mohammadsadegh ghalibafan

Teachers' beliefs and their alignment with teaching methods significantly impact students' growth and academic progress. Given the importance of the English language in defense and military contexts at military and Defence universities,, this study aims to explore the beliefs of English language professors and how these beliefs influence teaching methods and associated challenges. This research utilizes a mixed exploratory data collection method. Initially, participants completed a structured questionnaire with closed questions to assess their beliefs in teaching grammar. Subsequently, 15 participants engaged in open and semi-structured interviews. The statistical population comprises 102 English language professors from various universities of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army, selected using a non-random method (availability). The findings of this research examine teachers' beliefs regarding learning grammar in seven categories, including the significance of grammar in education, inductive approach, analogical approach, focus on form approach, meaning-based approach, value of practice, feedback, and error correction in grammar. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS software, while qualitative data underwent content analysis. The results suggest the importance of teaching grammar in language instruction and the necessity for teachers to align their beliefs to address educational challenges effectively.

This research aims to explore how the cognitive demands of tasks affect the acquisition of English verb tenses and their association with grammatical metacognitive awareness among language learners. The study addresses two key questions: 1) Differential impacts of tasks varying in cognitive load on the acquisition of verb tenses, 2) The predictive role of learners' metacognitive strategies in task conditions. Employing a quasi-experimental design, the study involved 120 first-semester Bachelor of Arts students from Azad University South Branch in Tehran, Iran. Participants were assigned to four groups exposed to different task conditions: reading, reading with textual enhancement, cloze exercises, and reading with writing tasks. Instruments included Grammar Judgment and Editing Tests, Pawlak's (2018) Grammar Learning Metacognitive Strategies Inventory, and the Oxford Placement Test. The analysis involved the learners’ performances on the Grammar Judgment and Editing Test, which were compared from the pretest to the posttest. One-way ANOVA was utilized. Additionally, comparisons among different task conditions in the posttest revealed which tasks resulted in higher learner performance. Results indicated significant improvements in tense structure proficiency associated with higher involvement tasks. This study bridges gaps in understanding optimal task designs for language learning and underscores the importance of metacognitive strategies in the Iranian EFL context.