مطالب

Involvement Load Hypothesis (ILH) and Technique Feature Analysis (TFA) are two frameworks which operationalize depth of processing of a vocabulary learning task. However, there is dearth of research comparing the predictive power of the ILH and the TFA across second language (L2) vocabulary learning tasks. The present study, therefore, aimed to examine this issue across four vocabulary learning tasks (i.e., reading with glosses, keyword techniques, word card, and reading and finding the words in text) ranked differently by the ILH and the TFA. To this end, 80 English as a foreign language (EFL) learners were randomly assigned to one of four tasks of learning 16 target words. The results of one-way ANOVA, LSD Post hoc tests, and multiple regression analyses showed that the TFA had a better explanatory power than the ILH in predicting vocabulary learning gains. The findings highlight the TFA as a more powerful framework.

On 14 July 2015, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was finalized, marking the end of long-term negotiations between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of both Iran and the E3/EU+3. Only six days later, the United Nations Security Council askedall participants of JCPOA to fully implement the deal. It also adopted Resolution 2231 and terminated all previous resolutions. However, despite all absolute commitments of the participants of JCPOA and contrary to theU.N. Security Council resolution, the U.S. overlooked the deal starting from the implementation day. Eventually,the current U.S. President, Donald Trump, announced on Tuesday, May 8, 2018, that he will withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal. Nevertheless, according to international law, JCPOA is not considered a bilateral agreement and so does not provide grounds for any participants to alter their position asthey wish. Rather, it is a multilateral political comprehension endorsed by the UNSC and has a binding nature deriving from Resolution 2231. This resolution reiterates full and holistic implementation of JCPOA and prohibits any violation regardingthe deal. The main question of the present paperis about the legal nature of the JCPOA. The approach of the UNSC towards JCPOA and the responsibilities of the participants and other U.N. member states toward JCPOA are other questions thatare worth considering from an international perspective.

The use of politeness strategies can help interlocutors promote and/or maintain social harmony in telephone interactions. Using the Rapport Management Model proposed by Spencer-Oatey (2008), this study aimed primarily to reinvestigate the closing structures of telephone conversation (hereafter abbreviated as TC) in Persian and to discover the common politeness strategies used by native Persian speakers to end their TCs considering the contextual variables of social distance and status. Moreover, this study tried to explore the effect of time availability/limitation along with those contextual variables on TC closing part. To this end, 30 Persian native speakers were selected randomly. A DCT (Discourse Completion Test) of 12 scenarios was developed by considering three criteria: status, time limitation and distance. Analyzing DCTs, many different TC closing patterns were found. The obtained findings depicted that the aforementioned variables had significant effects on the TC closing patterns and strategies taken by the participants. The findings of the present study may be beneficial for extending pragmatic knowledge through emphasizing the significance of pragmatic competence in language proficiency. Also, since the results showed some limitations in the previous politeness models, the findings of this study can guide researchers to follow more complete and perfect politeness models.

Speaking is deemed by many scholars as a fundamental skill in second language (L2) learning. From the myriad of factors playing a role in willingness to communicate (WTC) in a foreign language, communication apprehension and self-perceived competence have attracted a good deal of interest in recent decades. Furthermore, it is generally agreed that cooperative teaching can enhance learners' linguistic and psychological variables. To unravel the aforementioned dilemmas, 60 male and female EFL learners within the age range of 19 to 25(i.e., 30 each) were selected out of 100 participants via double sampling from several English institutes in Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan province and were assigned equally to an experimental and a control group. Subsequently, the treatment started where the experimental group was taught based on cooperative teaching, while the control group received conventional treatment. Before and after the treatment, three questionnaires (WTC, communication apprehension and self-perceived competence) were given to all the participants in three different phases. After collecting the data, they were analyzed descriptively. Finally, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was run. The findings of the study highlighted that there is a negative correlation between communication apprehension and WTC as well as a positive correlation between self-perceived competence and WTC of Iranian EFL learners in post intervention. The findings further indicated that cooperative teaching can influence learners' WTC, self-perceived competence and communication apprehension.