Teaching English Language
Volume:16 Issue: 37, Winter and Spring 2022

In recent decades, developing intercultural sensitivity is one of the formidable challenges in foreign language education. EFL learners require appropriate intercultural skills to interact more effectively in culturally diverse settings. This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of using interculturally-laden tasks in enhancing Iranian English language learner' intercultural sensitivity in Anzali, Iran. To this end, a sample of 44 intermediate EFL learners was selected through convenience sampling from a pool of 60 based on their performance on Quick Oxford Placement Test. The sample was then randomly assigned to a control group, with no intercultural training, and an experimental group receiving intercultural training during an eighteen-session treatment. Afterward, Chen and Starosta's intercultural sensitivity scale (ISS) and seven intercultural tasks were administered for two groups to evaluate their level of intercultural sensitivity prior to and after treatment implementation. The data collected through ISS was analyzed by conducting a multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA). Moreover, the data from intercultural tasks went through content analysis. The results manifested a notable enhancement of experimental groups' intercultural sensitivity under the definitions of Byram's ICC model. However, no significant difference between male and female learners' intercultural sensitivity was detected. Implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Negotiated syllabus, as a type of learner-centered syllabus, has been found to affect language learners' language achievement. This study aimed at investigating the foreign language learners' foreign language anxiety and motivation for learning. We selected two intact classes, consisting of 64 undergraduate language learners. We used a quasi-experimental research design. The two intact classes received foreign language anxiety and motivation scales before and after the treatment. The experimental group received a negotiated syllabus, while the control group received a teacher-developed syllabus. The two groups' scores on different aspects of motivation and language anxiety scales were analyzed through independent samples t-tests. The results indicated that while foreign language anxiety of learners in the experimental intact class significantly decreased, their motivation for learning English language increased. It was concluded that the use of negotiated syllabus can filter language anxiety and can significantly improve students' motivation for learning. Findings can be employed by English language teachers and learners.

This study tried to specify the extent to which Iranian EFL instructors’ teacher immunity was influenced by their affective factors. To this end, first, the researchers selected 129 (61 male & 68 female) EFL teachers from among the teachers at diverse language institutes, high schools, and universities in Urmia as the participants of the study. Second, they used an emotional intelligence questionnaire, a personality scale, and a teacher immunity questionnaire in order to determine the participants’ emotional intelligence, personality traits, and teacher immunity, respectively, during a three-week period of time. The results of the study accentuated that the participants’ emotional intelligence, along with their neuroticism, openness to experience, and conscientiousness personality traits made unique contributions to explaining their teacher immunity in descending order of statistical significance. The researchers ascribed the obtained results to the close affinity between the aforementioned affective factors and the sub-components of teacher immunity. The results may assist the teacher education course developers to overhaul the pre-service and in-service teacher education courses in foreign language contexts.

Although a great deal of research has been conducted on various aspects of implicit and explicit knowledge, very few research have examined how written corrective feedback (WCF) works on implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge. Inspired by this gap, the aim of the present study was to investigate whether the direct and indirect unfocused kinds of WCF can lead to an increase in the learning gains in terms of implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge. To that end, 90 participants selected from a statistical pool of 380 EFL learners in seven private English language institutes were assigned into two treatment groups and one control group via random matching technique to receive the intended treatment. Using MANCOVA and one-way ANCOVA statistical techniques, data related to two treatment groups and one control group were collected. The results showed that both types of direct and indirect unfocused WCF could increase the students’ implicit and explicit grammatical knowledge. The results also suggested that although both written feedbacks improved the learners' performance almost equally, the direct type of WCF was slightly more effective. The study concludes with implications for teachers regarding their use of appropriate types of written error correction.

With the advent of technology, blended learning (also known as hybrid learning), as an approach to learning has become a common feature of education across the world. Considering the importance of learners' attitudes toward learning environments, in this study, an attempt was made to investigate the impact of the blended learning model on Iraqi students' achievement in an English literature course as well as their attitudes toward blended learning. In doing so, a total number of 50 English Literature BA participants took part in the study. The participants were subjected to a pre-test and a post-test after their homogeneity was confirmed using the Oxford Placement Test. In the next step, the students were interviewed to help the researchers gain a deeper understanding of the learners' perspectives on blended learning. The results of the repeated measures analysis suggested that blended learning could improve EFL learners' literary knowledge, especially in the genres of short fiction and drama. Moreover, it was found that the learners had a positive attitude toward this learning method since they considered it a new form of learning that could heighten their motivation, improve their participation, and provide the chance to be autonomous learners. These findings are discussed and conclusions obtained from the results are put forward.

Despite the significance of writing critical recall and reflection journals for pre service teachers, a multitude number of recall and reflection journals written by them are descriptive and minimalistic. In view of this problem, the aim of current study was twofold: 1) to analyze discoursal patterns of pre service teachers ‘collaborative reflection via Edmodo, 2) to examine if it can improve their reflective writing from descriptive to critical. To this end, a total of forty-three pre service teachers participated in the study. The participants were then required to write their reflections on their classmates' teaching performances in Edmodo collaboratively. To examine their improvement, the discoursal patterns of their reflective writings were analyzed using Prilla et al.'s (2015) framework. To elicit EFL pre service teachers' comments on collaborative reflection via Edmodo, a questionnaire was assigned to the participants, and an interview was set up to shed more light on their comments. The results indicated that some discoursal patterns of critical reflective writing had emerged in pre service teachers' recall and reflection journals. The analysis of the questionnaires and the interview also revealed that the majority of the participants agreed that Edmodo had had positive contribution to their critical reflective skill. The findings have implications for EFL practicum courses.

In light of the importance of metadiscursive code glosses in establishing writer-reader interactions and the necessity of teaching these markers according to the genre of interest, this study aimed to evaluate the comparative effect of three instructional approaches on fixing the underuse of code glosses in Iranian intermediate English as a foreign language learners' expository essay. Sixty Iranian EFL learners with underuse of code glosses in the Iranian Corpus of Learner English were recruited through a purposive sampling procedure and randomly assigned to four groups: production-oriented approach, genre awareness, data-driven learning, and control. After the treatment phase, three 250-word expository essays were assigned to groups. Four learner corpora were compiled from the learners’ expository essays. Statistical comparisons of the corpora with their counterparts from the pre-treatment phase suggested significant improvements in the frequency of the use of code glosses in the production-oriented approach and data-driven learning groups but not in the genre awareness and control groups. Moreover, learners in the production-oriented approach group outperformed those in the data-driven learning group. Implications of the results, including the potential use of the production-oriented approach in the Iranian EFL context for the instruction of other metadiscourse types, in particular, and academic English instruction at large, have been considered.

The capacity to communicate in English expands opportunities for acquiring and enriching knowledge, extending social life, and interacting with more people from all over the world. However, due to a lack of expertise and confidence, students have difficulty expressing their ideas in the target language. The study aimed to ascertain EFL teachers' perceptions of the benefits and problems associated with enhancing students' speaking abilities through task-based language instruction (TBLT). The study employed a qualitative descriptive approach, involving an interview and the distribution of a questionnaire. The interview provided the primary data, while the questionnaire provided the secondary data. Ten English instructors from a school in North Sumatera were purposefully chosen for their experience utilizing TBLT to improve students' speaking abilities. The qualitative analysis of this study found that teachers had a favorable perception of TBLT implementation. They acknowledged that TBLT helps their teaching practice by encouraging students to engage in active practice and participation in completing communicative activities in the target language. However, difficulties arise in teachers' inventiveness in devising communicative assignments that match the students' requirements and expectations, given their diverse backgrounds and occupations.

Globalized approaches to teaching are developing in extent, notifying the idea for educational alterations, improving present teaching activities, and considering the paradigm shift in teaching towards learner-centered pedagogy.  Although this new paradigm of teaching has long been presented to language teaching, it is believed that scarce attention has been given to its implementation in Iranian EFL context. The present investigation is an attempt to reveal the extent to which assessment procedures correspond to learner-centered pedagogy regarding Iranian TEFL instructors’ and students’ attitudes. To this end, a sample of 378 teacher training students, and 196 instructors were selected based on convenience sampling. Data were gathered through the validated and reliable scales of assessing learner-centered pedagogy implementation. The collected data were analysed using one-sample and independent samples t-tests. The results of the analysis demonstrated that according to the students’ and teachers' attitudes, assessment procedures do not correspond to learner-centered pedagogy in teacher training program at universities of Iran. Therefore, it is concluded that assessment procedures relating to learner-centered pedagogy are still behind the standards of learner-centered pedagogy. The results provide insights into considering the new paradigm of education in teaching to promote teacher training courses. Besides, they can be useful for material developers, and syllabus planners.

Numerous studies have corroborated the importance of metadiscourse in academic writing. As one of the main components of metadiscourse, stance has received fairly extensive attention recently. One of the questions in this regard (with conflicting results) has been the relationship between author gender and the use of stance markers. Moreover, the relationship between author count and stance markers in research articles has been extremely under-researched. Therefore, this study set out to investigate the relationship of author gender and author count with stance markers in the applied linguistics research articles. To this end, a corpus of 416 articles (with a total word count of over 2.6 million words) was used for the author count question. Of this large corpus, 199 articles were used for the gender-stance investigation. The normalized frequencies of stance markers were extracted using LancsBox corpus analysis software. Then, the obtained data was analyzed using Mann-Whitney test to shed light on the relationship of author gender and author count with authorial stance. Mixed results were obtained for the relationship of author count and authorial stance components (including hedges, boosters, self-mention markers, and attitude markers), while no significant result was obtained for the relationship between gender and stance.

Writing skill has always been the Achille Heel of the students when learning a foreign language. It takes so much time and energy of the learners as well as teachers to unearth the challenges of the learners and propose applicable solutions for them. This study aims to explore the EFL learners’ writing difficulties, strategies, and attitudes and examine the areas of writing difficulty in their writing performance. To this end, a close-ended questionnaire and an interview were administered to 31 pre- to upper-intermediate EFL learners from two intact classes who were interested in improving their general writing abilities. A writing task was also given to identify the areas of difficulty in practice. The results of frequency analysis revealed that the students’ major areas of difficulty were cohesion and coherence and topic development. Furthermore, the students’ frequent strategies and behaviors are brainstorming, editing and revising, and, in terms of attitude, they unanimously consider writing a rather difficult skill. The implications and down-to-earth recommendations for the learners and teachers are enumerated at the end.

Throughout the last decade, vocabulary teaching seems to be one of the trending areas of research. In this case, teaching vocabulary through multimedia or Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) has received special attention. Different students with various learning styles may benefit from CALL differently. The study focuses on the effect of teaching vocabulary through PowerPoint Designed Vocabulary Organizers (PDVOs) on learners with different learning styles. Based on their responses to a learning style determiner questionnaire, 267 pre-intermediate (determined by Nelson English language test) male students were assigned into five groups; a control group and four experimental groups of Visual, Auditory, Read/Write, and Kinesthetic (VARK). 100 pre-selected words were taught to the experimental groups through the PDVOs. On the other hand, the control group learned those words through a traditional method. The research hypotheses were tested by Analyze of Covariance, Paired Sample T-test, and Wilcoxon Test. The results revealed that the students significantly gained better results being taught through the PDVOs compared to the traditional one. It was also found that all students with one of the four VARK learning styles significantly improved in scores after the intervention. Taking a deeper look, Visual and Kinesthetic learners’ improvements were notably higher than the Auditory and Read/Write learners. Finally, using Gardner’s Attitude/Motivational test battery, it was revealed that the students have significant positive attitudes toward being taught by the PDVOs. The findings of the present study indicated that using multimedia that provides vocabulary items through different channels can be beneficial in vocabulary teaching; especially for teaching vocabulary items to Visual and Kinesthetic learners.