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Various studies suggest that it is important to determine students' personality charecteristics and assertiveness and make them aware of these differences in order to improve learning process and outcomes. This study aimed to find out how much of the variance in postgraduate students’ assertiveness is explained by five personality characteristics (i.e., Openness, Neuroticism, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness) and which one of these characteristics significantly predicts the students’ assertiveness. To this end, 66 postgraduate students within the age range of 22 to 35 participated in this descriptive correlational study. They were majoring in English language teaching at Islamic Azad University,Tabriz Branch, Tabriz, Iran. The College Self-expression Scale (CSES) and Big-Five Personality Inventory were used to assess the students’ level of assertiveness and their personality characteristics, respectively. In order to answer the research questions, a multiple linear regression analysis was carried out. The results revealed that about 14 percent of the postgraduate students’ assertiveness is explained by five personality characteristics and out of them, only Extroversion has a significant contribution to their assertiveness. The pedagogical implications are presented for teachers, students, syllabus designers, and materials writers.

Learning styles are considered among the significant factors that aid instructors in deciding how well their students learn a second or foreign language (Oxford, 2003). Although this issue has been accepted broadly in educational psychology,further research is required to examine the relationship between learning styles and language learning skills. Thus, the present study was carried out to investigate the relationship between the perceptual learning style preferences and the participants’ writing achievement after receiving instruction based on computer-assisted language learning within the activity theory framework. For this purpose, 67 students majoring in English translation at a university in Iran were selected as the participants of the study based on their performance on a version of The Oxford Placement Test. A correlational research design was employed using a writing pretest and posttest and a style preference questionnaire. The writing instruction was based on an e-learning platform designed according to the activity theory framework. The results indicated lack of significant relationship between the participants’learning style preferences and theirwriting achievement. It was also found that there was no significant difference in the writing achievement of the participants across different learning style preferences.  

Developing rating scales for assessing interactional performance is demanding since it is a relatively complicated procedure. The present study investigated the psychometric characteristics of the CAP rating scale (Wang, 2015) for assessing interactional competence at micro-level. To this end, 160 Iranian intermediate EFL learners were selected based on their performance on TOEFL iBT test from a language institute in Tabriz. Four interaction tasks were used to elicit students’ performance on interactional competence using the CAP rating scale. Five raters were recruited in the study to assign score to each individual’s performance. The participants were pretested and post-tested at the beginning and the end of the term through the same scale. The Pearson correlations were computed in order to estimate the test-retest reliability indices of the scale. In addition, five separate exploratory factor analysis (EFA) through the varimax rotation method were conducted in order to investigate the underlying constructs of the communication functions individually and as a total. The results revealed that the CAP rating scale enjoys a reasonable reliability indices and the four functions i.e. building argument, developing discussion, offering support, and shaping connection can be appropriate predictors of interactional competence. Some pedagogical and assessment implications are presented as well.  

Paradigm shift in language education has caused many countries including Iran to reshuffle their public EFL educational program. However, such a promising trend in Iran has entailed serious challenges, which necessitated this study aimed at collecting data from 70 teachers and 70 students to investigate the CLT challenges in terms of both teachers' pedagogical and assessment areas. A Partial Least Square Model (PLSM) addressed these two variables. The findings showed that the first three sub-traits of both CLT and testing knowledge have varying contributions to the main latent variables, respectively. Second, Friedman test indicated lack of compatibility between the respective dimensions as to the implementation of the program. Third, the post-hoc comparison tests revealed that teachers perceived CLT significantly lower than the three areas of CLT testing, knowledge of CLT tests and knowledge of developing CLT tests. Also, their knowledge of characteristics of CLT was significantly lower than their perceptions of CLT testing, and knowledge of CLT tests. However, their knowledge of the characteristics of CLT was not significantly different from that of developing CLT tests. Finally, their knowledge of techniques in CLT was significantly lower than their perceptions  of CLT testing, knowledge of CLT tests, and knowledge of developing CLT tests. In sum, the Iranian public EFL program still suffers from both implementation and assessment challenges necessitating remedial teacher education program.  

The main purpose of the present quasi-experimental study was to investigate the effects of linear process versus genre-based approach on EFL learners’ written production. To this end, 40 learners of English at intermediate level were randomly selected as the participants of the study and assigned into two groups of experimental (process and genre) which received different types of instruction for 8 sessions. Narrative and process-tasks were employed to collect data from the participants. The collected written data was quantified in terms of the accuracy measure. Independent samples T-test was employed as the statistical means of analysis. The results of the study revealed no difference between the performances of two groups in written narrative task, however, the result of statistical analysis in process task was significant. The study might carry some pedagogical implications for second language teachers, SLA researchers, teacher education and task designers.

Listening is referred to by many scholars as the most important as well as the most complicated skill in the language, which can cause mental fatigue in the learners. This study was an attempt to investigate the relationship between L2 listening comprehension and listening fatigue among Iranian EFL learners. For this purpose, 86 intermediate and upper-intermediate Iranian EFL learners randomly selected after administering a paper-based TOEFL among an initial sample of 120 BA learners majoring in English language translation, took part in the study. A TOEFL listening test and a researcher-made validated listening fatigue questionnaire were utilized in order to gather the necessary data. Afterwards, during the qualitative phase, oral interviews were employed to obtain 30 % of the participant’s’ attitudes about the relationship between listening comprehension and listening fatigue. Applying a Pearson product-moment correlation revealed that there was a significant relationship between L2 listening fatigue and their listening comprehension. These findings were also supported by a small qualitative phase and learners gave their positive support and attitude about the relationship. These findings have some pedagogical implications for teaching and learning an L2, the most important of which is that in order to enhance EFL learners’ L2 listening comprehension, it is better to reduce their debilitative listening fatigue.  

This study was set out to shed light on the efficacy of pushed output directed by scaffolding on 41 (24 female and 17 male) upper-intermediate EFL learners’ speaking fluency and accuracy. A public version of IELTS speaking test was held to measure learners’ entrance behavior. Then, they were randomly assigned into symmetrical, asymmetrical, and control group. The experimental and control groups covered 7 lessons of New Interchange 2 during 15 sessions, twice a week for about 45 minutes each session. Control group received placebo while symmetrical and asymmetrical groups worked on pushed output tasks. The data were audio recorded and transcribed for statistical analyses. The results indicated the efficacy of pushed output in boosting speaking. However, tests of between-subjects effects revealed that the mean score of the control group was not significantly different from that of experimental groups concerning speaking fluency. Furthermore, the results of Tukey's HSD post-hoc tests showed that asymmetrically pushed output activities were more effective in enhancing learners speaking accuracy. In sum, the results suggested that the implementation of pushed out put strategies in student centered contexts could be considered as an effective way in the development of learners’ oral output.  

With the rapid expansion of deploying mobile instant messaging applications such as Telegram for the purpose of language learning, it is quite apparent that language research in this regard is lagging behind the trend. This study addressed the matter by exploring how language learners utilize a Telegram group for the purpose of language learning. In this regard, the activities of a Telegram language learning group with 74 active members was observed and recorded for a week. To capture the patterns of utilization of the group, a thematic analysis was conducted on the compiled corpus of approximately 45000 words gathered by recording the messages posted by the group’s members. The analysis indicated that the themes of utilization of the Telegram language learning group were discussing content-based topics, seeking and sharing resources, recommending conversation opportunities, sharing learning strategies, and giving corrective feedback on each other’s language.  The findings of this research illustrated the potential of mobile messaging applications for creating opportunities for self-initiated and collaborative language learning.