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The role of EFL lecturers’ first language (L1) in the EFL courses has been an ongoing debate. A monolingual approach to EFL suggests that the use of the target language solely in foreign language (FL) classroom improves learning of the target language. Accordingly, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the attitude of Iranian lecturers and EFL learners towards using L1 as a scaffolding tool in reading comprehension. As such, a mixed method design was employed and the data were collected from a sample of 80 Iranian EFL students and 15 lecturers. The quantitative data were collected through two questionnaires and the qualitative data were gathered using a semi-structured interview guided by the research objectives. The findings revealed that the participants perceived the use of L1 (Persian) as a scaffolding tool in their EFL classrooms and it was used to serve a number of purposes: to explain complex grammar, to translate new words, to define concepts, and to help each other in their groups. Moreover, lecturers believed that L1 helps learners’ improve EFL learners’ reading comprehension. It can be concluded that L1 can be utilized as a scaffolding strategy by learners and lecturers in facilitating their learning and it can be used as a pedagogical tool by the EFL learners to enhance their learning experiences as well as to maximize their engagement in the classroom.

در مقاله حاضر رابطه بین ریسک پذیری، انگیزه ی یادگیری، اضطراب صحبت کردن به زبان انگلیسی و اعتماد به نفس زبانی با درستی، روانی و پیچیدگی گفتاری زبان آموزان زبان انگلیسی مورد بررسی قرار گرفته است. همچنین تاثیر تکرار فعالیت برروی متغیرهای فوق و همچنین بر روی درستی، روانی و پیچیدگی گفتاری زبان آموزان مورد مطالعه قرار گرفته است. جهت انجام تحقیق، پرسشنامه ای که به این منظور طراحی شده به 142 نفر زبان آموزان زبان انگلیسی داده شد. سپس، آنها به طور تصادفی به دو گروه آزمایش و کنترل تقسیم شدند. شرکت کنندگان در گروه آزمایش فعالیت مربوطه را در پنج نوبت که هر کدام یک هفته باهم فاصله داشتند تکرار نمودند. شرکت کنندگان در گروه کنترل فعالیت مربوطه را فقط در دو نوبت به فاصله سه هفته از یک دیگر تکرار نمودند. پرسشنامه مربوطه مجددا در پایان تحقیق به کلیه شرکت کنندگان داده شد. نتایج نشان داد که ریسک پذیری، انگیزه یادگیری، اضطراب صحبت کردن به زبان انگلیسی و اعتماد به نفس زبانی بر روی درستی، روانی و پیچیدگی گفتاری زبان آموزان تاثیرگذار می باشد. علاوه بر این، تکرار فعالیت به آنها کمک می کند تا درستی و پیچیدگی گفتاری زبان انگلیسی خود را بهبود ببخشند.

One skill that student teachers need to develop during their academic studies is the capacity to produce accurate and well-organized texts. This study reports on the comparative impact of metalinguistic feedback (MLF), teacher interactive feedback (TIF(, and the peer-feedback (PF) on the accuracy and organization of postgraduate ELT student teachers’ writing. The participants were 57 postgraduate students who were recruited from a population of 70 postgraduate students, in three classes, that were randomly assigned as the MLF group, the TIF group, and the PF group based on the focus of the presentation and the feedback type they would receive during the 14 session treatment. A hybrid process-oriented and genre-based methodology was employed to teach the identical teaching materials to all the groups with a focus on grammatical features and relevant grammatical exercises in the MLF group,   on reflective and interactive negotiation of form and meaning in the TIF group, and on individual peer-assessment of the peer’s writing in the PF group. The results revealed significantly higher levels of accuracy among the MLF group with no significant difference in the organization of the groups’ writing. The findings underscore the role of MLF in enhancing accuracy. 

The present study attempted to investigate the relationship between English language teacher perfectionism, teacher burnout, and teacher efficacy. For the purpose of the study, 114 teachers in Tabadkan District, Mashhad, were chosen. Eighty-Three of the participants were female and thirty-one were male with different majors in English language. Three questionnaires, namely the Scale on English Language Teacher Perfectionism (SELTP), Maslach Burnout Inventory, and Teacher Efficacy Scale, were used to collect data on the variables under investigation. The data were analyzed using correlational statistics and t test procedure. The obtained results indicated that there was a high positive correlation between perfectionism, teacher burnout, and efficacy, that female teachers were more efficacious than male ones, and that the magnitude of correlation coefficients was higher for the male participants.

Many factors may be involved in determining why some students are more and some are less proficient in language. This study tried to explore the factors affecting Iranian EFL learners’ proficiency. 221 students at second, third and fourth year of university, including 50 male and 171 female were selected randomly to participate in the study. A researcher-made questionnaire and a proficiency test comprised the data collection instruments. The researchers were able to identify three factors affecting language proficiency. They were classified as social factors, cultural factors and linguistic factors, Then a model was developed to represent the relationship among these factors and language proficiency. In line with Bourdieu’s (1986), the results of data analysis indicated that social factors are among the most dominant factors affecting the learners’ language proficincy.

To analyze and evaluate textbooks, researchers have either proposed scales and checklists to be filled by teachers and learners or conducted qualitative investigations of the match between SLA theories and textbook activities. This study, however, employs the microstructural approach of schema theory to scrutinize the reading passages of “Mosaic 1 Reading”. To this end, 17 passages of the textbook were randomly chosen and their constituting words were explored as semantic, syntactic, and parasyntactic schemata. The passages were also analyzed in terms of their readability indices. The results showed that they consist of 3722 schema types, 2979 (80%) of which are semantic in nature. Although the textbook aims at “academic success” at English language “proficiency levels”, it provides no objective definition of what they stand for. In terms of readability, however, the passages vary in difficulty from grade three in primary school to college level. Further, the textbook is discussed in terms of its constituting schemata and suitability to the Iranian context and suggestions are made for future research. The findings of this study have important implications for language teaching, testing and materials development. They show that language proficiency must be defined in terms of schema types and the bulk of class time must be spent on teaching semantic schemata rather than syntactic and parasyntactic ones. Similarly, for testing the reading comprehension of these passages, the number and type of test items must be based on the percentage of semantic and syntactic schema types and subjective criteria such as teachers’ intuition or experience must be avoided both in teaching and testing the comprehension of passages.

The present study was an attempt to investigate the effect of IT system-based instruction vs. traditional instruction of teaching English on Iranian low-intermediate EFL learners’ reading comprehension ability in a smart school in Tonekabon, Mazandaran, Iran. To collect the data, 60 low-intermediate high school learners took part in the study. As to the homogeneity of the participants, they took Solution Placement Test (SPT). The participants were divided into one experimental group (i.e. receiving the treatment in terms of using smart tools) and one control group (i.e. receiving no treatment and being traditionally taught through white board). A reading comprehension test (pre-test) was given to examine the participants’ initial knowledge of reading comprehension. Similar to the pre-test, a reading comprehension test (post-test) was utilized to check the participants’ performance of reading comprehension and look into their probable progress as a result of receiving the treatment. Findings revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group after the treatment highlighting the success of instruction in enhancing the students’ reading comprehension ability. The results suggest the application of smart tools to promote interaction among the learners and assist them to freely express their thoughts in the e-learning environment.

The extent to which teachers’ written corrective feedback (WCF) is conducive to ESL learners’ improvement has been discussed since Truscott’s claim in 1996. The mentioned debate continues because there has been lots of contrastive research studies with different results. This paper presents the results of a 2-month study of the effectiveness of WCF to 65 low intermediate Iranian learners. In the first phase, the students were divided into two groups of hedged group and control group, which received uncoded feedback. The learners produced 8 pieces of writing (Nelson Test was given to students to homogenize the groups). The first piece of writing was considered as the pretest and the 8th piece of their writing was considered as their posttest. Independent and paired sample t test were used to analyse the data statistically. The result of comparing the mean performance of the two groups in posttest indicated that the probability value was less than .05 (p = .000 < .05) which means that the mean performance of the two sets of scores in post test is significantly different and the hedged form feedback group has outperformed the one who received uncoded feedback.