موسی نوشی

Pronunciation remains a persistent challenge for English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. This is particularly important in contexts where segmental/suprasegmental features differ from those of learners’ first language. Translanguaging is widely recognized as a beneficial pedagogical approach in language education. It is defined as learners’ strategic use of their full linguistic repertoire, including first and additional languages, to support meaning-making and learning. However, its application to pronunciation instruction has received limited empirical attention. This quasi-experimental mixed-methods study examined the effectiveness of translanguaging-based instruction in developing Iranian EFL learners’ segmental/suprasegmental pronunciation features and explored participants’ perceptions of this approach. Twenty upper-intermediate Iranian EFL students were assigned to the experimental and control groups. Over 27 instructional sessions, the experimental group received translanguaging-based pronunciation instruction, while the control group followed a communicative English-only approach. Data were collected through pretest–posttest pronunciation tasks, acoustic analysis using Praat, and semi-structured interviews, and they were analyzed using non-parametric statistical tests and thematic analysis. The quantitative results revealed significant improvements in several suprasegmental features, including linking, epenthesis, deletion, sentence stress, and word stress, whereas gains in segmental features were limited. Acoustic analysis indicated significant changes in F2 onset frequencies for the diphthongs /oʊ/ and /eɪ/. Qualitative findings showed that students perceived translanguaging as enhancing comprehension and reducing anxiety. They also reported it created a more supportive learning environment and varied in effectiveness across pronunciation features. Findings suggest translanguaging is particularly effective for suprasegmental pronunciation development and offers pedagogical value for creating a learner-centered EFL pronunciation instruction.

This study takes a critical look at the purposive manipulation of discourse and rhetoric by the former Iranian President — Hassan Rouhani — when announcing the lockdown of holy sites during the COVID-19 crisis. A discourse analysis with a qualitative design was applied to study the political dimension of the discourse. This study is framed within the domain of systemic functional linguistics mood systems and the classical Aristotelian rhetoric trio — logos, ethos, and pathos. The results revealed that Rouhani mainly used the declarative mood in his speeches which performed three main functions: statements of opinion, statements of fact, and indirect directives. From a rhetorical perspective, Rouhani applied ethos considerably more than pathos and logos as a way to increase the credibility of his words while persuading the audience. Moreover, the researchers noticed that the former president employed multiple strategies to build pathos and ethos with the audience. These findings can suggest and encourage novel future research directions.  

This study evaluates the technological proficiency of Iranian EFL teachers in alignment with the TESOL Technology Standards, addressing both their familiarity and application of these standards in the unique Iranian context. Utilizing a mixed-method approach, 122 teachers completed a questionnaire to assess their knowledge of the TESOL standards, while 15 participants engaged in semi-structured interviews to discuss the applicability of these standards in Iran. Results show that while most teachers are proficient in basic technology use, they demonstrate moderate familiarity with advanced pedagogical applications such as professional collaboration and assessment using technology. The study also identifies challenges unique to Iran, including internet censorship, restricted access to online platforms, and inadequate infrastructure. These factors limit the full implementation of TESOL standards. Moreover, the study suggests that TESOL standards should be updated to reflect the growing importance of online teaching and AI integration. Recommendations are made to modify the standards to better suit local constraints, while emphasizing the need for institutional support and ongoing professional development. The findings contribute to improving technology integration in language teaching, particularly in contexts facing technological barriers.

Dynamic assessment (DA), premised on Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory (SCT), constitutes a valuable venue for language teachers to promote the dialectical praxis and awareness of language assessment and teaching in the EFL context. In spite of the surge of interest in the importance of DA in assessing the dynamically emergent abilities , little has been written down regarding EFL teachers' attitudes toward DA. The current study attempted to fill that void by unearthing Iranian EFL teachers' beliefs about DA and also to determine if there is a statistically significant difference between university and language institute teachers' attitudes with regard to DA. To this end, forty Iranian EFL teachers in the two contexts (i.e., universities and language institutes) were selected through purposive and snowball sampling procedures. Adopting an exploratory design, the researchers collected the data through an Email interview. The results of the Chi-square tests indicated that there is no significant difference in the attitudes of university and language institute teachers toward DA, and both groups held a positive attitude toward it. In addition, the content analysis of the data resulted in the emergence of three major themes namely, teachers' classroom assessment practices, EFL teacher's attitudes toward DA, and impediments to applying DA principles in EFL classes. The findings of this study cater for implications for teachers to voice their concerns about the edifice of language testing and assessment in Iran.

This study investigates the morphological phenomenon known as plurals-in-compounds effect by analyzing responses given by 25 Persian-speaking children. The children, ranging in age from 3.5 to 13, were divided into six groups and asked questions like what do you call someone who verb-s [ regular/irregular ] plurals? that required them to form synthetic compounds such as car-stealer . Results indicated that when the nouns in the questions addressed to the children were regular plural, the non–heads in the compounds were predominately singular. Moreover, the children’s responses to questions containing irregular nouns showed that they preferred non–compound Agent ( singular N ) over compounds containing either singular or irregular plural nouns. The findings are in line with the specifications of Kiparsky's (1982) level-ordering model which bans plural morphology inside compounds. It was also revealed that the children’s compound construction relied on both structural and semantic constraints.

Although Persian and English share many common phonemes, there are some phonological features that are present in English but absent in Persian which tend to lead to mispronunciation on the part of Persian learners of English, mostly through negative transfer. The present research assesses the efficacy of a communicative framework in improving Iranian adult EFL learners’ pronunciation of five English phonemes absent in the phonological system of Persian. Thirty EFL learners, divided into experimental and control groups, participated in the training course which lasted 22 sessions (330 minutes). The experimental group was instructed using the communicative framework for teaching pronunciation while the control group received traditional methods of pronunciation teaching. The pronunciation quality of these sounds were then assessed by four native and four non-native English teachers as well as by the PRAAT speech analysis software in the case of the vowels. Although no significant difference was detected between the experimental and control groups with regard to posttest results, a positive trend was observed in favor of the experimental group regarding specific features (e.g., formant frequencies, duration, center of gravity) of the problematic sounds.

One essential yet often-ignored factor in pronunciation teaching is learners’ beliefs towards teaching and learning of pronunciation. Awareness of this factor can help both learners and teachers achieve their language learning and teaching objectives. The current study investigated 195 Iranian EFL learners’ beliefs and perceptions about various aspects of pronunciation teaching and learning. The learners answered a 30-item Likert-scale online questionnaire which inquired about their views regarding the overall importance of pronunciation instruction, the type of syllabus, the design of classes devoted to pronunciation, the introduction of pronunciation features, the ways of practicing these features, and the role of error correction. To enhance the findings from the questionnaire, the researchers interviewed a subsample of the participants about various pronunciation dimensions specified in the questionnaire. Results revealed that the majority of the participants believed teaching and learning pronunciation was of paramount importance in EFL contexts as it helped them achieve their communicative goals more effectively. The learners also largely preferred a structural over a task-based syllabus for pronunciation instruction but differed regarding whether pronunciation features should be taught in isolation or in communicative contexts, and whether correction of their pronunciation errors should be done by the teacher or peers. Findings of this study can inform the mainstream pronunciation teaching and learning practices and materials designs.

Phonological awareness has been defined as the speaker’s sensitivity to the phonological characteristics of a language. The present study is aimed at exploring the relationship between Iranian EFL learners’ explicit phonological awareness, their foreign accentedness and speech comprehensibility as perceived by native and non-native English-speaking EFL teachers. To determine the relationships, the researchers used a set of tasks that measured 34 EFL learners’ phonological awareness in five domains of rhyming, alliteration or onset, segmenting, blending, and manipulation. They also asked the participants to read a short text which was recorded and later rated for accentedness and comprehensibility on a 9-point scale. Results indicated that there was a significant correlation between the learners’ phonological awareness and perception of foreign accentedness. The same was true about the correlation between phonological awareness and speech comprehensibility. Furthermore, a strong positive correlation was found between foreign accentedness and comprehensibility, suggesting that foreign accentedness could affect comprehensibility of L2 speech. The findings suggest that pedagogical strategies that highlight formal properties of language be employed in second language classrooms to reduce learners’ foreign accent and increase their speech comprehensibility. 

دراین مطالعه شبه طولی از دو روش خطای معمول و بازخورد اصلاحی جهت بررسی ثبات غلط (فسیل شدگی) میان زبانی استفاده شد. خطاهای نوشتاری در مقالات استدلالی 76 زبان آموز ایرانی در سه سطح زبانی متفاوت با استفاده از مدل ارائه شده توسط گس و سلینکر(1994) شناسایی و طبقه بندی شدند. این خطاها برای باراول با بازخورد ضمنی و برای باردوم با بازخورد صریح تصحیح شدند تا بررسی شود که آیا این دو نوع بازخورد باعث بهبود درنوشتار می شوند، و آیا خطاهائی وجود دارند که در برابر تصحیح مقاومت کنند. نتایج نشان داد که خطاهای مربوط به ""انتخاب کلمه ، جمع، شکل کلمه و حرف تعریف the"" جزوشایع ترین خطاهای این زبان آموزان بودند، که ""انتخاب کلمه"" در صدرفهرست قرار دارد. نتایج همچنین نشان داد که اگرچه هر دو نوع بازخورد می تواند منجر به کاهش خطاها شود، ارائه بازخورد صریح ومستقیم برای فراگیران روشی موثر تر میباشد. با این حال نتایج آزمون تی نشان داد که تاثیر کوتاه مدت بازخورد نمی تواند در طول زمان پایداربماند و این تایید کننده گفته کسانی ازقبیل ترواسکات (2007) است که اثر تصحیح خطا را زیر سوال برده اند. علاوه بر این، یافته ها نشان می دهند که خطاهای مربوط به ""ضمیر، ترتیب کلمات، مجهول و مالکیت"" را احتمالآ می توان جزو خطاهائی برشمرد که فسیل شده اند، زیرا اگر چه برای تمام انواع خطاهای دیگر بازخورد ضمنی توانست مفید باشد، این چهار خطا در برابر تصحیح مقاومت نشان دادند و تنها بازخورد صریح توانست موجب کاهش معنادار آنها شود.