Journal of Language and Translation
Volume:12 Issue: 4, Winter 2022

The present work adopted a multiphase design to investigate the effect of using web-based collaborative and strategy-based approaches on EFL learners' oral skills. Moreover, a more comprehensive objective was to check if the use of collaboration and strategy instruction could enhance EFL students' self-efficacy. The participants of the study consisted of 85 intermediate EFL learners who were studying at a language school in Kerman. To collect the data, four instruments were used: Cambridge Placement Test to homogenize the participants, pre- and post-listening and speaking tests, a questionnaire to estimate EFL learners’ self-efficacy, and an interview. The results suggested that most of the students preferred cooperative learning strategy-based instruction. The findings indicated that the effective use of web-based collaboration in speaking and listening classes that could have a remarkable effect on the linguistic input of the learners. The sample also proposed that the appreciation of the program was a given sign of the positive effect of both web-based instruction and collaboration in the web environment. Above all, the results of the speaking and listening tests revealed that the participants improved satisfactorily.

One of the productive word-formation processes in English and Persian that involve category change is conversion. The present study aims to compare and contrast conversion in English and Persian in terms of its productivity, the word classes that undergo this process, as well as its directionality. The research method is descriptive-analytical in order to carry out a contrastive analysis of conversion in English and Persian. To this end, various cases of conversion are investigated in both languages separately to identify the most frequent types of conversion in either language with regard to the parts of speech that are the input and output of the conversion process. The samples are taken from monolingual dictionaries, printed material, and online journalistic texts. Based on the results, it can be concluded that while conversion is a productive word-formation process in Persian, it acts differently compared with the English language in variety, frequency, and its target of application. Modern English has only word-to-word conversion; however, in Modern Persian, there are three types of conversion: word-to-word conversion, stem-to-word conversion, and word-to-stem conversion. Regarding rank-based conversion, in both English and Persian phrase-to-word and sentence-to-word conversions were found. In both languages, the class-based conversion process is quite productive but differences can be observed in the input and output of the conversion process. </strong>

This study investigated the differential effect of implicit/explicit metacognitive strategy instruction on the listening comprehension performance of Iranian EFL learners. It also explored the possible interaction of metacognitive strategy instruction with EFL learners’ working memory capacity. To achieve these objectives, 63 EFL learners were selected as participants based on their performance on a placement test and were randomly assigned to two experimental (implicit/explicit metacognitive strategy instruction) and two control (active and passive) groups. A task-based explicit metacognitive strategy instruction model was implemented in the explicit group. The implicit group received instruction based on a hybrid metacognitive strategy instruction model. All participants took the Automated Operation Span Test (AOST) as well as a PET listening paper. They also took the listening section of the FCE as their transfer test. The obtained results revealed that while both implicit and explicit metacognitive strategy instructions significantly affected the participants’ listening comprehension performance, explicit instruction was of greater effect. The results also showed that listening comprehension variations were not significant in the active control group, which indicated that no positive results can be achieved just by introducing strategies without contextualizing them in practice. Working memory capacity (WMC) also showed to be of significant predictive power for listening comprehension improvement in the explicit instruction group. Finally, the findings of the study demonstrated that implicit metacognitive strategy instruction works much better for learners with limited WMC or groups of learners with heterogeneous WMCs. </strong>

This study was conducted to find the main problems in translating elements of drama. Also, it explored the extent that the elements of drama are translatable and the most problematic elements in the process of translation were highlighted by the study. The study is a qualitative corpus-based one focused on four elements of drama which are plot, theme, conflict, and characterization. The corpus of the study consisted of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman</em> along with the Persian translation by Noorian. After analyzing and interpreting the data, the findings were completely discussed by the researchers. Although the translator attempted to find suitable equivalences to be closer to the target language, the elements of the plot and conflicts which are related to cultural features are somehow untranslatable, and understanding the depth of the story may be difficult for the audience. Regarding the translatability of the selected translation, the findings of the study indicated that most of the elements of drama are translatable. Also, an acceptable translation was rendered for the play. </strong> </strong>

While teaching vocabulary, it is crucial to consider the facilitative role of various techniques that may intensify and promote memory strategies required for meaningful learning and long-term retention. The present study aimed to compare the effect of three semantic mapping strategies of Word Relationship (WR), Lexical Relations and Definition (LRD), and Personal Word Connections (PWC) on Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary learning and retention. To this end, 120 intermediate EFL learners were assigned to three contrast groups and a control group, each with 30 participants who were randomly assigned to three WR, LRDG, and PWC experimental groups and a control group who attended the treatment two sessions a week for four weeks in which the vocabulary was presented via the three semantic differential modes. The control group received no treatment regarding the target words and was only involved in mere reviewing and revising the words. Immediate and delayed parallel vocabulary posttests were deployed immediately after the treatment and with a two-week interval to detect the impact of the instructional interventions on the participants’ vocabulary learning and retention, respectively. The results of three One-way ANOVA tests and four repeated-measure ANOVA tests showed significantly higher improvements in the experimental groups’ learning compared to the control group with the UWR outperforming others and achieving higher levels of learning and retention. In terms of the two other contrast groups, the PWC ranked second and the LRD ranked last. The findings underscore WR as an effective technique the pedagogical implications of which will be discussed.

Evaluating existing programs could help material developers and teachers understand students’ needs and make future improvements. This study investigated English textbooks for high school students in Iran, moving from explaining objective facts about the context to a subjective analysis of expectations and needs based on the assessment framework of Littlejohn (2011). This framework draws subjective conclusions about the adequacy of context. To assess the educational value of textbooks, a school board consisted of the first researcher in the study and four of her colleagues who had experience teaching English in high schools. The results showed that the material needs to be adapted to the intended use of the situation. This should include both public and design-oriented aspects of the material. Some of the criteria that make up the publication element of material (physical layout, path, and continuity of the printed material) are consistent with what the teacher expects from the material that is desirable for a particular person. However, in most cases, partial discrepancies (access, location of material in the set, division of sections into subsections) or significant discrepancies (a division of the entire material) may encourage textbook developers to start revision projects based on the results of this study.

Corrective feedback (CF) is an inseparable part of second language acquisition (SLA) and has been the focus of numerous studies since the concept of CF was introduced in the field of SLA. This study focused on investigating the differences between two modes of providing CF, namely, online and traditional modes, which would affect Iranian EFL learners’ writing ability. To serve this purpose, 317 EFL learners from four language schools in Tabriz took the TOEFL: 271 participants scored between 477 and 510, the scores of 164 of them fell between ±1SD, and 66 of them agreed to participate in the study who were asked to deliver a 200-word composition. Their compositions were analyzed based on CAF (complexity, accuracy, and fluency). They were then divided into two groups; one group underwent a treatment of 10 sessions of online chatting (1 hour each session), and the other group was asked to deliver 10 writing tasks. Afterward, all participants were asked to deliver another 200-word writing task. These tasks were analyzed based on the CAF criteria. The obtained results proved a significant difference between the writing ability of the participants receiving CF through online sessions and that of those receiving CF in traditional mode. The findings implicate that EFL teachers could be encouraged and allowed to use up-to-date ways of providing CF if more development in the teaching and learning of English as a second language is anticipated.

The present study developed a questionnaire (Appendix 1) based on the relevant literature and interviews with 22 EFL learners, resulting in a 27-item questionnaire that was distributed among 360 EFL learners. A sequential mixed methods design was used. The analysis of the qualitative data revealed the elements of EFL learners’ spiritual intelligence. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of EFL learners’ responses generated four factors, namely: (1) Learning English for personal, social, and educational benefits, (2) learning English for personal, social, and academic achievement, (3) learning English to promote religious values, and (4) learning English for intercultural communication. The results of the study suggest that this scale is a reliable and valid measure of EFL learners’ SI. This study also revealed that SI has a significant relationship with gender and educational levels. The findings can help researchers define SI and how EFL learners’ SI can be measured. Educationists, practitioners, academics, theorists, teacher training centers, teachers, curriculum constructors, and pedagogic planners may find the results of this study beneficial if they are concerned with the importance of SI in the educational context and its influence on the performance of EFL learners. </strong> </strong>

The use of machine translation to communicate and access information has become increasingly common. Various translation software and systems appear on the Internet to enable interlingual communication. Accelerating translation and reducing its cost are other factors in the increasing popularity of machine translation. Even if the quality of this type of translation is lower than human translation, it is still significant in many ways. The MQM-DQF model provides standards of error typology for objective and quantitative assessment of translation quality. In this model, two criteria (accuracy and fluency) are used to assess machine translation quality. The MQM-DQF model was used in this study to assess the quality of Google Translate performance in translating English and Persian newspaper texts. Five texts from Persian newspapers and five texts from English newspapers were randomly selected and translated by Google Translate both at the sentence level and the whole text. The translated texts were assessed based on the MQM-DQF model. Translation errors were identified and coded at three severity levels: critical, major, and minor errors. By counting the errors and scoring them, the percentage of accuracy and fluency criteria in each of the translated texts was calculated. The results showed that Google Translate performs better in translating texts from Persian into English; furthermore, in sentence-level translation, it performs better than the translation of the whole text. Moreover, translations of different newspaper texts (economic, cultural, sports, political, and scientific) were not of the same quality. </strong> </strong>

The current study was set to examine whether input flooding and input enhancement of vocabulary affected reading fluency of Iranian EFL learners. It also evaluated whether there was any substantial difference between the impacts of input flooding and input enhancement of vocabulary on reading of Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 120 out of 150 Iranian EFL intermediate learners at three language schools in Iran were randomly selected and divided into three groups, each consisting of 40 learners. The first experimental group received input flooding as treatment. To this aim, the frequency of the vocabulary items in the reading texts used during the course was increased. In other words, learners were flooded with the vocabulary items via different examples and using the words several times in the reading texts. The participants in the Input Enhancement (IE) group received IE through underlining, boldfacing, italicization, capitalization, and other strategies such as color coding, using different fonts, and diverse forms of vocabulary. To this end, in this experimental group, the vocabulary items appeared in the texts through using underlining, boldfacing, italicization and capitalization. In order to do so, the researcher retyped the selected materials and carried out the required modifications on them. control group received traditional method for teaching reading. The findings revealed that both input flooding and input enhancement of vocabulary had positively significant impacts on Iranian EFL learners’ reading fluency. Input flooding of vocabulary was more effective than input enhancement of vocabulary regarding their impacts on Iranian EFL learners’ reading fluency.

In the last few decades, tasks as the basic unit in syllabus designing process, and the cognitive complexity of tasks as a fundamental criterion in task sequencing, have attracted the attention of language researchers. At the same time, collaborative task performance has been encouraged due to the researchers' focus on the sociocultural theory proposed by Vygotsky (1978). The present study aimed to investigate the effect of task cognitive complexity on Iranian EFL learners' individual and collaborative written task performance regarding complexity, accuracy, and fluency. To fulfill such a purpose, 70 male and female Iranian intermediate EFL learners were selected as the participants through Oxford Placement Test, from among the undergraduate students of Islamic Azad University of Arak, who had passed two general English grammar courses in two succeeding semesters and were participating in Advanced Writing Course at the time of conducting this research. They were asked to perform some writing tasks both individually and collaboratively, while the cognitive complexity of the tasks (i.e. the reasoning demands and prior planning) was evaluated by the researcher. The analysis of their written productions revealed that when writing individually, with no planning time available, Iranian intermediate EFL learners created more complex texts in their complex tasks and more fluent texts in their simple tasks, and when writing collaboratively, with some planning time available, they produced more fluent texts in their complex tasks.

This study examined the effect of Iranian EFL teachers’ years of experience and their effectiveness on Iranian EFL students’ achievement. 70 EFL teachers and 60 intermediate students were selected from different English language institutes in Shiraz, Fars province. The instruments to collect data were Oxford Quick Placement Test, Demographics, and Teacher Effectiveness Questionnaire. The results were analyzed using One-way ANOVA, frequency analysis, independent samples t-test</em>, and Multiple Regression Analysis. The findings revealed teachers’ perceptions of effectiveness are related to their years of teaching experiences. It appeared that highly experienced teachers in this study perceived that their effectiveness positively influenced students’ achievement. Besides that, it is hoped that this study can also add more in-depth literature review in academia about the effect of Iranian EFL teachers’ experience and their effectiveness) organization and communication skills, pedagogical knowledge, socio-affective skills, and English proficiency) on EFL students’ achievement.

Language and culture are closely interrelated and besides linguistic knowledge, cultural knowledge is crucial for a translator. Culture and linguistics specifically intertwine during poetry translation. To manifest this interconnectedness, the present study was focused on the poems of Parvin Etessami, a 20th</sup>-century Persian poetess, to determine the cultural elements in her poems and investigate their English translation. Eighteen couplets of Etessami’s poems were randomly selected to represent her poetry as a whole. The method was comparative-descriptive and the theoretical framework was based on Newmark’s (1988) strategies of translation. The concept of culture was studied within the paradigm of linguistics. The results of the analyses implied that in the majority of cases, Pazargadi resorted to two or more translation strategies for translating a cultural item simultaneously, indicating Newmark’s translation strategy of “couplets”. The second most frequent translation strategy was “modulation”. The translation strategies of “synonymy” and “reduction” were the least frequent ones. The strategies of “recognized translation”, “translation labels”, and “compensation” were not present in the selected samples. Hence, these strategies are not mentioned in the theoretical framework. The analyses indicated that the translator applied a literal translation besides different strategies to convey the intended meanings and preserve the style of the original poems. </strong> </strong>

The present study was an attempt to investigate assessment literacy among EFL teachers in the Iranian context aiming at studying the implications of assessment literacy for TEFL teacher education reform. Twenty EFL teachers in Iranian language institutes were randomly selected for an in-depth semi-structured interview. The interviews were recorded on a Digital Voice Recorder (DVR) and were transcribed, categorized, and analyzed. The data collected were categorized and analyzed through open, axial, and selective coding systems. The results revealed that Iranian teachers were moderately familiar with assessment literacy components. Likewise, it was revealed that novice teachers with a TEFL background were more aware of assessment literacy and its significance in teacher education. However, in terms of other assessment components such as test administration, selecting the best assessment methods, and communicating assessment results experienced teachers with a TEFL background presented more to-the-point concepts compared to their counterparts in the non-TEFL group, indicating that the teachers with a TEFL background could perceive the aforementioned teacher assessment literacy components better than their non-TEFL counterpart. The findings imply that EFL language institute teachers’ literacy on educational assessment is inadequate especially on communicating assessment results to others and valid grading of the learners’ assessment.

No pluralistic curricula have ever been developed for ESP education in the context of Iran. Therefore, the present study was conducted to design a pluralistic curriculum (PC) model for ESP in the Iranian setting. In so doing, the study benefited from presenting an analysis scheme in a qualitative method. The participants of the study consisted of 20 Iranian male and female ELT experts who were chosen through purposive sampling from various universities of Iran, including Tehran University, Isfahan University, University of Shahid Chamran, University of Shiraz, Shahid Rajaei University, University of Allameh Tabatabaei, and the University of Tarbiat Modares, from among the teachers whose educational and research interests were curriculum planning and teaching materials, who had a history of teaching and research in TEFL for over 10 years. Semi-structured interviews were used to gather the needed data. The results showed that the PC components for ESP include three main components: pluralistic ESP teaching, pluralistic ESP materials, and pluralistic ESP content. Each of these components included several subcomponents. The findings indicated that if educational systems become pluralistic, students can achieve academic success with full potential in ESP courses by joining different groups such as racial, ethnic, and cultural groups.

The present quasi-experimental study with a non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design investigated the effects of metacognitive awareness on developing Iranian EFL learners’ assessment ability. Forty-one male and female upper-intermediate level learners in two intact classes from an English language school in the Tehran province were selected based on convenience sampling. The classes were randomly assigned to the Cognitive-Based Assessment Instruction Group (CAIG) the and Metacognitive-Based Assessment Instruction Group (MAIG). A general proficiency test administered before the treatment verified the participants’ homogeneity. The Metacognitive Awareness Writing Questionnaire and Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire were also administered before and after the study to measure participants’ metacognitive awareness level and self-regulation. The MAIG used metacognitive strategies such as planning, monitoring, and revising to assess English essays. The CAIG performed assessments based on cognitive strategies and a Writing Rubric. The participants’ improvement in assessment was measured every other session during the treatment. After the treatment, the participants took two writing posttests (rehearsed and unrehearsed writing topics). Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) results showed that the MAIG outperformed the CAIG in both posttests, and raising metacognitive awareness could significantly enhance the participants’ assessment ability. The Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance (RM-ANOVA) and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) revealed that the MAIG participants’ performances were significantly better than the CAIG on seven writing assessments. The MAIG’s self-regulation was also significantly higher. This study has implications for materials developers, EFL teachers, and syllabus designers to focus on raising metacognitive awareness in writing assessment.
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The present study set out to develop a willingness to communicate (WTC) questionnaire addressing teachers’ socio-affective strategies. It also aimed at exploring learners’ perceptions of these strategies affecting their WTC. The participants of the study, who were selected through a non-probability convenience sampling method, were 153 EFL learners in three popular language schools in Iran. A questionnaire including 45 items was designed by referring to a previously conducted focus group interview of Iranian EFL teachers and a review of the literature. After the questionnaire was administered and completed by the learners, exploratory factor analysis was performed. The analysis yielded 37 items and six factors: (a) creating a positive interaction (8 items), (b) teachers’ enthusiasm (6 items), (c) teachers’ fairness (5 items), (d) teachers’ presence (6 items), (e) teachers’ immediacy (6 items), and (f) teaching skills and participation in group activities (6 items). The reliability measures were also examined and the results were satisfactory. The six factors were compared against each other and teachers’ enthusiasm and fairness were found to be the most important factor in promoting learners’ WTC. The implications for teacher trainers and teachers are discussed and suggestions for further research are offered.

Eco-criticism brings a change in literary studies by linking literary criticism and theory with the ecological issues at large. In fact, Eco-criticism proceeds a call to literature to connect to the issues of today’s environmental crisis. In other words, ecocriticism is instantly concerned with both nature and the environment. A new eco-literary discourse can statement nature's voice without permeating it with human primacy. As Hughes (2009) debates, even though eco-criticism has become a field in literary theory and in the extensive landscape of environmental history, it could benefit from an enhanced framework. Environmental History is relevant to numerous things, including the history of the mutual relations between the human race and remnants of nature. It studies the related effects that other types, natural powers, and sequences have on a human being, and the web of connections with non-human organisms and entities has been affected by the actions of individuals. This study attempts to analyze Philippa Gregory’s “The Other Boleyn Girl”</em> and “Virgin Earth”</em> based on the features of environmental history as a model of ecocriticism.  In her novels, Gregory tries to define the true history and surroundings of the 16th</sup> and 18th</sup> centuries of Britain, particularly among the kings and queens who are seeking power even with the war. First, with the reference to the features of environmental history a model of analysis will be structured. Then, the analysis of Gregory’s selected novels based on these features will be indicated. Finally, the results of the analysis will be discussed to confirm how it can be implied as a novel’s approach to literary theory.