درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

As digital technologies increasingly reshape educational practices, understanding their role in language acquisition has become vital. This mixed-methods study investigates the impact of Virtual Reality (VR) and Mobile-Based Instruction on learner motivation and engagement in English language learning, two approaches gaining prominence in modern classrooms. A total of 48 EFL students, aged 15 to 20, from a private school in Yazd participated in the study. Motivation was measured in terms of intrinsic interest and willingness to learn, while engagement was assessed across cognitive, affective, behavioral, and temporal dimensions. Quantitative analysis of engagement scores and motivation scores revealed no statistically significant difference between the two instructional approaches. However, qualitative findings from semi-structured interviews provided deeper insights into learners’ affective responses, cognitive engagement, and learning experiences. Participants described VR-based learning as more immersive, engaging, and confidence-boosting, while Mobile-Based Instruction was valued for its structured approach and teacher support. These findings underscore the importance of integrating immersive technologies with traditional pedagogical methods to enhance foreign language acquisition. The study suggests that a blended learning model may best accommodate diverse learner preferences and optimize language learning outcomes. Such a model could involve weekly VR-based sessions focused on immersive conversational practice, supplemented by mobile-based lessons for grammar, vocabulary reinforcement, and peer collaboration, with the teacher serving as a facilitator and guide across both platforms.

Language Assessment Literacy has emerged as a pivotal competence for EFL teacher trainers in guiding the transition from traditional summative testing toward formative, learner-centered assessment practices. This qualitative study investigates how teacher trainers conceptualize and enact assessment in their classrooms, focusing on the role of LAL in enabling pedagogical change. Semi-structured interviews with fourteen EFL teacher trainers were analyzed inductively using MAXQDA, yielding 114 codes categorized into themes related to prior assessment experiences, influential contextual factors, and perceptions of ideal assessment quality. Findings reveal that trainers’ current practices are strongly shaped by their own histories as learners, institutional resources, and commitments to meeting students’ affective and cognitive needs. While summative methods remain common due to systemic and workload constraints, trainers identify formative and diagnostic assessment as essential for fostering learning, student motivation, and self-concept. Recommendations highlight the need for flexible institutional policies, collaborative professional development workshops, and integration of technology to support formative approaches. This study concludes that strengthening LAL among teacher trainers is critical not only for refining assessment tools and processes but also for driving the broader transformation of EFL assessment culture toward equitable, and pedagogically aligned practices.

With the growing adoption of digital technologies in education, digital literacy (DL) is essential for both novice and experienced educators. Farhangian University, Iran’s leading teacher education institution, plays a key role in fostering DL and technology integration through internship programs where mentor teachers model instructional practices. Despite its significance, the DL competencies of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teaching mentees of Farhangian University and their mentor teachers remain underexplored. Grounded in the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) and Teacher Digital Competency (TDC) frameworks, this descriptive study examined self-perceptions and cross-evaluations of DL and technology use among EFL mentor teachers and teaching mentees at Farhangian University. Purposive sampling was used to distribute two parallel Likert-scale questionnaires to 62 female EFL teaching mentees, enrolled in practicum course three, and 53 female EFL mentor teachers in Isfahan. Self‑perceptions revealed that both mentors and mentees rated themselves most proficient in basic digital tools; mentees reported broader confidence across collaborative and content‑specific technologies, while mentors rated themselves lower across specialized applications. Cross‑evaluations showed that mentors viewed mentees as digitally capable but only moderately effective in classroom integration, whereas mentees perceived their mentors as less digitally literate and infrequent technology users. Both mentors and mentees rated their own competencies higher than those of their counterparts, indicating a self‑enhancement bias and underscoring intergenerational differences in DL perceptions. These findings highlight the need for reciprocal DL development, stronger mentor modeling, and structured digital training within teacher education programs to address intergenerational gaps.

In spite of the increasing attention paid to heritage language education, the pragmatic development of young heritage learners has not gained much momentum. In an attempt to address this gap and following the research trends of interlanguage pragmatics (ILP) and heritage language education, this study aimed to unpack apology and request speech act production of young Persian heritage learners (HLs). The participants of the study were 85 lower-intermediate Iranian students (41 boys and 44 girls in grades 3 and 4) who were learning Persian as their heritage language in international schools. A researcher-made and validated Oral Discourse Completion Test (ODCT), including ten situations (five situations for each speech act), was used as the pre- and post-test to look into the influence of explicit and implicit instructions on the participants’ pragmatic production. The participants were randomly assigned to two groups and were taught for six thirty-minute sessions. The explicit group was offered direct and metapragmatic instruction, while the implicit group received activities, such as role-plays and storytelling, the purpose of which was to indirectly pick up the pragmalinguistic forms and sociopragmatic norms.The findings demonstrated that the learners' speech act production is significantly influenced by both explicit and implicit teaching. Besides, the results indicated that implicit mode could be equally functional in specific contexts, calling for a reconceptualization of instructional strategies in speech act development, which encourages curriculum and materials developers to move beyond traditional reliance on explicit instruction and adopt a more comprehensive approach that prioritizes both explicit and implicit learning.

Advances in generative artificial intelligence (AI), particularly large language models, offer new possibilities for language learning. This study, grounded in sociocultural theory, examined the impact of an AI assistant ( Monica ) on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ writing development. A total of 120 male students (aged 26–36, A2 proficiency) participated in a four-month in-service program. The participants were randomly assigned to either an experimental group, which engaged in AI-mediated collaborative writing, or a control group, which collaborated face-to-face. A sequential explanatory mixed-methods design was employed, integrating pretest–posttest measures, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Quantitative analyses (Split-Plot ANOVA) showed that the AI-assisted group significantly outperformed the control group in Organization, Language Use, and Mechanics, but not in Content or Vocabulary. Importantly, students’ perceptions shifted dramatically: While only 23% initially held positive expectations, 90% reported positive experiences post-intervention, highlighting the role of affective factors in technology adoption. Qualitative data confirmed cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational benefits of AI interaction, but also revealed challenges including overreliance on AI, uncritical acceptance of feedback, difficulty integrating new vocabulary, and cognitive overload when faced with multiple corrections. Sociocultural concerns, such as academic integrity, face-saving practices, and peer judgment, further influenced student engagement. From a theoretical standpoint, the study contributes to sociocultural scholarship by evidencing the ways in which student–AI interaction shapes and mediates writing development. Pedagogically, it calls for intentional scaffolding to foster critical and reflective practices, reframing AI not as a functional tool but as a meaningful collaborator in the learning process.

Though research into the dynamic nature of motivation has gained momentum, there are still some aspects of the issue which are in need of further scrutiny. One such under-researched area is the effect of different learning modules on the direction and pattern of motivational changes, particularly in virtual learning environments. Informed by this gap, the current study explored how EFL learners’ motivation fluctuates based on different learning modules. In so doing, the participants were selected from institute, high school and university contexts. Thus, a major objective of the study was probing the differences among the three contexts as regards motivational fluctuations caused by involvement with different lesson modules. Motometer was utilized as the main means of data collection. Also, in an attempt to triangulate the data collection procedure, retrospective thinking was employed following the collection of Motometer data. Based on the findings, for institute learners, the mid-time of their performance process was the peak motivation time. Furthermore, it was found that the learners experienced more motivation on the activities included in the oral module as opposed to reading activities. Conversely, high school students reached higher levels of motivation on the reading module as opposed to speaking and listening sections. Finally, although significant differences were identified between the institute and school settings concerning mean motivational values for oral modules, no significant difference was observed among the patterns of motivational fluctuations occurring for institute, high school and university students on reading module. The implications of the findings are discussed throughout the paper.

This article deals with the behavioral intentions of high school English teachers in Iran (hereafter teachers) for the development of computer-mediated courses (hereafter courses). It applies the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to examine the relationship between attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control and intentions to create the courses. A survey was conducted using the social media platforms, namely Shad and Telegram. Four hundred forty teachers participated in the survey filling in a questionnaire consisting of thirty-five 7-point bipolar Likert- scale items. Path analysis was employed to investigate the factors influencing the teachers’ behavioral intentions to develop the courses. Moreover, the analyses revealed that 44 percent of the variance in the teachers’ intentions cumulatively explained by their attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. The poor model fit indicated that some factors such as contextual limitations or cultural differences might be at work, but the provision of significant relationship between the theory’s constructs is worth considering.

As a relatively new pedagogical approach, flipped instruction has received much attention. Accordingly, numerous studies in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT) have delved into the usefulness of flipped classroom for language learning; however, this mode of instruction has yet to be explored in the area of second language (L2) listening. This being so, the current study investigated the effect of a flipped course model on Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ listening performance and L2 listening anxiety utilizing a pretest-posttest control group design. The study divided 39 students preparing for the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) exam into two groups: One class received conventional instruction (non-flipped), and one class received instruction based on the principles of flipped instruction (flipped). The participants answered two IELTS practice tests and completed two questionnaires, namely the Listening Anxiety Questionnaire and the Perception of Flipped Learning Experience questionnaire. The results of statistical analyses revealed that the listening performance of both groups improved significantly from the pretest to the posttest and that the flipped class outperformed the control group. Furthermore, it was found that not only did flipping the class alleviate participants’ L2 listening anxiety substantially, but also it positively influenced their attitude toward this mode of instruction. Implications of these findings have been elaborated for stakeholders. 

Classroom-based assessment (CBA) as one of the constructs of formative assessment has been considered highly significant in recent years. Consequently, various tools have been designed to investigate teachers` CBA needs and deficiencies ignoring different levels of teachers` CBA literacy. Thus, the present study researchers developed and validated a classroom-based assessment literacy questionnaire (CALQ) to determine teachers` levels of CBAL. To do so, an inclusive review of the literature was accomplished to retrieve major themes and components of CBAL, and then a series of interviews were conducted with five assessment experts and 13 experienced EFL teachers in accordance with Pill and Harding’s (2013) Model of LAL, Hill and McNamara’s (2012) scope and dimensions of CBA in addition to teachers’ assessment literacy beliefs. Accordingly, a questionnaire (CALQ) including 41 items was developed. To inquire the reliability and validity of the CALQ, 318 EFL teachers were selected through non-probability convenience sampling and asked to answer the questionnaire. The outcomes of the Cronbach’s alpha demonstrated a proper reliability index, and factor analysis products clarified that items loaded on six factors named as illiteracy (6 items); nominal literacy (11 items); functional literacy (6 items); procedural and conceptual literacy (6 items); multidimensional literacy (6 items); and assessment literacy beliefs (6 items). Besides, CALQ is considered advantageous in assessing teachers’ CBAL and facilitating materials preparation to design instructional courses and develop EFL teachers’ CBAL, based on the conclusions of structural equation modeling (SEM), which proved that the Model enjoyed good psychometric features.

This study delves into the attitudes of Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners toward the classroom practices of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT). It endeavors to present a comprehensive understanding of the current state of CLT in Iran, the associated challenges, and potential avenues for enhancing CLT classroom practices. The existing literature review highlights a scarcity of research concerning learners’ perspectives on CLT, with many studies primarily relying on questionnaires or surveys, failing to capture learners’ nuanced attitudes and experiences. In response to this gap, our qualitative research explores the attitudes of 31 Iranian EFL learners using a grounded theory approach. Grounded theory, known for its capacity to unearth insights into social processes and their underlying factors, is particularly suited to this endeavor. The research findings uncover seven key themes that constitute the dimensions of CLT practices in the EFL classroom. These themes include interactive learning, speaking-auditory communication, learners’ participation in class activities, learners’ ability, teacher empowerment, learning needs assessment, and communicative language training. This study offers valuable insights into Iranian EFL learners’ attitudes toward CLT classroom practices. Findings also contribute to the ongoing dialogue on language teaching methodologies, providing educators and policymakers with a deeper understanding of learner perspectives and paving the way for more effective CLT implementation in EFL classrooms in Iran.

In academic discourse across diverse fields, the cultivation of authorial competence in crafting compelling and persuasive texts is of paramount importance. Scholars in the field of linguistics, particularly those involved in discourse analysis, have been attentive to this necessity. Within the realm of academic writing, the strategic utilization of engagement markers plays a pivotal role in achieving persuasive communication and fostering reader engagement. The cultural positioning of academic writers is often reflected in the incorporation of these linguistic elements within written discourse. This study undertook an examination of 60 research articles spanning the domains of hard and soft sciences, with a focus on discerning potential disparities in the employment of engagement markers between two distinct cohorts of authors: native English speakers and non-native Iranian writers. Employing Hyland's (2005b) model of engagement markers as an analytical framework, the study sought to ascertain the frequency of these linguistic devices within academic research articles produced by the aforementioned groups. The findings of the analysis revealed significant differences in the overall and categorical distribution of engagement markers in the scholarly works of native English and non-native Iranian authors across hard and soft science disciplines. These differences may be ascribed to the cultural positioning of academic writers or the potential lack of familiarity with the established conventions of English rhetoric, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics among non-native Iranian authors. The implications of these findings are significant, as they can inform the development of pedagogical materials aimed at enhancing the academic writing proficiency of authors.

Having active participation in today’s more universally-networked research community through publishing in valid English journals has become delicate for the most populated contemporary users of English as a foreign language known as ‘ESP writers. This challenge is typically experienced in ESP authors’ variation in employing the generic move patterns in the overall structure of the academic research articles (RAs) ‘Conclusions’ sections, probably caused by heterogeneity in ‘English’ across the authors’ discipline-specific fields of expertise. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to analyze the organizational moves/steps of the RAs ‘conclusions’ to examine any significant difference/s in the discipline-specific authors’ writing styles in terms of the ‘type’ and ‘frequency’ of the moves/steps under study. To this end, 160 randomly selected RAs conclusions (RACs) from eight academic disciplines equally representing the hard sciences and soft sciences, were comparatively analyzed based on a conflated ESP move analysis model of Yang and Allison (2003), and Moritz, Meurer and Dellagnelo (2008). The results of the study obtained from the Frequency counts, Chi-square tests and the Effect Size measure revealed statistically significant differences between the frequency of moves/steps of the RACs in both discipline-specific groups of sciences; in addition, it was found that generic move patterns of the RACs did not strictly follow the proposed model. However, Pedagogical and practical implications along with suggestions for further studies are presented.