فرهمن فرخی

Fundamental changes and novel ideas have been brought into the field of English Language Teaching through introduction of postmethod and critical pedagogy. Postmethod as an alternative to methods aimed at fulfilling its triple principles of particularity, practicality, and possibility. The well-known sub-branch of postmethod, critical pedagogy, aimed at empowerment of instructors and learners, and establishment of social justice through education. Unlike theoretical aspects of these movements, practical dimensions have not received due attention, especially in eastern contexts. This qualitative investigation sought the extent EFL instructors practically adhere to the principles of these inherently western concepts in Iran, as a sample of eastern context with its own social, cultural, and academic norms. Qualitative data collection techniques were used to obtain data from the intended instructors. Qualitative data analysis laid bare the findings that postmethod and critical pedagogy are practically adopted, to a great extent, by the Iranian EFL instructors, and the pertinent principles are being put into practice enthusiastically. Powerful communication with western communities blurring cultural boundaries was deemed to be the chief reason of such strong adoption. Ironically enough, it was revealed that in general, the Iranian EFL instructors’ theoretical knowledge suffered greatly concerning postmethod and critical pedagogy. In other words, although haziness of cultural boundaries has made the room for smoothened practical realization of these trends, due attention should be paid to development of theoretical knowledge in these regards in Iranian EFL teacher training courses so as to take the utmost advantages from postmethod and critical pedagogy.

Given that students’ personality traits can have a powerful role in language learning, this study sought to investigate how well L2 leaners’ communication apprehension and request speech act can be predicted through the components of the Big Five Personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness). The study also examined which of these traits could be the best predictor of L2 learners’ communication apprehension (CA) and request speech act. One hundred and seventy-nine Iranian EFL learners at three universities in Shiraz, Iran were recruited. To single out the participants for the study, Oxford Placement Test was employed. To identify the learners’ personality traits, gauge their pragmatic competence of request speech act, and measure their communication apprehension, The Big-Five Inventory, Discourse Completion Task, and the Personal Report of Communication Apprehension (PRCA-24) were applied, respectively. Standard multiple regression was used and the results showed that the Big Five personality can predict L2 learners’ communication apprehension and request speech act ability. Moreover, the results evidenced that extraversion and neuroticism largely contributed to L2 learners’ request speech act ability and CA, respectively. The findings offer implications for EFL teachers in helping their students increase their speech act productions and managing their communication apprehension based on their personality traits.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of flashcard and wordlist strategies with regard to concrete vs. abstract words on vocabulary development of Iranian intermediate EFL learners. The current study had a quasi-experimental design and consisted of two experimental groups and one control group. Ninety Iranian intermediate university students participated in this study. The participants were determined on the basis of Quick Placement Test (QPT). Eighty vocabulary items were selected from the wordlists presented on Paul Nation’s website for the treatment, and they were applied via two different strategies (flashcard/wordlist), and two different kinds of words (concrete/abstract). A pretest, an immediate test and a posttest were administered. To analyze the results, the SPSS software was employed. The experimental groups using flashcards and wordlists were found to outperform the control group. However, no statistically difference was observed between flashcard vs. wordlist strategies. Also, the findings showed that students will probably remember the concrete words for a longer period of time in comparison to abstract words. These findings will probably give insights into language pedagogy by encouraging English teachers to choose the teaching materials which can facilitate the process of teaching and learning.

The present study investigated formal versus informal implementation of pedagogical digital games to improve phrasal verb knowledge. One hundred and one intermediate students took part in this mixed-method, quasi-experimental research. The sample was divided into two treatment groups. ANCOVA was used for quantitative data analysis. Qualitative data analysis was based on students’ questionnaire data. The results revealed that digital game play for 6 weeks within formal classroom setting outperformed informal learning where students had to apply their extended degree of autonomous play and the relevant skills. The mean score difference is 3.45. The majority of students from formal and informal groups prefer formal context of learning. Interaction with peers is more productive between peers, higher levels of satisfaction when they encountered difficulties and significantly constructive in the formal context. Moreover, contrary to previous findings, no significant difference was found between Post Literal and Post Figurative mean scores. Thus both literal and figurative phrasal verb categories improve evenly in a digital game play context and it fosters the interpretation of the previously difficult to comprehend figurative verbs in traditional learning context and mean score for play was considerably higher in formal group and performed better compared to the informal game group.

Robinson’s Cognition Hypothesis and Skehan’s Limited Attentional Capacity Model provide the major impetus for this study. The present article reports the findings of a between-subject factorial experimental research study which explored 1) the effects of increased cognitive task complexity, manipulated through the intentional reasoning demands and number of elements on the lexical and syntactic complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) of EFL writers’ productions; and 2) the joint effects of cognitive task complexity factor and learners’ language learning aptitude (Low vs. High) on the written output. Firstly, we gave Carroll and Sapon’s Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) to 226 participants and then did a random stratification of the low- and high- aptitude learners into three groups. The participants received letter writing tasks with different cognitive complexity levels (low, medium, and high). The findings indicated that increasing cognitive task complexity resulted in significantly higher lexical and syntactic complexity and lower fluency, whereas no significant effect was found on writing accuracy. Moreover, the statistical results revealed no significant interaction effect between task complexity factors and learners’ language aptitude. With regard to the first objective of the study, the findings supported the predictions of Cognition Hypothesis while it is not the case in relation to the second objective of the study.

The purpose of the current study was to explore the effects of different corrective feedback (CF) conditions on Iranian EFL learners’ spoken general accuracy and breakdown fluency and their relationships. Consequently, four pre-intermediate intact classes were randomly selected as the control, delayed explicit metalinguistic CF, extensive recast, and intensive recast groups; these groups participated in spoken reproduction tasks for six sessions and their errors were treated differently. Then, the data was transcribed, coded for accuracy and fluency, and analyzed. The results indicated that the different CF conditions had insignificant effects on the number of error free Analysis of Speech (AS)-units, as an index of the spoken general accuracy. Considering the fluency, although different CF conditions had insignificant effects on the number of pauses the participants produced, it had a significant effect on the whole number of pauses; there was a significant correlation between participants' pauses and the whole number of pauses, with a medium effect size. The correlations between the general accuracy and breakdown fluency of all groups were negative and insignificant. In addition, different CF conditions had insignificant effects on the relationship between the accuracy and fluency. These findings suggest that there is no trade-off between spoken general accuracy and breakdown fluency. In addition, different CF conditions have insignificant effects on the EFL learners' spoken general accuracy, breakdown fluency, and their relationships.

There have been many theories and paradigms trying to provide answers to the challenge of the best method. After the rise of many colorful language teaching methods، in postmethod era، it was postulated that there is no magic formula to teach a foreign language but that a localized methodology based on learners and teachers’ experience will have suitable results. In this article، after investigating teachers’ pedagogical knowledge according to Gatbonton model (1999)، we have studied the pathology of teaching methodology based on the teachers’ viewpoints. To figure out teachers’ pedagogical knowledge، the present researchers observed thirty five EFL teachers. After the pathology of teaching، teachers reportedthat to assess the quality of effective teaching، such criteria as learner management، teaching quality، educational output، expertise، personality and educational policies should be taken into consideration. The observation of EFL classes revealed that there are some differences in novice and experienced teachers’ pedagogical knowledge.

Language teachers usually face issues regarding the most effectivemethods of teaching. Teaching language to nonnative speakers ofEnglish involves certain problems and challenges at all levels ofinstruction. Due to the unsatisfactory results of focus on forms andfocus on meaning instructions and their inevitable inadequacies, focuson form instruction along with its multiple techniques are regarded asa better candidate for classroom instruction. Focus on form instructiondoes not only pay attention to the importance of the communicativelanguage teaching, but it also maintains the value of occasional andovert study of L2 grammatical forms. It is considered a morepromising pedagogical choice than focus on forms and focus onmeaning because of its communicatively need-oriented attention toform and its saliency in the language acquisition process. Focus onform may be essential to push learners beyond communicativelyeffective language toward target-like second language ability. It mayalso be part of a more efficient language learning experience in that itcan speed up natural acquisition processes.

The aim of this study was to evaluate and analyze the content of English textbooks taught in Guidance Schools according to the Fog readability formula and from the view point of experienced English teachers. The findings: On the whole, the strong points of the books in different cases were as follows: The typing style of the books, good grammar presentation and practice, the organization of content from simple to difficult, clear instructions, correspondence with the children's age and books availability for most of the teachers and students. The weak points of the books were as follows: lacking attractive lay out, not having good pronunciation and vocabulary explanation, not using enough authentic language, having no attention to the learners background knowledge, not having enough correspondence with the children's real life situations, Lacking the audio cassettes.
From the view point of the teachers: There was a significant relationship between the evaluation of the books and the teaching experience, the teachersõ degree and the gender of the teachers. But there wasn’t any significant relationship between the evaluation of the books and the teaching location.
For measuring the readability of the writings, Fog index was used. The results indicated that the readings of the books in all the grade were in low level. That is, they are very simple to read and students need a level higher than these ones. Consequently, all of the books were poor according to the results.

The expression of doubt and certainty is crucial in academic writing where the authors have to distinguish opinion from fact and evaluate their assertions in acceptable and persuasive ways. Hedges and boosters are two strategies used for this purpose. Despite their importance in academic writing, we know little about how they are used in different disciplines and genres and how foreign language writers present assertions in their writing. This study explores the use of hedges and boosters in the research articles of two disciplines of Electrical Engineering and Applied Linguistics. It further examines the use of hedges and boosters by native and non-native writers of English in these research articles. Based on a corpus of twenty research articles, the overall rhetorical and categorical distribution of hedges and boosters were calculated across four rhetorical sections (Abstract, Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusion) of the research articles. The analysis shows that the overall distribution of hedges and boosters in Applied Linguistics articles is higher than Electrical Engineering articles. Moreover, there are significant differences between native and non-native writers in the use of hedges and boosters. These findings may have some implications for the teaching of academic writing especially to EFL learners.