the essays based on a common rubric. The rating results showed that students who received AI-enhanced instruction through the use of Claude achieved the highest scores, followed by those who received instruction with ChatGPT and Google Gemini, respectively. The participants in all three AI-enabled classes outperformed the participants in the class with traditional instruction. The rating results confirmed the effectiveness of AI-enhanced writing instruction, highlighting Claude as the most effective AI tool, and ChatGPT and Google Gemini in the second and third ranks, respectively. Based on the course outcomes, AI-enabled writing instruction is more effective than traditional instruction.

This study examines the effectiveness of long-term formant frequency distributions (LTFDs), Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs), and their combined application in distinguishing Kurdish-Persian bilingual speakers. Speech samples were collected from 20 early male bilingual speakers who read the fable ' The North Wind and the Sun ' in Kurdish (Sorani dialect) and Persian. The Random Forest algorithm was employed to analyze the data. Feature importance for formant frequencies and MFCCs was evaluated using the mean decrease in accuracy metric. The results indicated that LTFD measures provided moderate accuracy in speaker differentiation, reflecting their capacity to capture vowel-related articulatory patterns. In contrast, MFCCs demonstrated superior performance, effectively encoding spectral and speaker-specific characteristics. When LTFDs and MFCCs were combined, system accuracy was slightly improved compared to using MFCCs alone. This marginal enhancement underscores the potential benefits of integrating LTFDs with MFCCs in forensic voice comparison, where even small gains can have significant practical implications. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of bilingual speaker variability and provide insights for optimizing speaker identification systems in bilingual contexts.

Few studies have explored how English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) preservice teachers can do collaborative reflective practice (CRP) to enhance their knowledge and skills, using artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The main purpose of this study, adopting a basic interpretive qualitative design, is to investigate how CRP can be implemented with ChatGPT to develop preservice EFL teachers professionally. After selecting the participants through a purposive sampling procedure and exploring the perspectives of eight preservice EFL teachers and two teacher educators through narratives, interviews, observations, and group discussions, the data were analyzed through thematic analysis. The results of data analysis showed that employing CRP implemented in ChatGPT has the potential to provide several benefits, including the ability to contemplate new experiences, connect theory and practice, acquire knowledge and expertise, become critical and autonomous, embrace challenges and opportunities, improve professionally, socially, and emotionally, regulate emotions and thoughts, and foster creativity. Furthermore, the use of ChatGPT in CRP can function as a virtual mentor and collaborator to engage with preservice teachers, find problems and resolve issues, and enhance professional growth. The findings of the present study may carry implications for teacher educators and policy makers to enhance social and reflective practices as they integrate AI into teacher education programs to enhance preservice teachers’ cognitive and social functioning.

The present study explores the occupational prestige of the translation profession from both practicing and prospective translators’ viewpoints. The sample of the study included 142 translators and 115 prospective translators (translation students), who completed a survey on the occupational prestige of translation in Iran. The research incorporated two questionnaires as the instruments of the study. The first instrument was the general format of Dam and Zethsen’s (2008, 2011) Translators’ Assessment of the Occupational Prestige of Translation Checklist (henceforth TAOPT). For the second group, the questionnaire prepared by Ruokonen and Svahn (2022) was adapted and used. Based on the findings of the study, translation can be perceived as an art that draws on the knowledge, wisdom, and expertise of translators to provide the best translated target version of the materials. The results of the study disclose that while the participating prospective translators (translation students) perceived translation as a highly prestigious occupation, the majority of practicing translators displayed a more moderate perception of translation as a prestigious occupation. It was also found that participants considered translation’s occupational prestige to be strongly and consistently affected by various factors. It was concluded that translation as a profession requires evolutionary steps on the part of translators and related agencies and organizations in order to elevate the status of the field into a more prestigious and professional domain.

In spite of the longitudinal attempts of the educational authorities, English has failed to have a proper position in the ELT educational system in Iran, resulting in the weak performance of Iranian EFL learners. As a result, this study was carried out to integrate sociocultural theory, multimodality theory, multiple intelligence theory, and social identity theory to develop a comprehensive conceptual model for understanding and overcoming ELT curriculum challenges. A transformative sequential mixed research design was adopted to explore the challenges, perceptions, and provision of the model. First of all, a total of 49 articles were selected from well-established journals to map the related challenges. The review and comparison processes were conducted based on Tricco et al.’s (2018) PRISMA_SCR model (thematic analysis). The extracted categories of challenges were explored in relation to the principles of the four mentioned theories, and nine categories were selected to align with the principles of the mentioned theories. Then, 403 participants from three categories of stakeholders (pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and scholars) were chosen, and their perceptions were assessed through the administration of a researcher-developed Likert-scale questionnaire. Moreover, some interview questions were drawn up to guide the qualitative phase, and an observation checklist was developed to assist in monitoring ELT classroom practices (to confirm the extracted challenges and assure the validity of the questionnaire). The results, obtained through SPSS and SEM statistical platforms, revealed that all three groups of participants considered authenticity, lack of communicative skill, deficiency in teacher training programs, and malfunctioning assessment methods as the most important challenges. This study has highlighted the effect of the application of the principles of sociocultural and social identity theories in developing an optimal learning environment that is socially and culturally responsive. Moreover, the principles of multimodality theory have emphasized the positive effect of the application of different instructional resources in promoting engagement and development among EFL learners. On the other hand, the principles of multiple intelligence theory call for differentiated instruction and assessment to address various cognitive and emotional capacities of learners. By integrating sociocultural, social identity, multiple intelligence, and multimodality theories, this study has provided a holistic framework for reforming the most significant ELT curriculum challenges.

Teaching has recently received extensive attention as an emotionally charged profession, necessitating a deeper exploration of the psychological mechanisms underlying teachers’ practices. However, despite the evidence supporting the role of teachers’ emotion regulation (ER) in their autonomous control over both their practices and their ecological environment, the interplay between EFL teachers’ ER, agency, and autonomy is not yet fully clear. Grounded in positive psychology and ecological theories of agency, the present study tried to contribute to our understanding of this relationship. Accordingly, 232 EFL teachers in Iranian schools, targeted via snowball sampling, responded to an online survey, containing Emotion Regulation, Agency Related to Planning Teaching and Learning Activities, and Teaching Autonomy questionnaires. The results of Multiple Linear Regression and SEM confirmed a positive relationship between ER and agency ( r = .724) as well as ER and autonomy ( r = .713), while predicting 58% and 48% of changes in them, respectively, which demonstrates strong predictive power. The results support an integrated theoretical model, linking ER to teachers’ agentic and autonomous behaviors, and indicating that emotionally-regulated teachers are more likely to exercise control over their professional practices and environment. These findings offer implications for educational administrators and psychologists, as well as ELT practitioners who wish to improve educational practices by empowering teachers to foster sustained well-being and deal with burnout. Finally, the possibility of an updated construct of Agentic Autonomy is proposed to bridge ER with teachers’ ecological agency.

Given the cognitive demands of consecutive interpreting and the psychological pressures faced by novice interpreters, the present quantitative study aims to identify the most frequently occurring disfluencies in the output of English-Persian interpreter trainees and to explore how interpreting anxiety influences different types of disfluencies. A total of 23 translation trainee students were selected based on convenience sampling. Data were gathered through the Interpreting Classroom Anxiety Scale and a CI exam. After classifying the disfluencies =, it was revealed that hesitation, silent pauses, and prolongation are the predominant disfluency features. These types of disfluencies indicate cognitive overload and failures in language planning. Statistical analyses showed a significant correlation between high levels of anxiety and an increased frequency of these disfluencies; however, no meaningful relationship was found between interpreting anxiety and disfluency in general. This suggests that anxiety adversely affects fluency and overall interpreting performance. This study highlights the critical role of psychological factors, particularly anxiety, in interpreter performance and training. The findings call for the inclusion of anxiety-reduction techniques in interpreter education and suggest future research on experience-based disfluency patterns and Persian-specific disfluency classification.

Productive skills have a vital role in learning the English language as they provide foreign learners with opportunities to practice real-life activities in the classroom. The photo-based method for teaching language skills has been developed due to advances in visual technology, the shift to student-centered learning, and the demand for 21st-century skills. Thus, this study aimed to examine the effectiveness of utilizing Photovoice on Iranian intermediate learners’ English language productive skills. The research followed a quantitative quasi-experimental design that included pretest and post-test equivalent treatment and control groups. Sixty intermediate female language learners were chosen from a private institute in Isfahan, Iran. First, they were selected conveniently and then they were homogenized based on their performance on the Preliminary English Test. They were divided into two experimental ( n = 30) and control ( n = 30) groups. The experimental group received Photovoice as a methodological innovation, incorporating reflective and collaborative activities, while the control group received routine language instruction involving traditional teaching practices such as lectures, textbook exercises, and grammar drills. One pretest and one post-test were administered to assess the learners’ speaking and writing skills. Then, between-subjects MANOVA and t-tests were employed to analyze the data. The results revealed that Photovoice significantly helped students improve their speaking and writing skills. The present study might have useful implications for curriculum designers, language learners, teachers, and other researchers who are considering the use of Photovoice in language classes.

This study investigates the impact of negotiated syllabi on English as a Foreign Language (EFL)   learners’ motivation, engagement, and autonomy through a mixed-methods approach. Participants included 120 EFL learners, divided into experimental and control groups. Quantitative data were collected via motivation, autonomy, and engagement scales administered pre- and post-intervention, while qualitative data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with a subset of learners from the experimental group. ANCOVA result indicated that learners in the negotiated syllabus group exhibited significantly higher levels of motivation, engagement, and autonomy compared to the control group. Thematic analysis of interview data revealed eight primary themes, including increased relevance of course content, collaborative learning, and enhanced responsibility. Participants reported feeling more invested in their learning due to active involvement in course design, which fostered a sense of ownership and agency. These findings have implications for EFL curriculum development, highlighting the potential benefits of integrating learner input into syllabus design to improve educational outcomes. Future research should further explore learner-centered approaches across diverse EFL contexts.

This study employs a descriptive framework to explore the evolution of several suffixes in contemporary Persian. The primary focus is to determine whether these suffixes were recognized as such in ancient Iranian languages or if they functioned as independent morphemes that gradually evolved into grammatical elements. Grammaticalization is examined as the process through which lexical components acquire grammatical roles, or how elements with existing grammatical features become increasingly grammaticalized. A critical question arises regarding independent morphemes that have transitioned into suffixes: Have they entirely lost their original meanings and become purely grammatical tools for word formation, or do they retain independent functions in certain contexts? An analysis of the suffixes -(e)stān , -bār , -bān , -dān , -pād , -zār , -gār/-ger , -kade , and -gāh , along with their meanings and usages in contemporary Persian, indicates that these suffixes were once free morphemes in the ancient Iranian period. Over time, due to linguistic changes, they have diminished in lexical independence and are now primarily used as adjectival or locative suffixes in modern Persian. The necessity to generate new vocabulary for various phenomena has significantly influenced the grammaticalization of many independent morphemes.

Language teachers are professionally expected to serve as educational innovators, change agents, and particularly teacher-researchers. Teacher-researcher identity and its negotiation have received much attention from international scholars. In Vietnam, substantial research has been conducted to examine this concept and its influential factors among tertiary lecturers. Nevertheless, a research gap remains in understanding factors affecting teacher-researcher identity negotiation from other teacher demographics, particularly from an insider’s perspective. Therefore, this autobiographical introspective narrative inquiry addressed this gap by shedding light on the contextual influences on my teacher-researcher identity negotiated during the process of completing a Master’s graduation thesis. Guided by Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory of Human Development as the theoretical framework, the study gathered data from my autobiographical writings and semi-structured interviews with two purposefully-selected outsiders. The collected data were deductively analyzed through thematic analysis. Results revealed that contextual influences (personal, academic, institutional, and socio-cultural contributors) on my teacher-researcher identity negotiation were nested into an ecological system of four concentrated layers, including the micro-, meso-, exo-, and macro-systems, respectively. These findings further showed how the socio-academic condition of the Mekong Delta region affectionately nurtured my growing maturity as a qualitative teacher-researcher. Beyond its scholarly contribution, this study is also a testament to how one’s roots can illuminate the path toward becoming a teacher-researcher, offering inspiration for others walking a similar journey.

Mind mapping has increasingly been acknowledged for its ability to improve learning outcomes, especially within language education. This research compared virtual and traditional mind mapping techniques for improving writing performance and motivation in Iranian EFL learners. The initial pool comprised 120 Iranian EFL students at the pre-intermediate level, selected based on their KET exam results. From this group, 90 participants were randomly divided into three cohorts: two experimental groups and one control group. Before the intervention, all groups completed a writing assessment designed by the instructor, along with a motivation survey. The first experimental group was taught using virtual mind mapping tools, while the second experimental group utilized conventional, paper-based mind maps. The control group received standard writing instruction without the use of mind mapping. After the instructional period, the motivation questionnaire and writing tests were re-administered to all participants. Statistical analysis demonstrated that both mind mapping groups achieved significantly higher scores in writing and motivation compared to the control group. Furthermore, an independent samples t-test comparing the two experimental groups revealed that the virtual mind mapping cohort outperformed the non-virtual group slightly in both writing achievement and motivational measures. Insights from semi-structured interviews showed that most learners held favorable views toward the use of virtual mind mapping in their English writing classes. These results highlight the benefits of incorporating virtual mind mapping into EFL teaching practices to boost writing skills and learner motivation.

The ability to write from sources or integrated writing is considered an essential competency in academic and professional settings. This study investigated the possible interactions between motivation regulation strategies, integrated writing strategy use, and integrated reading-listening-to-write (RL2W) performance of Iranian EFL learners. A convenient sample of 31 learners from an EFL essay writing course participated in the study. The required data were collected based on the learners' performance in an integrated writing task and their responses to motivation regulation and integrated writing strategies questionnaires. The correlation analysis indicated a positive moderate relationship between motivation regulation strategy use and integrated writing performance of the learners, while integrated writing strategy use showed a low relationship with these constructs. Multiple regression analysis also indicated that among the subscales of motivation regulation strategy use in writing, interest enhancement had a significant contributory power to account for the integrated writing performance of the learners. MANOVA results also pointed to the superiority of high writing proficiency learners in motivation regulation strategy use compared to their less competent counterparts, but there were no significant differences between high and low groups in integrated writing strategy use, which confirmed the importance of quality of strategy use to mere quantity. As a subsidiary aim, the challenges learners encountered in the integrated writing process were identified by analyzing their responses to a reflection question and examination of their written essays. They were identified as linguistic, psycholinguist, and academic skill problems.

This article investigates language assessment literacy (LAL), among tertiary EFL teachers in Indonesia, a crucial area that remains under-explored within the context of EFL education. LAL is conceived as knowledge, skills, and competencies required in designing, administering, and interpreting language assessments, contributing to high quality learning and teaching practices. Despite their importance, there has been little knowledge of Indonesian EFL teachers with regard to LAL levels, particularly in higher education. This study bridges the gap and investigates teachers' knowledge of the fundamental assessment principles (validity, reliability and practicality), their ability to put assessment practices into a classroom, the challenges they face in interpreting assessment data to inform instruction, and experience in assessing language skills and components. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, using surveys and interviews with 297 EFL teachers at various higher education institutions (102) in Indonesia. It points out that EFL teachers in Indonesia face common obstacles to LAL training, especially in the practical application of assessment knowledge. This finding underlines the need for well-rounded professional development programs to improve teachers' LAL, focusing on some aspects of language assessment practice. The study concludes with some recommendations on how teacher education programs and assessment practices can be improved in the EFL context in Indonesia. A key recommendation is that institutions and policymakers should integrate comprehensive LAL programs into teacher education curricula for both pre-service and in-service training.