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The current study aimed to evaluate the content of the English textbooks taught in Iranian senior high schools. To this purpose, the study relied upon a descriptive survey design. Through a stratified random sampling, a total of 12 senior high schools were selected from the high schools located in Isfahan. To select the teacher participants, a convenience sampling method was employed. Then, a structured questionnaire was administered to the selected teachers and students. The obtained data were statistically analyzed and item analysis revealed that the accessibility and affordability of the textbooks were the most-favored features. However, most of the students wondered whether the textbooks were equipped with supplementary (online and offline) materials. The post-hoc analysis results revealed the significant overall teacher-student disagreement towards the textbooks. Generally, the results showed that there is a need to adapt the teaching materials to the target situation of use. As a practical implication, the findings may urge the developers of the textbooks to launch a modification project in order to get more conscious in developing future textbooks. Moreover, the findings are of use for the teachers of the textbooks as well as the pedagogical policy makers. 

This study investigated the effects of recast and explicit corrective feedback on Iranian IELTS test-takers anxiety in speaking across different levels of proficiency. Ninety male and female learners, aged 21 to 45, who were preparing themselves to take the IELTS Mock test, were divided into upper-intermediate and advanced levels. Then, they were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups (recast and explicit correction). There were 10 treatment sessions for each group. In the recast group, the students’ mistakes were corrected using reformulation. In the explicit correction group, mistakes were not tolerated, and they were corrected on the spot. In order to measure the anxiety in speaking performance, Chowdhury’s (2014) questionnaire was given to the participants once before the treatment and once after the treatment. Then, the score of each learner was calculated and recorded for the data analysis. The results showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the control and explicit corrective group and the control and recast groups at the upper-intermediate level. However, there was a statistically significant difference between the control and recast groups and the control and explicit group at the advanced levels.

Corrective feedback refers to a teacher or student’s reaction to a learner’s target language production containing an actual or perceived error. The last three decades have witnessed a large amount of research on the impacts of various types of corrective feedback on students’ written production. Along the same vein, the present study seeks to explore the effectiveness of providing teachers’ metalinguistic feedback vs. peers’ collaborative feedback on students’ writing performance. In so doing, the present study adopted a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design including three upper-intermediate groups (i.e., two experimental and one control). The participants of the study were a total of 62 English as a foreign language (EFL) freshman students from two public universities in Tehran, Iran. The writing tasks utilized in the present study were adopted from IELTS writing Task 2. The results of one-way between groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that students produced significantly more lexically diverse as well as grammatically accurate language as a result of both treatments. Moreover, it was observed that collaborative peer feedback led to significantly higher lexical diversity than those of other two groups. The findings of the present study suggest that L2 teachers can opt for a combination of corrective feedback strategies to help learners improve their writing performance.

Written corrective feedback (WCF) refers to the feedback given by writing instructors and tutors on novice writers’ performances. Although extensive importance has been attached to the implications of WCF for improving writing skill in L2 writing studies, there is a paucity of research into research on whether student writers benefit differently from elaborated and evaluative feedback. Having this in mind, the aim of this research was to examine the effect of teacher’s text-specific and rubber-stamped comments on Iranian EFL learners’ writing ability at intermediate level. Quick Placement Test was employed to select 40 pre-intermediate EFL learners as the participants of this research. Then, they were randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups. Prior to the treatment, the participants of both groups were given a pretest to disclose their initial writing ability. After administering the rubber-stamped comments to the experimental group and text specific to the control group, a posttest was administered to seek the effect of two types of instruments. An independent samples t-test was used to see if the treatment was effective. Paired samples t-test was also employed to determine the amount of progression between pretest and posttest of the experimental group. The results of the study revealed that rubber-stamped comments improved the learners’ writing ability. Implicationally, instructors can use rubber-stamped comments to help learners improve their writing ability.

Although previous studies have shown the benefits of graphic organizers in improving learners' vocabulary knowledge, scant attention has been paid to the possible differences in the effect of individually-developed, cooperatively-developed, and teacher-developed graphic organizers on intermediate L2 learners' vocabulary knowledge. The present study addressed this topic by examining 80 intermediate language learners. The participants were selected based on convenience sampling procedure and studied English in four classes. The learners in the conventional group received the translation/definition of the lexical items. Those in the teacher-generated were provided with the graphic organizers prepared by their teacher, and the participants in the other two groups made the graphic organizers either individually or cooperatively. The researchers employed Vocabulary Knowledge Scale as the pre-test, immediate post-test, and delayed post-test to examine the participants' vocabulary knowledge. The findings of this study indicated that the mean scores of the control group in the immediate and delayed post-tests were significantly lower than those of all graphic organizer groups. In addition, the cooperatively-generated graphic organizer group was significantly more successful than learner and teacher-generated graphic organizer groups, but there was no difference between the learner and teacher-generated groups.

It is by now well established that materials may have an impact beyond simply learning a language they present. Hence, in this study attempts have been made to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of a textbook Summit 2B which is currently being widely used in Iranian EFL classes. The textbook has been evaluated based on criteria provided by McDonough and Shaw (1993) on the basis of two stages: an external and an internal evaluation. Efforts have been made to critically evaluate the textbook in terms of the layout, grading and sequencing of assignments, design, content, different activities, sort of texts utilized, and the skills emphasized in the book. The findings showed that albeit there appears to be some shortcomings, Summit 2B seems to be more efficient to meet the requirements of EFL learners as compared with the other textbooks which have hitherto been used at different language classes. Accordingly, investigating and evaluating the book proved to be very lucrative and valuable in terms of pedagogy as well as the efficient attributes that suits the context of the present study. Finally, the implications as regards the efficiency of this particular course book as the consequence of evaluating it have been put forward and the strengths and weaknesses related to it have been argued.

Co-teaching is a method that two teachers work together and deliver the instruction in the same classroom to a heterogeneous group of learners. This study was an attempt to find out the effect of one teach-one assist model of co-teaching on Iranian EFL learners’ reading comprehension. To this end, a quasi-experimental design with the pre-test, post-test, and control group was employed and 35 female students within the age range of 15-18 at the elementary level were selected as the participants of the study from Sanjesh-E-No institute in Tabriz, Iran.  They were randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups after taking Key English Test (KET). The experimental group received instruction through two teachers while the control group was taught by a single teacher. Both groups took part in the pre-test and post-test of reading comprehension. The results of an independent-samples t-test revealed that the experimental group had significantly better reading performance compared to the control group. The results of the study can be useful for teachers, students, and any ELT program.

This study compared the efficacy of explicit and implicit instruction of requestive strategies on upper-intermediate female English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ email writing development. Sixty-two participants in four intact classes were randomly assigned to two explicit and implicit groups. In this quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design study two email evaluation tests and two written discourse completion tests (WDCT) were used to collect the data. In the pretest phase, an email evaluation test and a WDCT were administered to the participants in two sessions. Next, the two groups were provided with ten treatment sessions. The explicit group received direct instruction and metapragmatic explanation on the use of appropriate requestive strategies in writing emails. The implicit group, however, received instruction on writing requestive emails without any explicit explanation about the requestive strategies in emailing. Then, the participants took the posttest of email evaluation test and WDCT in two successive sessions. The results indicated that both modes of instruction exerted significant effects on the learners’ production of requestive strategies in English. The comparison of the two modes of instruction, nonetheless, indicated that the participants who underwent explicit instruction significantly surpassed those in the implicit group. The findings have implications for materials developers and instructors.