مطالب

Extensive research exists on the effects of task design features on measuring L2 learners’ implicit and explicit knowledge. However, the role of structure difficulty has received limited attention. Additionally, the use of fine-grained measures of implicit knowledge has remained underexplored. To address these gaps, utilizing objective criteria to select easy (plural -s) and difficult (third-person -s) structures, a total of 256 experimental items, equally divided into grammatical and ungrammatical, as well as easy and difficult structures, were developed and administered to 32 advanced L2 learners. A word monitoring task (WMT) assessed their implicit knowledge through reaction time (RT) and grammaticality sensitivity index (GSI), while a timed grammaticality judgment test (TGJT) measured their automatized explicit knowledge through accuracy scores. The WMT results showed longer RTs for ungrammatical items and larger GSI for the plural -s items, revealing participants’ more implicit knowledge of the easy structure. The results of the TGJT revealed that L2 learners judged grammatical items more accurately than ungrammatical ones and the plural -s items more accurately than third-person -s ones, showing participants’ more automatized explicit knowledge of the easy and grammatical structures. The findings highlight the influence of grammaticality and structure difficulty on knowledge retrieval and suggest that advanced L2 learners exhibit stronger implicit and automatized explicit knowledge of the easy structure. These findings underscore the need for tailored instructional approaches to address difficult structures and emphasize the importance of using real-time psycholinguistic measures to examine L2 learners’ implicit knowledge.

Because of the significance of teachers’ individual and psychological qualities in affecting their performance, an increasing number of studies have been conducted to probe the relationships among teacher constructs in influencing their professional development. In an attempt to clarify the association among teacher constructs, the current study examined a structural model hypothesizing the predictive role of teachers’ resilience and psychological well-being in promoting their professional development using 300 Iranian English language teachers as a sample. In doing so, the validated scales of the three mentioned constructs were administered to gather data and Structural Equation Modeling was utilized to evaluate the hypothesized model of the variables. The findings indicated that both resilience and psychological well-being significantly predicted professional development for the whole sample. However, psychological well-being appeared to be a stronger predictor of professional development in comparison with resilience. The results are discussed, and the pedagogical implications are proposed for teacher education programs.

The question of whether, and to what extent, different measures of pragmatic knowledge mirror students' capabilities as represented in their authentic application of language has been an important consideration in the vicinity of interlanguage pragmatics. To examine the production of politeness markers, as defined by House and Kasper's (1981) seminal work, this study compared and contrasted language learners' performance across four different measures of pragmatic competence: Written Discourse Completion Test, Oral Discourse Completion Test, Role-play, and Natural Methodology in an EFL setting. Furthermore, the requests made by 27 learners in natural situations and by means of WDCT, ODCT, and Role-play with similar characteristics were analyzed. The results revealed that hesitators enjoyed high prevalence in Natural Methodology and consultative devices and scope-stators were more popular in the WDCT, ODCT, and Role-play suggesting, regardless of some minor similarities, significant disparities between the three conventional data-gathering techniques and Natural methodology. The investigation exhibits that Natural Methodology might not necessarily be the ideal pragmatic measure to truly represent all politeness markers. WDCT, ODCT, and Role-Play could be more appropriate to draw on learners' explicit/declarative knowledge, though Natural methodology might be more advantageous to capitalize on learners' automated/procedural knowledge.

Due to the fact that job satisfaction plays a crucial role in teacher attrition, numerous scholars have investigated the predictive variables for occupational well-being in educational contexts. However, this research area has been relatively ignored in higher education contexts. To fill this lacuna, this research employed an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design to examine the predictive roles of teacher mindfulness and self-efficacy in impacting the job satisfaction of English instructors in various Iranian universities. In the quantitative phase, data from 226 EFL instructors were analyzed following a rigorous screening of an initial pool of 234 participants who completed measures of the focal constructs. Structural equation modeling (SEM) confirmed that teacher mindfulness and self-efficacy significantly predicted job satisfaction, with self-efficacy emerging as the strongest predictor. Furthermore, mindfulness exerted a significant indirect effect on satisfaction through the mediation of self-efficacy. In the subsequent qualitative phase, follow-up semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive subsample of 12 instructors to clarify the mechanisms underlying these statistical paths. Thematic analysis revealed that mindfulness facilitates a "psychological pause" through affective detachment, while self-efficacy provides the pedagogical agency necessary to maintain value-action congruence despite institutional stressors. These results suggest that mindfulness acts as a cognitive precursor that enhances pedagogical presence and professional resilience. The implications for developing targeted onboarding strategies and mindfulness-based interventions in higher education are discussed.

Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) is a widely adopted pedagogical approach that emphasizes real-world tasks to enhance second language acquisition. In a bid to empirically assess TBLT effectiveness, this study focused on the extent to which TBLT functions in the development of EAP students' pragmatic competence. To this end, 150 adult undergraduate Iranian students from various majors participated in this study. Also, three authentic role play tasks were designed based on a needs analysis, focusing on scenarios relevant to an EAP setting. Given the data nature, parametric statistical approach in the form of MANOVA of both pre-and post-test data was run to measure the students’ pragmatic competence prior to the intervention and following it. The pretest data-based MANOVA revealed no significant differences among the four groups not only in their overall pragmatic competence but also in the target sub-competences of it including instrumental, regulatory, interactional, personal, explanation, share knowledge, and imagination competences; thereby indicating groups homogeneity prior to the treatments. However, the post-test data analysis in the light of MANOVA resulted in an exactly opposite direction in that significant differences were reported in all six sub-competences, underscoring the effectiveness of task-based assessment methods in enhancing pragmatic competence in general. Post hoc analysis also confirmed the post-test data-based MANOVA. So, the findings underscore that authentic task-based assessment effectively enhances students' pragmatic competence, fostering their ability to use the language appropriately and confidently in real-life communication situations. This study underscores the significance of methodological rigor in evaluating pragmatic competence in educational contexts.