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The present study aimed to explore whether Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ pragmatic performance of making suggestions improve after receiving discourse completion task (DCT) and role-play with discussion. One Hundred twenty intermediate Iranian EFL learners whose scores ranged between 41 and 59 at the Oxford Proficiency test were selected for participation in the study from several Iranian language schools through convenience sampling. They were assigned to the control group receiving no treatment and discourse completion group, and role plays with the discussion group. Before the treatments, the experimental groups received instruction on the exemplar forms, conversational practice, and performance of suggested activities in the book "Function." After the familiarity of the participants with various suggestion forms and their appropriate use, the first experimental group was provided with a discourse completion task and the second one received role play with discussion. The learners were provided with an explicit explanation of formality, and status as socio-pragmatic factors influencing the selection of appropriate suggestion forms. Then, they were supposed to act out the scenarios and discussed and evaluated the appropriateness of the responses. After the two treatments, the participants took a post-test with 4 sample conversations. The findings were indicative of the effectiveness of the two treatments. The conclusion drawn from the results was that EFL learners could benefit from pragmatic instruction via pragmatic awareness-raising tasks in their pragmatic performance.  

Culture is an indispensable part of Foreign Language Education Policy (FLEP), especially in English Language Teaching (ELT). In addition, the spread of English around the globe has resulted in English users’ tendency to embed their local culture in their English communication (Kirkpatrick, 2012). However, literature remains silent on culture representation in FLEP, especially in an ideologized country like Iran. To address this issue, due to lack of an explicit FLEP in Iran, the present study analyzed the cultural schemas addressed in the seven major national policy documents of Iran, namely 20-year National Vision, Comprehensive Science Roadmap, Support for Comprehensive Science Roadmap in the Domain of Languages, Cultural Engineering Document, National Curriculum, Fundamental Reform in Education, and Islamicization of Universities. Results of content analysis using MAXQDA Software unmasked Islamic-Iranian culture as the baseline for ELT in Iran. In order to further examine the representations and implications of ‘Islamic-Iranian culture’ hidden in the documents, open coding, axial coding, and labeling along with constant comparative procedure revealed various Islamic cultural schemas. However, very few instances of Iranian cultural schemas were unveiled. The findings were discussed in light of the hidden curriculum and the power relations behind the extracted cultural schemas

This descriptive quantitative study scrutinized the relationship between impulsive and reflective EFL learners’ oral communication strategies (OCS) and willingness to communicate (WTC). To this end, 114 impulsive and reflective graduate-level EFL learners (67% female; 33% male), within the age range of 23 to 40, were selected employing convenience sampling. The data collection instruments were the impulsiveness sub-scale of Eysenck’s impulsivity inventory (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1978), the OCS inventory (Nakatani, 2006), and the WTC scale (McCroskey, 1992). Subsequent to checking and verifying the pertinent assumptions, using Pearson’s correlation coefficient indicated that there existed a positive yet insignificant correlation between impulsive EFL learners’ OCS and their WTC; however, a positive and significant correlation between reflective EFL learners’ OCS and their WTC was observed. In addition, the results of linear regression analyses and comparing the β values revealed that impulsive EFL learners’ OCS cannot significantly predict their WTC whereas reflective EFL learners’ OCS can significantly predict their WTC. In general, the obtained results confirmed that OCS can positively affect EFL learners’ WTC, although attention should be paid to learners’ impulsivity o reflectivity prior to planning the pedagogical practice.          

Giving certain elements more significance than others in the same context is called prominence. This study aims at identifying and comparing markers of focal and thematic prominence in Persian general       practitioners’ books (GPBs) and Persian online medical journals (OMJs) based on Levinsohn’s model. The data were gathered from 100 texts from two written Persian GPBs and 100 texts from two Persian OMJs. SPSS software version 24 was used to evaluate the data. Results demonstrated “emphatic   markers” such as fæqæt ‘just’ were used for focal prominence much more frequently in OMJs than in GPBs. In addition, significant differences were observed between GPBs and OMJs with regard to the markers of focal prominence and prominence in general, but not with regard to markers of thematic prominence. This may be related to the twofold effect of the different discourse types and different addressees of these texts.

Over the last three decades, Second Language Teacher Cognition (SLTC) and the factors affecting teachers’ cognitive patterns have turned into one of the concerns within the realm of Second Language Teacher Education (SLTE). The inconsistency of the findings concerning the role of teacher education courses in bridging the gap between theory and practice has highlighted the need for exploring new techniques to encourage teacher reflection and cognitive development. In line with this perceived need, in the present qualitative study, seven researcher-designed Problem-Based Teaching Scenarios (PBTS) were assigned to seven TEFL students to explore the cognitive patterns recurring in their responses. Besides, their transformation while generating practical pedagogical solutions to the posed problems were traced over the course of study. The analysis of the data collected through the PBTSs and a structured electronic interview revealed a number of cognitive patterns including thinking within the boundaries of the prior language learning experience, educational culture, teaching experience, and pedagogical content knowledge. Furthermore, three main cognitive changes namely, moving from not fully grasping the problem to providing well-ordered solutions, from imitating to partially reflecting, and from prescribing to describing were observed. It is hoped that the findings have pedagogical and practical implications for SLTE instructors, curriculum designers, materials developers, and researchers.

This study was an attempt to examine the relationship between the academic degree and teaching experience of Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers and their reliance on student engagement. To this end, eight EFL teachers (male and female) with different teaching experiences and academic degrees and a number of 40 students in their respective classes were selected through convenience sampling. First, the teachers and the students filled out consent forms, including their personal information, such as gender, age, academic degree, and years of teaching experience. Second, the students answered Skinner et al.'s (2008) 'Engagement vs. Disaffection with Learning: Student-report' Questionnaire, a valid scale for measuring language learners' engagement with teaching-learning tasks and their satisfaction with their learning activities. Then, Pearson's product-moment correlation between teachers' teaching experience and academic degree, as well as the students' self-expressed ratings of their engagement or disaffection with classroom learning activities, was calculated. The results showed significant positive correlations between teaching experience and behavioral and emotional engagement and significant negative correlations between teaching experience and behavioral and emotional disaffection.

The objective was threefold: (a) to investigate the difference among online teaching performance of EFL student teachers at Iran University of Science and Technology who received peer feedback, expert feedback, and reflected on their own teaching practice; (b) to examine the difference between rating scores given by student teachers and those by instructor to online teaching; and (c) to determine student teachers’ best experiences, challenges, and lessons they learnt from expert feedback, peer observation, and reflection. The results of this mixed methods experimental research revealed no statistically significant difference in the three group’s scores on their second teaching practice; however, there was statistically significant difference between the scores of the first and second practices for all three groups. The results also showed that student teachers mostly underrated their first teaching, while they overrated their second teaching. The findings also indicated that their best experiences were related to using technological tools, working with Adobe Connect, making interesting materials, and using games and songs. Their challenges included lack of face-to-face communication, engaging all participants, and preparing suitable materials, whereas teaching new vocabulary in context, simplifying songs by pre-teaching their unknown words, and using online games and websites were the lessons they learnt.

While metadiscourse has been extensively examined across several genres, contexts of publication, disciplines, and languages over the past two decades, researchers have mainly limited themselves to the qualitative checking of candidate metadiscourse markers for the various functions they serve. In the present study, however, we drew on retrospective methods coupled with semi-structured interviews to gain a deeper understanding of metadiscourse features applied linguistics apprentice and professional authors use in their research articles (RAs) in national and international English-medium journals. To achieve this goal, we built on Hyland’s (2019) interpersonal metadiscourse model to analyse RAs in three subsections including introductions, results, and discussion. We ran chi-square tests to examine the RA variations, following the descriptive analysis of the use of metadiscourse markers. A follow-up stimulated recall through semi-structured e-mail interviews was used. We used MAXQDA to analyse the interview data from authors. The results of qualitative and thematic analyses showed that metadiscourse markers play key roles in conveying the writers’ message and intention to the members of discourse communities. The findings of the study suggest raising apprentice writers’ awareness of the way they frame their message in research writing

Cloze tests are gap-filling tests designed to measure overall language ability and reading comprehension in a second language. Due to their ease of construction and scoring, cloze tests are widely used in the context of second and foreign language testing. Previous research over the past decades has shown the reliability and validity of cloze tests in different contexts. However, due to the interdependent structure of cloze test items, item response theory models have not been applied to analyze cloze tests. In this research, we apply a method to circumvent the problem of local dependence for analyzing cloze tests with the Rasch model. Using this method, we applied the Rasch model to a cloze test composed of eight passages each containing 8-15 gaps. Findings showed that the Rasch model fits the data and thus it is possible to scale persons and cloze passages on an interval unidimensional scale. The test had a high reliability and was well-targeted to the examinees. Implications of the study are discussed.