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Online learning has recently turned to one of the most well-known channels of education; however, the controversy over the quality and outcome of such online medium is still a concern. This study sought to determine the pros and cons of online courses as perceived by Iranian language teachers and learners. Two tailor-made questionnaires, along with a semi-structured interview, were used to collect the data. The participants were 71 college students who have experienced online educations and 31 language teachers who taught web-based classes in the Department of English Language Education at three universities in Iran, Isfahan, Sheikhbahaee, and Ashrafi. An overall analysis of questionnaires and interviews revealed that students and teachers could not find online education easier than its conventional counterpart. Online education provides teachers with a precise image of applying the appropriate teaching methodology in their online classes as well as enhancing their autonomy. The research recapped that online educators and administrators of faculties ought to lay the foundations for making the benefits of online education bold for learners. The findings may be a contributing factor for teacher educators to create the climate for professional development.

Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) modes can ease scaffolding through multimodality in collaborative writing tasks. However, there is an ongoing debate regarding synchronous and asynchronous CMC environments. Additionally, there are conflicting results regarding gender’s pedagogical beliefs in CMC applications. The current study aimed to explore if there is a difference between synchronous and asynchronous multimodal scaffolding on the freewriting complexity of EFL learners. Besides, genders’ perceptions about applying multimodal scaffolding were compared. Participants were 84 EFL learners who randomly assigned into three groups. For the pre-test, a picture, podcast, and movie were shared, and the participants were asked to complete their freewriting tasks individually within the allocated time. For treatment, one experimental group was scaffolded in a synchronous environment by sending messages on WhatsApp, and the other experimental group experienced asynchronous scaffolding via email. The results indicated that multimodal scaffolding is beneficial. However, no significant difference was found between the writing complexity of synchronous and asynchronous groups. Furthermore, a significant difference between males’ and females’ tendency to use multimodal scaffolding was uncovered. The findings highlighted the role synchronous and asynchronous multimodal scaffolding can play in collaborative writing tasks

The present work is a contribution to the debate around attitude towards English as a foreign language in Cameroon. By case-studying an under-searched area through a multi-component tool: the Attitude and Motivation Test Battery, it proposes a different reflection to the question. The test was administered to 211 Grade 11, 12, and 13 Francophone students from various urban and semi-urban schools in the city and its suburbs. It was based on the postulates that attitude is a dynamic characteristic that varies according to place and time on the one hand, and that it is far too complex to be examined from the prism of a single variable. The results revealed that of the six parameters that made up the three components of the tool, three were negative and three were positive, with the integrative orientation slightly outpacing the instrumental one. This underscores the need to envisage attitude as a multi-component variable, as well as the need to reckon with evolving social variables. In general, the results reveal that attitude towards EFL is not as desperate as usually thought. It can be intimated that recent socio-political initiatives aiming at reinforcing French-English bilingualism are gradually bearing fruits. Thus, socio-political ideologies appear to have significant effects on overall attitude towards EFL.

This study is a longitudinal mixed method design investigating Iranian English learners' perception of native-speaker English teachers (NSETS) and non-native-speaker English teachers (NNSETS) in New Zealand and Iran within the conceptual framework of Kumaravadivelu (2003), Rudolf (2018), and Benson el al. (2013).  A semi-structured interview and a questionnaire (consisting of 21 Likert items and 3 open-ended questions) were used twice ten months apart in each context. An online narrative interview was employed in 2022 to supplement the data. Non-parametric data analyses were run on the Likert items. Several coding schemes were developed and a thematic analysis was employed. Findings revealed that NNSETS in New Zealand and NSETS in Iran were perceived by the learners as more effective in guiding their students toward developing a multilingual identity. This is interpreted as the "cross-actional influence of context in language learners' perception of teachers regarding L2 identity development in students" in this research. The findings also showed a shift in students' perception from NSETS to NNSETS in both contexts over time due to the better instructional strategies of NNSETS for teaching reading, listening, grammar, and their deeper understanding of the student's needs. This study informs language teachers, teacher educators, and education authorities on 1) the cross-actional influence of context on students' perception of teachers regarding L2 identity development as a normal procedure, 2) the pattern of a shift from NSETS to NNSETS due to the qualifications of NNSETS should be considered in teacher training programs to make the most proficient language teachers accordingly.

The present study investigated the role of explicit instruction on the acquisition of English relative clauses by focusing on resumptive pronouns among Iranian learners of English at an intermediate level of proficiency. The study focused on two structurally different languages (Persian and English) regarding the use of resumptive pronouns.  A grammaticality Judgment Test (GJT) and a Sentence Combination Task (SCT) at three phases of pre-test, immediate, and delayed posttests, have been used; paired samples t-tests showed that exposure to input through teaching materials can improve the learners’ performance in specific types of relative structures, but not in all.  The findings propose that if language learners, especially in a foreign language context, are provided with enough input and still don’t acquire an uninterruptable feature (resumptive pronouns in this case), then it can be said that fossilization has occurred and the interpretability hypothesis (Tsimpli and Dimitrakopolou, 2007) will be confirmed. It also shows that explicit teaching can lead to future noticing in input and result in more stable acquisition.

Abstract The necessity of using online education during the Coronal virus pandemic and the barriers created by the absence of face-to-face instruction has shifted the researchers’ focus to web-based instruction and assessment. In this regard, an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design was selected to consider the effects of web-based dynamic assessment (DA) on learners' grammar accuracy, autonomy, and attitudes. To this end, a convenient sample of 60 male English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners was chosen and categorized into two groups of web-based dynamic assessment and a control group. The data collection tools were a pretest and posttest of grammar, a pretest and posttest of autonomy, and a semi-structured interview. The participants were exposed to web-based DA via a designed web based on the level and the students’ needs in grammar, whereas the learners in the control group learned the grammar through the traditional method of instruction. Based on the results of ANCOVA and Mann-Whitney U test, the learners’ grammar accuracy and autonomy mean scores in web-based DA increased compared to those of the control group. In addition, the results of interview showed that the learners had a positive attitude toward web-based dynamic assessment treatment. The results of the semi-structured interview with the experimental group verified the quantitative results. The platform and methods employed in this study suggest encouraging implications for the field of language instruction which will be discussed.

This study compared the Discussion section of theses written by M.A. English L1 and L2 students regarding lexical sophistication. Certain linguistic features were applied to investigate whether texts written in English L2 had any similarities or differences with native speakers’ (NSs) texts. To achieve this, 20 English L2 theses authored by Iranian M.A. students of Islamic Azad University of Isfahan (Khorasgan), were sampled. As such, 20 English L1 theses written by M.A. English NSs of the same major in the US and UK were randomly downloaded as a comparison corpus of English L1. The corpora were later uploaded to Coh-Matrix that processes text and discourse at different levels of language. Two main statistical procedures for data analysis were the MANOVA (Multivariate Analysis of Variance) and Discriminant Function Analysis. According to Coh-Metrix analysis, the results revealed certain similarities and differences between the corpora. Specifically, more CELEX content words were used in the NSs theses. However, the differences between the two corpora did not reach a statistical significance in terms of other indices of lexical sophistication (i.e., polysemy, concreteness, hypernymy, age-of-acquisition scores, and lexical diversity). Concerning these similarities and differences, academic writing pedagogy and theses writing abilities of Iranian English L2 learners can be improved by applying both word processing tools like Coh-Metrix, appropriate writing strategies and techniques according to the given results of current contrastive corpus study.

As a dominant genre of academic writing, research papers can be considered as the locus of reproduction concerning asymmetrical power relations and dominance. Through a purposive sampling consisting of the analysis and evaluation of an argument, the purpose of this study was to divulge the power and ideology latent in the discussion section of the research articles to raise second language learners’ awareness of the epistemological foundations and methodological goals and values of the ideologies behind the texts as social structures. By using a practical reasoning framework as an evaluative tool to analyze a text presented in the discussion part of arguments published in research articles, the analysis revealed that the scientific viewpoints exhibit themselves as the premises of these arguments. These world views maintain the dominance of the papers on global academic and social discourses. Understanding the ideological purpose of the article genre is crucial for promoting democratic and equitable education. This assertion highlights the importance of recognizing this function.

La notion de l’identité est depuis longtemps un sujet de réflexion riche et fructueux en philosophie et en sciences sociales. A l’époque contemporaine, vu des mouvements et changements sociaux, des immigrations, du progrès de la technologie qui impacte la vie de l’être humain dans tous ses aspects, et vu de l'émergence de plusieurs ouvrages littéraires traitant ces sujets, cette notion est portée à l’attention dans le domaine littéraire. La présente recherche se propose d’analyser la notion de l’identité psychosociale dans le roman En famille de Marie NDiaye. Lauréate des grands prix littéraires tels que Fémina et Goncourt, Marie NDiaye traite des thèmes contemporains dans ses œuvres. Grâce à son pouvoir artistique, elle invente des personnages qui partent en quête de leur identité familiale et sociale. Dans son univers romanesque, la question de l’identité reste toujours en débat. Dans cet article, nous allons, d’abord, dégager les réflexions théoriques chez Alex Mucchielli qui cherche à esquisser un cadre théorique à la notion de l’identité dans le domaine psychologique et sociologique. Puis, nous nous pencherons sur les idées de George Herbert Mead concernant ce concept. Ensuite, pour effectuer notre analyse en profondeur, nous allons étudier le rôle du passé et des souvenirs dans la fabrication de l’identité des personnages en nous appuyant sur les orientations théoriques autour du temps chez Paul Ricoeur.

Cet article a pour objet d’étudier le Culte du Moi de Maurice Barrès (1862-1923) afin de mettre en valeur « l’identification » et « la découverte de soi » étant une mesure convenable pour distinguer le moi réel du moi irréel. Autrement dit, la trilogie de l’auteur français (Sous l’œil des Barbares, Un Homme libre et le Jardin de Bérénice) constitue le fondement d’une étude emblématique où les personnages du roman comme Philippe, Simon et Bérénice s’aident à argumenter que l’autonomie de l’esprit provient de la volonté subjective non pas de l’acte objectif. Ceci dit, Maurice Barrès s’efforce de justifier l’image d’un Moi narcissique dans la société française du XXème siècle où le nationalisme et le patriotisme exigent l’engagement moral lorsqu’il s’agit d’une quête introspective. Nous tenterons également de montrer la réflexion de Barrès à propos du Narcissisme et d’en extraire les motivations qui le rendent un écrivain purement novateur.