ali akbar jabbari

Despite the abundance of research on the link between teachers’ beliefs and practices, little research has been conducted investigating the relationship between the beliefs of teachers with specific individual attributes and corrective feedback practices. Thus, this study aims to investigate whether growth mindset teachers’ oral corrective feedback (OCF, henceforth) practices are aligned with their beliefs. Eight in-service growth mindset EFL teachers participated in the study. Having collected the data via two questionnaires and a set of classroom observations, MAXQDA software was used to code and quantify the data. The findings showed that growth mindset teachers’ OCF beliefs and their actual OCF practices were aligned in terms of OCF timing. Regarding OCF types, female teachers’ practices were aligned with their beliefs, but male teachers’ beliefs were more incongruent with their practices. Teachers’ beliefs and practices, however, were inconsistent regarding OCF amount and frequency, which can be due to contextual factors, such as occasional time limit. The implications and suggestions for further research are suggested.

With the spread of second language acquisition research, third language acquisition has gradually become a new research field. This study aimed at investigating the role of background language transfer in the acquisition of English adjective placement which is similar in Turkmen (i.e., L1) and English (i.e., L3) and different in Persian (i.e., L2). Moreover, the effect of gender on the acquisition of English adjective placement by monolingual Persian and bilingual Turkmen Iranian EFL learners was investigated. Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was given to homogenize and select participants who were in the initial state of L2 and L3 acquisition. The selected participants in the main phase of the study were assigned into two groups namely, Persian learners of English, as well as Turkmen learners of English. The present study was carried out using Grammaticality Judgment Test (GJT) and the Production Test. Two-way Between-groups ANOVA was used to analyze data. The results disconfirmed the findings of the hypothese related to L3 acquisition namely Cumulative Enhancement Model (CEM), and the L2 Status Factor, and confirmed the findings of the L1 transfer. Moreover, the results showed that gender did not have a significant effect on acquisition of English adjective placement by monolingual and bilingual learners. The results have some implications for teaching English in the EFL context.

Data-driven learning has emerged as a powerful method in language teaching and has drastically changed the traditional methods of teaching and learning, especially in academic writing. So, the present study was conducted to investigate the effect of data-driven learning on the English academic writing of medical students.

In this quasi-experimental intervention study, 29 MSc students of different fields of medical sciences participated in a training intervention program using a data-driven learning approach focusing on self-generated corpora of academic articles related to their fields of study. Students were asked to write an academic text related to their fields at the beginning and end of the course. Written texts were graded based on the Hemp-Lyons academic writing rubric, and the data collected from the pre-and post-test assessments were analyzed using the paired-sample t-test.

Comparison of pre-test scores with a mean of 59 (SD = 2.26) and post-test scores with a mean of 78.53 (SD = 2.33) indicated a significant improvement in the writing of the participants of this study (p < 0.05).

In light of confirming the educational suitability of the data-driven approach and recognizing the need for students to engage in English article writing and publication, these findings serve as a valuable aid to MSc students studying medical sciences, facilitating their academic writing in English.

With the spread of second language acquisition research, third language acquisition has gradually become a new research field. This study aimed at investigating the role of background language transfer in the acquisition of English adjective placement which is similar in Turkmen (i.e., L1) and English (i.e., L3) and different in Persian (i.e., L2). Moreover, the effect of gender on the acquisition of English adjective placement by monolingual Persian and bilingual Turkmen Iranian EFL learners was investigated. Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was given to homogenize and select participants who were in the initial state of L2 and L3 acquisition. The selected participants in the main phase of the study were assigned into two groups namely, Persian learners of English, as well as Turkmen learners of English. The present study was carried out using Grammaticality Judgment Test (GJT) and the Production Test. Two-way Between-groups ANOVA was used to analyze data. The results disconfirmed the findings of the hypothese related to L3 acquisition namely Cumulative Enhancement Model (CEM), and the L2 Status Factor, and confirmed the findings of the L1 transfer. Moreover, the results showed that gender did not have a significant effect on acquisition of English adjective placement by monolingual and bilingual learners. The results have some implications for teaching English in the EFL context.

AbstractThe present study compares the motivation of Burundi junior high school students from urban and rural settings to learn L2 French and L3 English, mainly focusing on Dörnyei’s (2005, 2009) L2 Motivational Self System. A total of 348 (grade 7 through 9) pupils participated in the present study which used a 40-item questionnaire to collect the data. The results indicated that the students from both learning contexts have distinct motivational dispositions for learning both French and English. French is more popular among rural school learners while English enjoys more popularity among urban school students. Moreover, region-specific differences were found in the participants with learners from rural schools exhibiting more positive motivation to learn both languages than their urban counterparts. The results also revealed that, independent of the region, L2 learning experience and ideal L2 self were the two variables that respectively predicted most the students’ intended effort to learn each target language. One region and language-related difference was that the variable of international posture emerged as a significant contributor to the students’ intended language learning effort only among urban school learners uniquely in relation to their English learning. In the light of the results of this study, pedagogical implications are provided.

This study investigated the motivation of Burundi junior secondary school students learning simultaneously three foreign languages: French, English, and Kiswahili.  A 65-item questionnaire was employed to sample the views of 348 (grade 7 through 9) learners from state schools. Using Dörnyei’s (2009) L2 motivational self-system as the main theoretical framework, this study specifically explored temporal changes in L2 motivation of the participants over the three-year period across the three target languages. In doing so, the present study adopted a quantitative research design with a cross-sectional approach and the obtained data were analysed by means of descriptive and inferential statistics namely a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and stepwise multiple regression analyses. Statistical analyses were computed using SPSS - version 22. The results indicated that there were significant differences in most of the measured motivational scales across the three languages with ninth grade students scoring significantly lower than their peers from lower school grades. Moreover, the results revealed that L2 learning experience and ideal L2 self were the two variables that respectively predicted most the students’ intended effort to learn each language. One school grade-related difference was that international posture appeared as a significant factor among seventh grade students in relation to French learning and among ninth grade pupils regarding English learning. Another finding, which was unexpected, was that English (L3) appeared to be the most popular foreign language among these students. In the light of the results, pedagogical implications are discussed based on the socio-educational context of Burundi.

This study employed the Linguistic Proximity Model (LPM) to investigate the effect of cross-linguistic influence (CLI), target language proficiency as well as their interaction in the acquisition of L3 English past perfect, present progressive, and present perfect tenses by L1 Kirundi-L2 French bilinguals. In that perspective, 90 learners including 30 L1 Kirundi-L2 English bilinguals, 30 L1 French-L2 English bilinguals, and 30 L1 Kirundi-L2 French-L3 English trilinguals completed an Oxford Quick Placement Test, a Background Information Questionnaire, and a Grammaticality Judgment Task. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, multivariate analysis of variance, post hoc comparisons, and independent sample tests. Results revealed that neither Kirundi nor French exerted an exclusive influence in the L3 past perfect and present progressive tenses. However, concerning the L3 present perfect, the results indicated a significantly facilitative effect from L2 French.  The results showed also a significant effect of target language proficiency: while lower-proficiency learners experienced a relatively negative influence from previous languages, higher-proficiency learners utilized their complex multicompetence to overcome difficulties linked to structural differences. Besides structural similarity reported in the already existing L3A studies, the findings herein point to L3 learners’ complex multicompetence as a new factor capable of driving CLI in the LPM framework.

Considering the facilitative role of corrective feedback in language learning, the impact of learners' noticing on its effectiveness, and the significant contributions of individual attributes in learners' noticing the corrective feedback, this study is designed to examine how learners’ implicit theories of intelligence (Mindset), an individual attribute, predict their preferences for oral corrective feedback (henceforth, OCF). A total of 143 Iranian EFL learners participated in the study. The participants were assigned to groups of fixed mindset (N = 26) and growth mindset (N = 26) based on their scores on Language Mindset Inventory (LMI) scale. The data obtained from the questionnaires were analyzed quantitatively. The results indicated that there were significant differences between the fixed-mindset and the growth-mindset groups in their beliefs toward some aspects of OCF. All in all, it can be claimed that language mindset (henceforth, LM) has a significant role in EFL learners’ beliefs about OCF. Pedagogical implications for considering learners’ LM in providing OCF are also discussed.

This study aims at comparing the effects of order of acquisition (L1 vs. L2) and language of contact instruction on third language acquisition (L3), exploring whether the context of acquisition affects learners’ knowledge of the L3. To this end, four groups of L3 English learners were selected: The first and the second groups had Persian as their first language (L1) and Arabic as their second language (L2). The participants of the first group were students of Persian Language and Literature, while the participants of the second group were students of Arabic Language and Literature. The third and fourth groups had Arabic as their first language and Persian as their second language. The participants of the third group were students of Persian Language and Literature, while the participants of the fourth group were students of Arabic Language and Literature. The knowledge of English plural marking was elicited via a grammaticality judgment correction task and a picture description task, aimed at examining how these groups learn number agreement between the noun and its adjective modifier in English as their L3. Results revealed that Persian and Arabic A groups (those with Persian as their language of instruction) outperformed the other groups in both tasks, suggesting that they transferred plural marking facilitatively from Persian.

The present study aimed to investigate Mazandarani-Persian Bilinguals' L3 learning of simple present tense to see whether their L1, L2, or dominant language of communication affect their L3 learning. To this end, 90 male and female students, with the mean age of 14.5 were selected from among the elementary L3 learners of English. The participants were assigned into three groups of L1 Mazandarani/L2 Persian/ L3 learners of English. The first group had Mazandarani as the dominant language of communication while the second and the third group had Persian as the dominant language of communication. The Grammaticality Judgment Task and Oral Translation Task were used to check the participants' production and comprehension of the target structure. The results of the Kruskal Wallis and the Mann Whitney U tests showed that the dominant language of communication, irrespective of its status as the first or second language, was the primary source of cross-linguistic influence in learning simple present tense at the initial stages of learning this tense.

There has been ongoing controversy over the effectiveness of explicit genre instruction, and relatively scant attention has been paid to the explicit genre-based instruction of an academic research paper’s whole sections simultaneously, construed as different genres. This study focused on instruction of generic sections of the M.A. research proposal (RP). The participants were 22 graduate students majoring in TEFL at an Iranian state university. Based on the findings of a needs analysis questionnaire administered at the beginning of the semester, students were taught how to write an RP. Employing different models (i.e., Swales, 1990; Pho, 2008; Lore, 2004), the moves and steps of different sections of an RP in conjunction with the related lexico-grammatical features were inductively highlighted. The students’ first proposals submitted at the beginning of the semester and final proposals submitted at the end of the semester were compared. Results revealed the explicit genre-based instruction promoted students’ genre acquisition as well as some aspects of writing competence. While students appeared to have an uncertain view of an RP in their first proposals as they missed some of the moves, especially Establish a Niche, in their final proposals they catered for different moves and the related steps to indicate their relative grasp of an RP pattern for its communicative purpose realization. Correspondingly, in an open-ended questionnaire, students contended their expertise and self-confidence in writing and reading academic texts significantly increased due to the awareness-raising activities. The pedagogical findings of the study are highlighted.

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of learning context on the acquisition of plurality agreement in English noun phrases by Iranian L3 learners of English. To this end, 64 elementary learners of English were chosen from among the students of Arabic language and literature and Persian language and literature of Ahvaz university and Yazd university via the Oxford Quick Placement test. The participants were assigned to four groups to be compared in terms of the comprehension and production of plurality agreement via a grammaticality judgment correction task and a picture description task. The first and the second groups had Persian as their first language (L1) and Arabic as their second language (L2) but differed from each other concerning their language of contact instruction, Persian and Arabic, respectively. The third and fourth groups had Arabic as the L1 and Persian as the L2 but differed from each other concerning their language of contact instruction, Persian and Arabic, respectively. The results showed that the groups which had Arabic as their language of contact instruction outperformed the other groups in both tasks, which suggests that they transferred plurality agreement facilitatively from Arabic, which was their language of contact instruction. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that the context of learning matters in the acquisition of L3 properties since the L3 learners associate their language of contact instruction with the L3 in their mind due to the similarities in the learning context.

The present investigation set out to examine the impact of multidimensional perfectionism on second language listening comprehension through the mediating effects of self-efficacy and metacognitive listening strategies within the Complex Dynamic Systems Approach. To this end, a total of 117 junior and senior EFL students completed the measures of perfectionism, self-efficacy, five distinct types of metacognitive listening strategies, and the IELTS listening comprehension test. Having gathered the data, cluster analysis was used to identify the perfectionism clusters (adaptive, maladaptive and non-perfectionist). Following a multicategorical multiple mediation analysis, the direct, relative indirect, and total effects of perfectionism on listening comprehension were analyzed to probe the postulated hypotheses of the study. Findings showed that perfectionism exerted direct effects on self-efficacy, three metacognitive strategies (person knowledge, mental translation, and problem solving). The direct effects of perfectionism on listening comprehension and planning and evaluation and directed attention strategies were not significant. Self-efficacy also exhibited significant direct effects on person knowledge and listening comprehension. In terms of relative indirect effects, the mediation analysis was significant and while perfectionism did not show a direct effect on listening comprehension, the relative indirect effects as well as the relative total effects through self-efficacy and metacognitive strategies were significant. Therefore, the inclusion of mediating variables made a significant contribution to the relationship between perfectionism and listening comprehension. The instructional implications of the study are discussed too.

This study aimed at finding the impact of the cognitive status of the structures on the acquisition of third language (L3) English at the initial stages. To measure implicit and explicit knowledge, 85 participants were tested regarding placement of adjective phrase (AP) and partitive structure (PS) by using four instruments: a timed and an untimed grammaticality judgment tasks, a metalinguistic knowledge test, and an elicited oral imitation task. The participants included four groups; the first two had Azeri as their L1 and Persian as their L2, but used Azeri and Persian as the language of communication (LOC) respectively, and the third one had Persian as the L1, Azeri as the L2, and Persian as LOC. The control group used Persian as the L1 and English as the L2. While AP in English and Azeri has similar pre-nominal syntax, in Persian, it is post-nominal. Unlike AP, PS which specifies the parts out of a whole (e.g. two of my brothers) patterns similarly in Persian and English, meaning the part-whole pattern, whereas in Azeri the whole precedes the part. The results challenge the previous models (e.g. the L1 Factor, Hermas, 2010; the L2 Status Factor, Bardel & Falk, 2007; the Cumulative Enhancement Model, Flynn et al., 2004; the Typological Proximity Model, Rothman, 2010) and are compatible with the Contact Language of Communication (Fallah, Jabbari, & Fazilatfar, 2016). Considering cross-linguistic influence as an ongoing dynamic phenomenon, this study proposes that at the initial stages of TLA, the cognitive status of structures is the main determining factor in specifying the source of syntactic transfer.

The present paper sought to investigate gender differences in the speech pauses made by Iranian bilingual (L1: Turkish and L2: Persian) learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). To this end, the pauses made by males and females were compared. Via an Oxford Placement test, a convenient sample of 40 bilingual advanced EFL male and female learners were selected from several English language institutes in Tehran, Iran. Three reading passages (English, Persian, and Turkish) were used to measure students’ fluency in terms of their speech pauses in the texts they read. As learners started to read the passages, their speeches were recorded. The collected data were analyzed by means of Praat Software. The data were analyzed in terms of the frequency and duration of the recorded pauses. The results indicated that that there were not any statistically significant differences between males and females regarding their pause frequency and duration across languages. Accordingly, the results represented more similarity than difference across the groups. The implications of the study results are discussed.

Learning the third language is one of the issues that has attracted much attention in recent years. In this research the influence of Persian language as a mother tongue and English as a second language on the correct orthography of French as a third language is studied. This study investigates three hypotheses of transfer, L1 Transfer Hypothesis, L2 Status Factor, and Cumulative Enhancement Model. We examined the role of voice and text in correct orthography of the third language. This study accounts for the acquisition of coda consonant clusters of French by Persian EFL learners. Twenty-two participants of two levels of pre and upper-intermediate of English proficiency and beginner level French proficiency were selected. In this study, first we measured the level of learners' English knowledge by the Oxford Quick Placement Test and then we studied the effectiveness of the first and second languages on the third language learning by the Production test, and the Grammatically Judgment Test. Results of the transfer effect provided a major role for the ‘CEM’. The overall results of the two groups’ performance were not significant which in turn reflected the fact that L2 proficiency had no effect on the acquisition of French orthography.

The present article addresses the acquisition the position and agreement between attributive adjective and the noun modified in Arabic as a third language. The position and agreement of noun modifiers differ among these three languages. To do the research, the researcher selected 32 high school students. Two tasks, i.e., grammaticality judgement task and translation tasks, were given in order to test which multilingual transfer hypotheses such as full transfer/full access, L2 statue, or cumulative enhancement model are more effective in third language acquisition. The former task checked the subjects comprehension of noun modifiers while the latter task checked the production of the learners. Having analyzed the data through SPSS software, the researcher found out that the intended structure is transferred to L3 mostly from L2 than L1. The L2 status was corroborated and has major role in acquiring this structure. Hence, Arabic course book writers and syllabus designers should consider this matter in teaching Arabic.

This paper focuses on the impact of an asynchronous online discussion forum on the development of students’ ability in and attitudes toward writing in English. Two groups of third-year students (N = 60) majoring in English were assigned to two treatment and control groups, each receiving different types of feedback. Students in the treatment group were required to participate in an online learning environment and exchange feedback with their peers, whereas students in the control group received the traditional face-to-face feedback provided by the teacher. The results of a pre-test, a post-test, and a survey revealed that students’ writing in the treatment group significantly improved, both semantically and syntactically, and they expressed more positive attitudes toward writing. The findings also indicated that as a result of engaging in the asynchronous online discussion forum and exchanging feedback with peers, students exhibited more control over their work, involved more effectively with the learning tasks, collaborated more with their classmates, and employed self-assessment strategies to independently revise or rewrite their work. The implications of the study offer guidelines to improve and facilitate writing skill in EFL contexts.

The present study examines the role of Gal‟perin‟s Concept-based Instruction (CBI) as a pedagogical approach in teaching cognitive grammarbased (CG-based) concepts of tense and aspect to EFL students. Following the sociocultural theory of L2 Acquisition (SCT), arming L2 learners with scientific concepts can lead to L2 development by deepening their understanding and raising awareness of L2 structures. To this end, over the course of eight weeks 28 third grade middle school students (14 years old) received the concepts in the CBI framework and 30 third grade middle school students received a traditional type of instruction. There were three sets of data including definition of the concepts of tense and aspect before and after CBI, concept verbalization data during CBI, written discourse performance plus responses to a set of grammatical questions before and after CBI. It was found that although both groups improved significantly after receiving the instruction, the students who received CBI performed significantly better than those in the traditional group. The students who received CBI also produced a significant definition of the concepts and their written discourse performance and responses to the grammatical questions improved after CBI. The result provides insight into the application of scientific concepts in L2 instruction.

English main-clause wh-questions form complementiser phrases with wh-words preposed to spec-C position. This is because English wh-words, as verb-complements originally, are strong enough to trigger wh-movement and auxiliary inversion. Persian EFL learners encounter an over-differentiation problem regarding the acquisition of auxiliary inversion rule in English standard questions. Once they have acquired the rule, the learners are very likely to overgeneralize it to English indirect or embedded questions. The present study aimed to discover Persian EFL learner's knowledge of wh-embedded clauses, specifically, when producing them orally. To this end, 48 Persian EFL learners at tertiary level took part as participants. An oral reproduction test of English wh-embedded clauses, a translation task, and a grammaticality judgment test containing wh-embedded clauses were used as instruments to collect data. The results revealed that the lower intermediate learners had problems in producing and reproducing correct wh-embedded clauses. Similarly, some problems were detected in the grammaticality judgment test. Difficulties were also observed with the intermediate and upper-intermediate learners. The major finding was obtained in the oral reproduction test where there was no significant difference among three proficiency groups of learners regarding the correct use of English wh-embedded clauses. The recent finding confirms the need for more work on Persian EFL learner's oral language production with an emphasis on wh-embedded clauses.

This paper elaborates on Persian and English orthographic shared aspects to study the effects of L1 Persian on learning English as a foreign language. While there are some examples of letter and sound mismatches in the orthographic system of both languages, those of English are more complex than Persian. In order to see the effect of the mismatch between orthography and transcription, 40 Persian EFL learners were divided into two proficiency groups i.e., advanced and elementary, and their performance was examined on comprehension and production tasks. The learners’ production skills were checked via a list of 76 pseudo words requiring the learners to read them while their voices were recorded. After one week time interval, a comprehension test consisted of 34 items was administered, requiring the learners to listen and choose among the orthographic forms presented to them. It was hypothesized that being educated in L1 Persian comprising semi-opaque orthography system, the learners would tackle the English opaque graphemes better on the mismatches. However, it was observed that both elementary and advanced groups had difficulty learning English orthography system, showing almost no positive effect from L1. Only in rare cases more proficient learners performed better due to more schooling education in English.

This project investigates the relationship between lexical semantics and causative morphology in the acquisition of causative/inchoative-related verbs in English as a foreign language by Iranian speakers. Results of translation and picture judgment task show although L2 learners have largely acquired the correct lexico-syntactic classification of verbs in English, they were constrained by the morphological patterns of their first language (L1) when learning zero morphology, especially with causative/inchoative verbs. Results also show the lack of the learner's proficiency level in all causative/inchoative contexts and in almost all contexts in grammatical judgment task.The transitivity errors documented are analogous to the overgeneralization errors reported in the L1 and L2 acquisition literature of English and other languages. In this study, we also suggest that L2 learners are atuned to the rich morphology of Persian and that the acquisition of derivational morphology and lexical semantics are not dissociated in these interlanguage grammars.

This study accounts for the acquisition of the consonant clusters of English syllable structures both in onset and coda positions by Persian EFL learners. Persian syllable structure is "CV(CC)", composed of one consonant at the initial position and two optionalconsonants at the final position; whereas English syllable structure is "(CCC)V(CCCC)". Therefore, Persian EFL learners need to resolve the conflict between what they know (L1), and what they are learning (L2). Optimality theory (Prince and Smolensky, 1993)claims that the knowledge of language consists of the universal set of structural descriptions and a language-particular ranking of constraints. It provides an explicit account for not only why learners have difficulty with specific EFL structures but also howthey resolve it. 40 participants of two levels of English proficiency participated in this study. The data were collected via two tasks. The first task was a sound comprehension test and the second was a production test. The analyzed data revealed that all the earners had difficulties in performing initial consonant clusters in English; however, the lower level learners significantly had more deficiencies. It is worth mentioning that those coda clusters composed of more than two consonants are more difficult than those composed of only two consonants. This study also revealed that epenthesis was more frequent in onset positions while deletion and substitution were more frequent in coda positions. Based on the findings of the study, English instructors and material developerscan estimate the degree of difficulty of consonant clusters and provide the needed time and material for teaching them

This study compares and contrasts tense and inherent aspect in English and Persian lan-guage from a semantic and syntactic point of view. The aspectual verb system in both English and Persian are semantically interpreted alike. However, in Persian a group of stative verbs are grammaticalized by the imperfective obligatory morpheme mi-, while in English all sta-tive verbs perfective. Furthermore, while in Persian all accomplishment verbs can be shifted into activity verbs by deleting their direct object markers (i.e. by means of noun-incorporation), in English accomplishment verbs cannot be shifted into activity verbs2. Fi-nally, while English has six tense forms such as present, present perfect, past, past perfect, future, and future perfect, Persian has only five tense forms; it lacks future perfect tense and present perfect tense is being used instead. Inherent aspect and tense are syntactically instan-tiated in both English and Persian. The model that has been followed is based on Arad's (1996) and Borer's (1994) views that the interface between the lexicon (i.e. meaning) and syn-tax is aspectually determined. Based on event-predicated based approach, telic events are projected by the aspectual projection of measurer where accusative case is also checked, at-elic events are projected by the aspectual projection of originator, where an agent interpreta-tion is determined, and non-dynamic situations are projected by neither the aspectual project tion of measurer nor originator; they are base-generator in the VP, because they are aspectually contentless. However, independently of these factors tense is uniform ally projected in the IP.