دکتر سید حسین کاشف

This study aimed to investigate Iranian EFL learners’ expression of regrets in four main contexts. A qualitative case study design was adopted to address the research question. The participants were 3 male Iranian EFL learners. Sadra and Ata were 19 and Mehrdad was 20. The participants were chosen through purposive sampling and spoke Azeri Turkish as their mother tongue. The contexts used for the purpose of the study were a) classroom, b) shopping mall, c) park and d) coffee shop. The participants were instructed in six EFL classes to obtain an understanding of specific syntactic categories and lexical items related to the expression of regrets by their EFL instructor, the second researcher. High Inference observation (HIO) was used to observe the participants’ speaking competence in expressing their regrets at two phases (the first three months and the last two months). Through initial data coding and comparison of the participants’ use of syntactic and lexical items which were investigated during the two time periods (the first three months and the last two months), it was tangible that the participants failed to express their regrets due to lack of syntactic lexical competence and inadequate practice in their first three months role plays in comparison with their linguistic choices related to expression of regrets during the last two months. The participants’ expression of regrets in the four main contexts pursued for five months up to the time when the researchers reached saturation and were empirically confident about the participants’ improvement in this case study. Scrutiny of the data entries (84 extracted data) revealed that the participants could improve their speaking competence in expressing their regrets in five months.

The current research gathered and compared Iranian instructors' perspectives regarding self-directed language learning in a variety of academic contexts including language institutes, schools and universities. To do the study, 120 EFL teachers with BA, MA, or PhD degrees between the ages of 23 and 54 from Urmia, West Azarbaijan, were chosen to participate in this study. The researcher adopted a teacher questionnaire from the questionnaire used by Borg and Al-Busaidi (2012) and Camilleri (1999). Based on the findings of current study, it was concluded that most of Iranian EFL teachers have positive and favorable attitudes toward self-directed learning and its different constructs. They mostly even in different educational settings positively stated that learners needed to form specific habits such as studying in library, being provided with opportunities for completing tasks alone and moving education to out of classroom. The extent to which teacher in different settings agreed to them was not statistically different. The results of the current study can help teacher trainers to integrate the self-directed learning into their educational curriculum to encourage teachers to use and implement it.

The present study examined the correlation between EFL learners’ language anxiety and their reading ability. To this end, first, 200 intermediate-level EFL learners including 100 male and 100 female learners were selected from among the learners of a private language institute in Urmia as the participants based on their results on a proficiency test. Second, the participants received Horwitz, Horwitz, and Cope’s (1986) Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale and completed it in about twenty-five minutes. Third, they took the researcher-made reading comprehension test of the study and answered its items in about forty minutes. The study was carried out in three sessions within a one-week period. Pearson Product Moment Correlation test was used for data analysis. The results of the study highlighted the fact that there were significant negative correlations between language anxiety and reading ability for both of the male and female EFL learners. It was argued that, the negative correlations between the participants’ language anxiety and reading ability stemmed from: a) the debilitative role of anxiety in language learning; b) learners’ lack of ability to recognize and adapt themselves to the cultural, social, and linguistic characteristics of the native speakers of the target language; c) the effect of formal evaluation on the learners’ task performance; d) learners’ underestimation of their capabilities to use the second language; and e) learners’ inability to utilize efficient communication and group-based strategies in the context of the classroom.

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is derived from the umbrella term ESP, which means to meet learners’ and employers’ needs. It has gained a noticeable role as a language of knowledge dissemination, which has developed into an ongoing need for the improvement of language proficiency among non-English major university students. This has highlighted the significance of EAP courses, which are dominant in the context of Iranian universities. Although there is a reasonable body of contemporary research in the realm of ESP/EAP instruction nationwide, much of the literature in the Iranian EAP setting has been concentrated mainly on quantitative survey-based or experimental studies examining the syllabus and teaching contents with little or no attention to the teaching methodology. Moreover, there is scant research on the body of current EAP literature demonstrating a holistic picture of the running courses in terms of syllabus and methodology in EAP. The present paper aims at shedding light on the existing status of EAP courses for Iranian Islamic students in the tertiary educational system of Islamic universities of Iran through a comprehensive review of some major studies conducted in the related realm. Furthermore, it examines some of the major challenges and criticisms levelled at EAP instruction and EAP courses for Islamic students in Iranian higher education, with a focus on two major dimensions: syllabus and teaching methodology. The paper concludes by giving some practical and pedagogical implications for EAP practitioners, emphasizing the role of teaching methodology, aiming to raise the practitioners’ awareness in promoting the efficiency of EAP courses.

The present study strived to determine the degree to which collaborative tasks and EFL learners’ gender affected their flow experiences. To this end, first, the researchers selected 56 intermediate-level EFL learners in two intact classrooms at a private language institute in Urmia (Iran) as the participants. Second, they randomly assigned the classes to an experimental group and a control group. Third, they used a flow state questionnaire to determine the participants’ flow experiences prior to the onset of the study. Fourth, they provided the experimental group with collaborative language learning treatment during 12 sessions. Nonetheless, they deprived the control group of this treatment. Finally, they administered the flow state questionnaire to the groups anew to appraise the efficacy of collaborative tasks for augmenting the participants’ flow experiences. The results indicated that the above-mentioned tasks had an advantageous impact on the EFL learners’ flow state of mind. Furthermore, based on the results, female learners’ flow experiences were more positively affected by the collaborative tasks in comparison with the male learners’ flow experiences. The obtained results may empower the teacher educators, syllabus designers, and researchers to take account of the flow state of mind during the process of language acquisition.

This study attempted to determine the viability of the pedagogic interventions in ESP writing courses that fall within the ambit of Written Corrective Feedback (WCF). Considering this objective, 93 intermediate-level ESP learners in 3 intact classrooms of a medical sciences university in Iran were assigned to three groups. They were provided with corrective feedback; using three feedback strategies comprising direct, indirect, and metalinguistic WCF over ten treatment sessions. The researchers endeavored to itemize the utility of the interventions mentioned above via analyzing the participants’ performance on an immediate and a delayed writing posttest. The results displayed the efficacy of WCF for the betterment of the ESP learners’ writing performance. Furthermore, they accentuated the short-term and long-term supremacy of explicit WCF strategies (i.e., metalinguistic & direct) over the implicit ones (i.e., indirect). The findings might enable syllabus designers and curriculum developers to redress the English courses for students of allied medical sciences.