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This research synthesized the methodological issues of studies published in English for Specific Purposes from its debut in 1980 up to 2020, from both an overall perspective and also periodically in four decades. To this aim, we examined 617 empirical articles with regard to two themes: (a) research methodology, and (b) data sources. More specifically, we probed into the methodological designs, how they were integrated and the points of departure in qualitative research. Our results brought to the fore that the majority of ESP articles were framed as combined methods studies, most frequently concurrent designs, dominated by qualitative data and data collection. As well, about half of qualitative studies did not specify their approach and the majority of quantitative works utilized descriptive statistics and combinations of different tests. Pertaining to data sources, text samples as well as an amalgamation of different data collection techniques were the most prominent ones. Based on these results and discussion, we provided empirically–grounded recommendations and suggestions for promoting methodological transparency and rigor for the prospective studies for the field of ESP and applied linguistics in general.  

This study endeavored to explore the beliefs that Iranian English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teachers held and scrutinize the extent to which their beliefs can correspond to their actual practices in EAP context. To these ends, a mixed mehod study was conducted in which 40 EAP teachers (20 English teachers & 20 subject-area teachers) teaching EAP courses in Universities of Medical Sciences in Iran participated in this nationwide study. The quantitative data gathered through a belief questionnaire was analyzed by SPSS software and the qualitative data collected through interview and observation of EAP courses was analyzed through content analysis. Analyses of the gathered data disclosed that the participants held different beliefs in terms of teaching strategies so that they did differently in their reading-based performances as well as the teaching and learning strategies. Besides, it was revealed that unlike subject-area teachers whose beliefs and performance were derived from their content-related concerns, English teachers’ beliefs and performance were presided by the students’ real needs, interest, and what is substantiated in the current literature. Within the EAP community of teachers and teacher educators, not only novice teachers who aim to enter into the EAP teaching mainstream can benefit from the findings, but also EAP teachers currently teaching such courses can gain the advantage of reflecting upon the beliefs and their actual practices. In addition, the findings may have implications for all EAP teachers to verbalize tacitly held beliefs, think consciously about them, and be aware of existing challenges and critical areas in EAP teaching.

Teachers play a pivotal role in the instruction-assessment process. Knowing EFL teachers’ conceptualizations of the role of assessment as well as their own role in the implementation of assessment is very critical. Accordingly, the current study aimed to compare Iranian EFL public high school teachers’ literacy and perceptions of dynamic assessment with those of English language institute teachers. In so doing, 45 (23 high school, 22 institute) English teachers, teaching in Lahijan, Iran were selected according to convenience sampling method. The teachers were invited to cooperate and participate in the study and fill out the questionnaire sent via social network like WhatsApp and Telegram. In addition, nine teachers (five high school, four institute teachers) were selected through purposive sampling to participate in a semi-structured interview with five questions posed through the above-mentioned social networks. A researcher-adapted questionnaire with 23 items in a Likert-type scale was utilized to collect data. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire were achieved through experts’ opinion and Cronbach Alpha, respectively. Having collected the data, descriptive and inferential statistics of the findings showed that although both groups of teachers had a realistic view about the application of dynamic assessment due to its practicality and social acceptance, the teachers in two different contexts of teaching had different rates of literacy and perceptions of dynamic assessment. Furthermore, the difference in the two groups of teachers’ perceptions of dynamic assessment practicality was significantly different. The institute teachers enjoyed a higher average of both literacy and perceptions of dynamic assessment practicality in their classrooms. This study echoes the teachers’ voices, and as in the wake of new forms of curricular policy in many parts of the world, teachers are increasingly required to be agents of change that would hopefully encourage change at the discipline and in the institutional level.

This study aimed to examine the effects of a teacher education course on EFL teachers’ self-efficacy in formative assessment. The researchers employed a mixed-method design that combined quantitative and qualitative approaches to investigate the effects of the course. Thirty EFL teachers participated in the study and completed pre- and post-intervention questionnaires to assess their formative assessment self-efficacy beliefs. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather qualitative data on teachers’ beliefs about formative assessment. The quantitative data were analyzed using paired-sample t-tests, and thematic analysis was conducted for the qualitative data. The results indicated a significant increase in teachers’ formative assessment self-efficacy beliefs. The findings suggest that providing teacher education courses focused on formative assessment can effectively enhance EFL teachers’ self-efficacy and utilization of such assessment methods in online classroom. The current study has some pedagogical implications and recommendations for the implementation of similar courses and potential areas for future research are also discussed.

The present research aimed to determine the possible effect of multimedia use in English classes on the development of EFL learners’ self-concept. For this purpose, 80 EFL students were selected through covariance sampling from among all the male high school English students in Ahvaz and were equally divided into an experimental group (n=40) and a control group (n= 40). To collect the needed data for the aims of the study, Chen & Thompson (2004) self-concept questionnaire was employed. Then, based on the quasi-experimental, pre-test, and post-test methods of the study, the elicited data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and covariance analysis. The obtained results showed that using multimedia in instruction has a significant impact on EFL learners’ self-concept. These findings have some implications for teaching English as a foreign language. First, the use of up-to-date multimedia technology needs to be encouraged more than before in schools, language institutes, and universities. Second, teachers’ interest, readiness, and expertise to use multimedia facilities need to be evaluated before appointing them as English language instructors. Finally, suitable grounds for the implementation of multimedia technology should be provided in educational setting.

Teachers who possess an achievement value orientation may concentrate on establishing ambitious objectives for themselves, as well as creating opportunities for pupils to showcase their abilities and attain success. This can increase student motivation and ultimately improving job performance. While previous teachers' reflective studies in the field of English as a foreign language (EFL) have examined a wide range of variables, certain variables such as EFL teachers' achievement value orientation and job performance related to reflective teaching have remained under-researched. To this end, this study examined the EFL teachers' achievement value orientation factor identified as having a contributive role in EFL teachers' reflective teaching regarding the mediating role of job performance. The study sample consisted of 237 Iranian EFL teachers aged between 25 and 60. Based on the results of structural equation modeling (SEM), EFL teachers' achievement value orientation directly and significantly influences counterproductive work behavior (CWB) dimension of their job performance as well as metacognitive and affective dimensions of their reflective teaching. It was also shown that task performance (TP) has a direct effect on cognitive, contextual performance (CP) on cognitive and critical, and CWB on the metacognitive dimension of reflective teaching. The results also indicated that the CWB dimension of job performance mediates the impact of EFL Teachers’ achievement value orientation on metacognitive dimension of their reflective teaching. Teacher training programs should emphasize the importance of developing an achievement value orientation in teachers and reflective teaching should be promoted as a key component of teachers' professional development.

As a possible and influential factor in academic success, student growth mindset has recently received attention. However, the number of the studies concerning the effects of growth mindset on language skills in the context of Iran is not considerable and no study has specifically examined the influence of growth mindset on Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary development. To fill this gap, this study was conducted in order to investigate if the intervention has any significant effects on Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary development compared to those who do not receive such intervention. A quasi-experimental design in the form of pre- and posttest was used in this study. To homogenize the participants in terms of their proficiency, OQPT was used. Subsequently, out of 78 learners, sixty Iranian intermediate language learners were randomly assigned into two groups of control group receiving conventional vocabulary training and experimental group receiving a growth mindset intervention besides the conventional method for vocabulary learning. Vocabulary knowledge of the students was tested with the help of a vocabulary knowledge test that was specifically prepared and developed by researchers. To investigate if using growth mindset intervention had positive effects on learning English vocabulary by the learners in each control and experimental groups, two sets of paired-samples t-test were conducted. Afterwards, to explore which method had been more effective, the mean scores of the posttests of the control and experimental groups were compared by executing an independent two-sample t-test. The results revealed that implementing growth mindset intervention had positive effects on vocabulary development of EFL learners. Accordingly, this study has pedagogical implications for EFL teachers and students, as well as material designers.

The present study explored the effects of voicing and place of articulation on voice onset time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (F0) of onset of Persian oral plosives uttered by normal hearing (NH) and hearing-impaired (HI) children. Twenty-one NH children and twenty-one HI children matched for age and gender took part in this study. The participants were asked to repeat 36 CV words including all eight Persian plosives (/p/, /t/, /k/, /c/, /b/, /d/, /g/, /Ɉ/) in combination with the vowel /æ/. All syllables were recorded in a nearly sound-proof room using PRAAT Software. Independent samples t-test was used to compare the groups across gender. The results revealed: (a) HI children had higher VOT and F0 of onset values in nearly all aspects except for VOT and F0 onset of voiced plosives and F0 onset of alveolar and velar plosives; (b) both groups of girls had higher VOT values than boys did; (c) VOT is affected by the place of articulation and F0 is related to voiced-voiceless classification of plosives. Overall, NH children were able to distinguish and produce sounds more correctly, implying that HI children need further training. The study has implications for speech therapists, clinical linguists, and application designers to focus on speech sounds which are challenging for HI children to produce.  

This study examined the possible effects of orthographic/phonologic priming techniques on the receptive language skills of Iranian EFL learners with different proficiency levels. From an initial pool of 700 EFL learners from a language learning institute, two hundred and seventy learners from both genders were selected based on their performance on an English proficiency test and classified into six experimental and three control groups. After gaining certitude about the participants’ English proficiency levels, the semantic and orthographic/phonologic priming phase was conducted, and consequently, the participants’ contextualized comprehension of the primed words was assessed via a set of reading and listening comprehension tasks. The performances of the participants on the designed tasks indicated that semantic primes were more efficient for improving both comprehension skills compared with the orthographic-phonologic primes. Moreover, based on the results, language proficiency affected the success of the primes on both reading and listening comprehension tasks; advanced learners showed a greater improvement than the beginners and the intermediates under the influence of the priming techniques. Orthographic-phonologic primes were found to be more efficient for beginners, whereas the advanced learners showed an enhanced performance with regard to semantic primes. Overall, semantic primes showed more facilitative effects across various comprehension tasks due to their activation of deeper cognitive processing. Orthographic-phonologic primes were also successful. However, they were more efficient in the early stages of language learning, where visual recognition played a more critical role.

 On the Elaboration of Contexts of Situation with Special Reference toRequesting Strategies in BaliI Made Netra  , I Made Suastra  , & I Putu SutamaAbstractOver the last two decades, the study of meaning has been done utilizing context of situation. It has been practiced in determining the speaker’s meanings in languages around the world. However, this research attempts to develop an elaborated form of context of situation in a culture-specific Balinese language and to explicate the speaker’s meaning bound by the elaborated context. To this end, an approach of participatory observation was applied which  was qualitative and  descriptive in nature. The data were collected from respondents and informants of Buleleng and Gianyar regencies,considering that although they share the same language, their understanding on requesting strategies, however, might be different. Requesting strategies in Balinese is contextually bound by a given and elaborated context of situation, which is referred to as Desa Kala Patra functioning both as a context of situation and an adjustment for language effectiveness.  The elaborated context is immensely applicable to different requests. The requests are articulated based on the Balinese cultural scripts. Again, as an elaborated context of situation, Desa Kala Patra can bind the requesting strategies.  As an adjustment for language effectiveness, Desa Kala Patra can mostly shift the direct strategies into indirect ones. Indirect requests can be expressed by asking, tag-questioning, giving information, giving advice, providing alternative points, offering, complaining, greeting, and inviting. The practices of requesting are configured by low-level scripts using exponents of philosophical aspects, Desa Kala Patra itself, “ if/then” condition, mechanism, results, and concluding statement.

The growing popularity of language-learning apps among language learners has highlighted the need for rigorous evaluation of their efficacy in second language acquisition (SLA). This study combined quantitative measures to comprehensively understand the effectiveness of the Busuu app in improving the productive vocabulary of Iranian intermediate EFL learners with qualitative data from in-depth interviews to explore their perceptions and experiences while using the app. Forty-three learners (17 males and 26 females with a mean age of 27.53) were selected to assess the effectiveness of the Busuu app on learners’ productive vocabulary knowledge. Among them,15 participants (all female with a mean age of 29.40) agreed to be interviewed after the Busuu study to gain insights into learners’ perceptions and experiences with app-based learning. A pretest-posttest design using the LEX30 task, a standardized productive vocabulary assessment tool, was conducted before and after the Busuu study to evaluate participants’ productive vocabulary knowledge. Paired samples t-tests revealed no significant improvement in participants’ productive vocabulary knowledge. Nonetheless, the number of responses produced in the posttest was higher than in the pretest. According to the interview data, users rated vocabulary as the most favored feature of the app, while restricted access to premium content was noted as the least favored. Most participants acknowledged that the app exceeded their initial expectations before installing it. Additionally, improving vocabulary knowledge was the users’ primary expectation from utilizing the app. Furthermore, approximately all participants found the app beneficial for language learning. However, most of them reported low levels of enjoyment during app usage. The results can contribute to understanding what needs to be done to upgrade the quality and potential of the Bussu app, how the app can better support EFL learners in effectively activating their lexical knowledge, and what the users’ experiences and expectations from a language-learning app are.

This article performs a CDA on White House press briefings and is especial in its focus on how gendered language impacts relations of power. Adopting a mixed-method approach, this study will examine linguistic strategies and deictic expressions used by male and female spokespersons articulating ideologies and constructing authority. The latter is based on Fairclough's three-dimensional CDA model, whereby text analysis is involved, together with discourse practices and social context in explaining how language reflects and constructs political realities. The research questions were as follows: (1) How are deictic expressions used by spokesmen and spokeswomen in the White House press briefings? (2) What is the inter-relationship between power and language through the usage of modal verbs, and is there a gender-based difference herein? (3) How do women spokespersons, through language, claim ideologies and power? It is a contribution to applied linguistics and presents evidence of subtle linguistic mechanisms that shape public perception of gendered language in political discourse. The research questions were as follows: (1) How are deictic expressions used by spokesmen and spokeswomen in the White House press briefings? (2) What is the inter-relationship between power and language through the usage of modal verbs, and is there a gender-based difference herein? (3) How do women spokespersons, through language, claim ideologies and power? It is a contribution to applied linguistics and presents evidence of subtle linguistic mechanisms that shape public perception of gendered language in political discourse.