Teaching English Language
Volume:16 Issue: 38, Summer and Autumn 2022

beyond rote learning and to enhance their academic achievement, it is an under-researched construct in ELT contexts. Therefore, this study investigated whether explicit teaching of critical thinking through amalgamation of Critical Discourse Analysis and Critical Linguistics (group 1), Asking 11 Right Questions (group 2), and amalgamation of Critical Discourse Analysis and Critical Linguistics accompanied by Peer-evaluation (group 3) can improve Reading Comprehension abilities of university students in an EFL context.  In so doing, the study utilized a mixed methods design including quasi-experimental and narrative feedback; with 16 participants in groups 1 and 2 each, 15 participants in group 3 as experimental groups, and 15 participants in group 4 as control group. Reading comprehension and critical thinking pretests were employed to homogenize groups at the beginning of the study; then every session 3 provocative texts were applied for critical analysis based on the treatments students received within five sessions. The reading comprehension post-test results indicated that explicit teaching of critical thinking through Asking 11 Right Questions had the highest and most significant influence on reading comprehension ability followed by two other experimental groups with control group representing no significant gain. The findings imply that reflecting critically on learning materials can illuminate hidden cultural and ideological aspects of the texts which consequently helps learners to better understand the text, and to defend against cultural invasion.

This cross-sectional study was designed to explore the written corrective feedback (WCF) strategies employed by Iranian university teachers and the focus of their feedback; we also aimed to determine the relationship between the use of the identified strategies and the teachers' teaching experience and educational level. To this end, 100 MA and PhD volunteer teachers with various years of experience in teaching English from different universities in Iran participated in this investigation. Each male or female participant was requested to provide the researchers with a batch of rated writing essays which contained at least 15 papers. Afterwards, the collected essays were analyzed in terms of feedback strategy types and focus of feedback. To analyze the relationship between feedback strategies and teacher characteristic variables, we used the chi-square test. The findings indicated that the teachers used all the feedback strategies under study including direct, indirect, comprehensive, and selective strategies with the predominance of direct and selective ones. Besides, form followed by organization received the teachers’ attention in the current research more than other aspects of writing. The results of the chi-square test showed that education, rather than experience, had a significant relationship with the teachers’ feedback strategies and was a better predictor of the feedback strategies given by the teachers. At the end, pedagogical implications are provided for researchers and teachers interested in this area of study.

Lack of contextual cues which are richly present in face-to-face communication imposes some conversational constraints on the interpersonal relationships in online classes. One of the means of expressing interpersonal stance is using discourse markers. For the purposes of the present study, namely to investigate how the means of expressing interpersonal stance may be influenced by the medium of instruction (online vs. face-to- face), video recordings of six face-to-face and three online classes were investigated for interpersonal discourse markers. A 300-minute video for the face-to-face and a 119-minute video for the online classes were obtained. The courses were General English ones, upper intermediate level. Results show that the occurrence of discourse markers in online classes was about twice more than in the face-to-face ones. In online classes teachers demonstrate creativity and innovation in using DMs for expressing interpersonal stances which may be to compensate for the limitations of the medium. It is concluded that the medium of instruction has an effect on the amount of discourse markers applied. This can raise awareness with regard to limitations and affordances of the online settings and lead to quality instruction.

In the wake of the COVID 19 pandemic, online instruction has become essential. It requires its teaching and research methods, and many social and psychological factors are at play here. One such factor is self-regulation, which is believed to affect learning. To clarify this issue, the present study used Cho and Cho's (2017) online self-regulation questionnaire with 30 items on a Likert scale and the reading comprehension section of the English Test as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) with 40 items. The instruments were adapted to Google Forms and sent to 297 students via a university LMS in 2021. 184 students returned the questionnaire, of which 12 had to be removed because the responses showed traces of inattention. The remaining 172 responses and their respective reading grades were analyzed via a one-sample t-test. The results confirmed that students' performance on the TOEFL test and self-regulation levels were satisfactory. A bivariate correlation, though, revealed no statistically significant relationship between these variables. There are several explanations for this result (e.g., online instruction was not voluntary for participants). Possibly, students were not motivated to learn. They may not have the necessary skills and tools for this type of instruction. However, simultaneous quantile regression showed that the high-achieving students in the present sample could apply their strategies of self-regulation in online English classes.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of Lexically-Based Language Teaching on writing proficiency among junior EFL university students in Iran. Two university classes, including sixty male and female students (N = 60), were selected and assigned equally to experimental and control groups using the convenient sampling procedure. At the onset of the study and to determine the homogeneity of the groups, the groups took the Key English Test. Before experimental intervention, a pretest, in the format of an essay writing task, was given to both groups. The results of the pretest indicated that the experimental and control groups were similar in terms of general writing proficiency, lexical resources subsection, and grammatical range and accuracy subsection. While the participants in the experimental group were taught based on practices and activities which underline the lexical approach to present essay writing, their counterparts in the control group were taught based on conventional techniques to perform the same writing task. At the end of the experiment, both groups took the posttest which was similar to the pretest in general format. The researchers used the One-Way Analysis of Covariance to compare mean scores attained by the two groups on the posttest with regard to general writing proficiency along with lexical resources and grammatical range and accuracy subsections of writing. The SPSS program, version 20, was used for this purpose. The results indicated that lexically-based language teaching has a statistically significant effect on both general writing proficiency and the lexical resources subsection of posttest writing. However, no statistically significant effect was observed concerning the grammatical range and accuracy subsection of the writing. The findings suggest implications for English language teachers, material developers, and syllabus designers.

Pragmatics is described as the use of language appropriately in diverse and real circumstances to achieve various communicational goals. Despite the significant importance of pragmatic knowledge, second/foreign language learners have been reported to lack acceptable levels of pragmatic competence. To optimize pedagogical techniques implemented in second/foreign language classrooms and increase levels of pragmatic knowledge among second/foreign language learners, component skills that explain variations of pragmatic knowledge need to be delineated. To address the area, 33 Iranian upper-intermediate foreign language learners, having been screened through Venture placement test, were tested in terms of size and depth of vocabulary knowledge, morpho-syntax knowledge, inference making as independent variables, and pragmatic knowledge as dependent variable. Results from linear regression analysis indicated that depth of vocabulary, morphological knowledge, and inference making ability contribute to pragmatic knowledge, with the depth of vocabulary knowledge being the most powerful predictor. However, the model explained less than 40 percent of pragmatic knowledge. It indicated that pragmatic knowledge is complex. Although mastery over this set of cognitive-linguistic skills can be used as a tool to disentangle semantic clues in different contexts, teaching such cognitive-linguistic and metalinguistic skills can only partially meet the learners’ need to master pragmatic knowledge. Pertinent suggestions and implications for the second/foreign language classrooms are discussed according to the obtained results.

Although the review of literature provides some advantages for the flipped classroom learning model in education, there is little research assessing the efficiency of the flipped learning model on second or foreign language (L2/FL) learners’ grammar achievements. Moreover, foreign language anxiety (FLA) is an affective factor that is undesirable in the process of L2 grammar learning and should be reduced in classes in schools. The aim of this study was to examine whether the implementation of the flipped classroom model had a significant effect on the grammar achievement of high school EFL students in Iran. Also, it explored their FLA in the flipped classroom. To these ends, two researcher-made parallel versions of a grammar test (grammar pretest and posttest) were developed to examine 60 high school students’ L2 grammar achievement in two intact classes from a high school in Isfahan. The participants were assigned into two separate groups (experimental and control). Furthermore, a semistructured interview was conducted to collect qualitative data from the 30 participants in the experimental (flipped) group. The quantitative data were analyzed by means of ANCOVA tests. Also, the qualitative data from the interviews were scrutinized through thematic analysis. ANCOVA results revealed the significant effect of flipped learning on the students’ L2 grammatical achievement. The qualitative data analysis also provided information about the flipped students’ FLA level, sources of anxiety, and coping strategies to deal with FLA. The findings have implications for the use of flipped learning in enhancing students' L2 grammar knowledge and reducing their FLA.

The question of whether oral corrective feedback (CF) produces a positive impact on linguistic development has been the focus of recent interaction research. Despite the large body of knowledge in this regard, few studies have investigated the factors teachers take into account in correction particularly learners’ proficiency level. Accordingly, observations and interviews were used to examine Iranian EFL teachers’ attitude to oral CF and the role of proficiency level in their correction. Teachers’ preferences were compared with their actual practice to find the areas of mismatch and the possible reasons behind these mismatches. The participants included four observed and 26 non-observed teachers and their learners who were from two proficiency groups, lower-intermediate and advanced. The results confirmed the role of proficiency level in teachers' corrective behavior in different ways. Certain mismatches were also found between their beliefs and practice. The issues of concern and importance to teachers were found to be different from those of researchers being more emotional in nature. The results pointed to the need for making teachers aware of the cognitive aspects of learning from error correction in teacher education programs.

Acknowledging that there is a dearth of the systemic investigation of religiously motivated language, this endeavor attempts a qualitative examination of the religiously motivated discourse applied to the opening segments of broadcasts aired on Farsi-speaking media outlets. Based on a corpus of 450 randomly gathered programs from multiple Iranian state-run radio and television channels and according to the theoretical foundation considered for this endeavor, I first illustrate the procedure through which the data was collected, followed by the generic analysis of the opening religious speech segments employed at the beginning of the material under investigation. I also aim to show how religious-thought-evoking introductory insertions thematize the discourse and how they influence the mind of society. The findings are reported concerning the Persian or Arabic expressions applied religiously in the preludes, how these expressions are positioned with regards to the discourse that follows, their functions and the goals they are to fulfil.

As teaching an additional language is a demanding activity associated with complexities, exploring the factors contributing to work engagement of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers might be a warranted research domain. As an attempt to expand this area, the objective of this research was set to test a model of teaching engagement based on teacher resilience and foreign language teaching enjoyment (FLTE) among Iranian EFL instructors. In doing so, a number of 296 English teachers, selected through convenience sampling, completed a battery of questionnaires measuring the three constructs in question. First, the measurement models for the latent constructs were substantiated through running confirmatory factor analysis. Afterwards, structural equation modeling was employed to test the hypothesized model. Results indicated that although both teacher resilience and FLTE significantly influenced teaching engagement of EFL teachers, the effect of FLTE was greater than resilience in the model. The results may have intriguing implications for EFL teacher education programs.

The concept of interactional competence and its assessment as a complex language ability has long been a concern for research. A more recent approach to testing this construct has called for an investigation into the commonly-used concept of washback which refers to the effect of testing on teaching and learning.  This study aimed to investigate the washback effect of an interactional competence checklist on EFL teaching and learning. The study combined qualitative and quantitative research methods within a comparative design between an experimental and a control group of 27 advanced English learners. Data was collected through students’ oral performance, teacher and student surveys, the IC checklist, and classroom observations. The data were analyzed using mixed ANOVA and content analysis using coding schemes and themes to compare the scores obtained before and after the treatment. The study revealed a statistically significant difference in learners’ interactive oral performance before and after the implementation of the checklist. Results indicated positive washback in aspects including familiarity with the checklist, test quality, interpretation and use, motivation, professional development, and learners’ studying habits. The implications for the classroom are that language program administrators and curriculum designers can introduce modifications in developing materials that foreground a focus on interactional competence.

This study aims to present a personality description of a group of select preeminent Iranian literary translators. Grounded theory method was used to generate a personality description of the group. The study benefited from both primary and secondary sources of data. The primary data included individual, semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 12 celebrated Iranian literary translators. The secondary sources of data included 30 extended interviews with 23 celebrated Iranian literary translators and four books, including the autobiography of one translator and memories of three others. The qualitative data collected through the interviews were codified and analyzed using open, axial and selective coding procedures of grounded theory method. A constant comparative approach was used until saturation of the categories appeared. The results indicate that, overall, five themes can be taken into consideration to serve as a personality description of Iranian literary translators. The themes include Introversion, Emotionality, Perseverance, Self-confidence and Disorganization. The results are discussed with regards to their didactic implication in translation education.