Journal of Modern Research in English Language Studies
Volume:5 Issue: 1, Winter 2018

Attitudes towards learning teaching a subject play a major role in determining individuals' success or failure in any educational programme. This paper delves into the attitudes of university and non-university students towards teaching/ learning English in Iran. To this end, thirteen MA and forty-three BA students majoring in English, twenty-nine non-university students attending language institutes, and twenty-nine university students majoring in a field other than English were recruited to participate in the study. they were both male and female and were requested to complete a-five point Likert-scale attitudes towards teaching/ learning English questionnaire. The analysis of elicited data indicated that overall students had positive attitudes towards teaching/ learning English. t-test analyses revealed no significant difference neither between males and females nor among different age groups and nor between non-English majors and other groups in terms of their attitudes towards teaching/ learning English. The paper concludes that paying attention to students’ attitudes towards the subject being taught/learnt is of utmost importance. It also highlights the usefulness of such research for every teaching/learning context. The results can be used in a wide range of contexts from the very stage of designing to the final evaluation stage of programme design and implementation. Further findings and implications are discussed in the paper.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of the use of mobile application (app) of Memrise on the second language (L2) vocabulary learning and self-regulatory capacity in vocabulary acquisition. In so doing, a sample of 59 Iranian English-as-a-foreign language (EFL) learners from two intact classes participated in this quasi-experimental study. The two classes were randomly assigned to the experimental group (N=33) and the control group (N=26). Over a period of 13-week semester, the students in the experimental group made use of Memrise app to learn the new vocabulary items while those in the control group learned the new words traditionally without use of any app or technological devices. The multiple choice recognition test of vocabulary and self-regulating capacity in vocabulary learning scale were administered to collect the data. The findings revealed that Memrise helped students improve their L2 vocabulary learning and self-regulating capacity more than the control group. The findings provide implications for L2 researchers and practitioners.

Due to the importance of humanistic and learner-centered views of language teaching, many instructors and curriculum planners are sensitive of the learners’ needs in creating tailor-made instructional programs and designing effective syllabus for their courses. Accordingly, the present study used a needs analysis procedure to inspect a group of Iranian undergraduate EFL learners’ problems and needs in writing. In fact, the primary stakeholders’ (i.e., 58 learners and 3 writing instructors) views regarding the students’ difficulties in writing and their expectations and suggestions regarding the roles and effects of the writing course, instructors and the materials on resolving their problems and, thus, improving their writing ability were explored by using two sets of open-ended surveys. Subsequently, in light of the findings of the study a socioculturally-informed syllabus, which can guide the selection of materials, teaching methods and assessment techniques in a writing course, was proposed and elaborated upon. Insights provided by the present study can be useful for writing teachers, researchers, and possibly syllabus designers and curriculum planners, to design an appropriate and accountable writing course for their learners to identify and resolve their problems and, thus, enhance their writing quality.

As teachers are one of the vital elements in learners’ success in second language (L2) learning process, research on them seems necessary in L2 educational settings. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there is a statistically significant difference between predictability of Iranian EFL teachers’ emotional quotient (EQ) and sense of plausibility with their sense of classroom management. To this end, a sample of 120 (60 female and 60 male) experienced EFL teachers were selected at different schools and language institutes in Qazvin, Iran. Then three standardized questionnaires were administered to all participants, including the attitudes and beliefs on classroom control (ABCC) Inventory, teachers’ sense of plausibility to language teaching pedagogy, and emotional intelligence (EQ). Next, standard multiple regression analysis was utilized to probe the research question. The results revealed that EFL teachers’ sense of plausibility was a more statistically significant predictor of teachers’ sense of classroom management rather than their EQ. The findings of the present study have implications for L2 teacher education and teacher training programs.

Manipulation is an illegitimate mind control that can be performed via the triangular model of social, cognitive, and discursive strategies which leads to social inequality. This study aims to investigate the discursive strategies employed in Persian printed advertisements to manipulate audiences based on triangular model of van Dijk (2006). Since manipulation is a crucial notion of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the researchers have to utilize CDA principles of Fairclough (2013) too. To do this, an analysis was performed on the corpus of 160 Persian printed advertisements collected during one year, from 2016 to 2017. Half of the data were collected from real context of use in three different cities of Iran (Kermanshah, Ahwaz, and Mashhad), and another half were downloaded from different websites. Then, the corpus of data was analyzed employing triangular model of manipulation and CDA in order to determine the strategies used in those advertisements to manipulate audiences. The results revealed that the advertising discourse in Iran is completely manipulative which uses discursive, cognitive and social strategies to manipulate consumers. Furthermore, the results added more strategies such as (a) Religious messages, (b) Challenging hints, (c) Giving discount or rewards, and (d) Deadline, to the findings of previous studies.

Persuasive/argumentative essays show how much a writer can implement his/her power to convince the reader in favor of his desired intention. However, many writers might encounter different types of challenges during the task of writing and wonder how to overcome them. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of concept mapping and brainstorming on the lexical and grammatical accuracy and writing anxiety of Iranian EFL learners’ argumentative essays. In doing so, ninety male and female students ranging from 17 to 35 in Iran National Language Institution (INLI) in Tehran were selected through cluster sampling based on convenience. An essay writing test and the second language writing anxiety inventory (SLWAI) were used both as pre- and post-test. The students were randomly assigned to three equal groups to experience different treatments in a 15-session semester. For data analysis, three separate one-way ANCOVA procedures were used. The results showed that both experimental groups did better than the control group. In lexical accuracy, the two experimental groups had almost the same mean scores, but in grammatical accuracy and writing anxiety, the concept mapping group obtained the highest mean followed by the brainstorming group. The findings of the study can have useful implications for teachers, students, material designers, and language assessors.