Journal of English Language Pedagogy and Practice
Volume:8 Issue: 16, Spring - Summer 2015

Maintaining that language and culture are interwoven to the extent that learning the former is largely dependent on the latter, this study aimed to investigate the attitude of Iranian English as Foreign Language (EFL) Learners of Tehran South Branch of Islamic Azad University (both undergraduates and postgraduates) towards the learning of the cultural aspects of language, both the target and source cultures, in their EFL classrooms. To this end, a quantitative approach was employed and a Likert scale questionnaire was designed. Fifty EFL learners were randomly invited to answer the questionnaire in relation to their attitude being exposed to the culture of target language. The findings of the chi-square test indicated that the Iranian undergraduate and postgraduate EFL learners consider culture as an important element in learning the target language. Both the culture of the source language and the culture of the target language were deemed important while learning a second language. The findings of this study also showed that postgraduate EFL learners have more intension to learn more about the culture of both source and target language than undergraduate EFL learners in Iran.

Stress is considered as an inseparable part of life. Although it is sometimes useful and positive, if there is overstress, there would be some disturbances created in human life as the negative aspect of stress. In this research the different dimensions of stress regarding family, environmental, and personal stress and their effects on the amount of learning English among students at Islamic Azad University, Ahar Branch have been investigated. The statistical population of the present research includes students majoring in different courses at Islamic Azad University, Ahar Branch who have selected to pass the courses entitled: ‘General English’ or ‘Prerequisite to General English’. In the present study we have used a random sampling method. To determine the participants of the study, a questionnaire was distributed among them. Then, based on Cochran's formula our sample was calculated. Results showed that all stress factors (personal, environmental, family) affected the performance of the students in English learning, and they should be regarded as important factors in devising new materials to be presented to General English classes.

It was claimed by variationists that languages experience variation at all levels, which is supposed to be patterned. The present study aimed at exploring how variation occurred in English and Persian wh-questions. More specifically, it investigated whether such a variation was systematic and patterned. To this end, a modified version of the Edinburgh Map Task was used in data collection. The population of this study was 60 Canadian and Persian native speakers who performed the task through the construction of wh-question variants. The results indicated that both languages experienced variation in the construction of wh-questions. However, Persian proved to be more variable than English because it allowed more wh-question variants to be produced. Moreover, this variation was patterned in English and Persian individually, yet a systematic variation could not be observed between these two languages. It followed that the different mind-sets of the Canadian and Iranian participants which were affected by social and cultural factors might account for such a variation.

Reading comprehension is one of the most important skills, especially in the EFL context. One way to improve reading comprehension is through strategy use. The present study aimed at investigating the effect of question-generation strategy on learners' reading comprehension. The participants in the study were 63 intermediate students from three intact groups in Resa institute in Boukan, They were randomly assigned to two experimental and one control groups. They were given two samples of the reading section of the standardized Preliminary English Test (PET) as the pre- and post-tests. The students in the experimental group A generated text-based reading comprehension questions individually, and in the experimental group B  in groups of three but the learners in the control group answered the reading comprehension questions provided in the text. The results of ANOVA revealed that the students in the experimental group B, who employed group-question generation strategy, outperformed the experimental group A, who employed individual- question generation strategy and the control group in the reading comprehension post-test. The findings can have some implications for EFL teachers and syllabus designers.

In light of the understanding that the analysis of the generic features of different academic genres can enhance the ability of non-native members of academic discourse communities to understand, and where appropriate, to produce them, the present study aimed at investigating the dominant generic structure of research articles in mathematics. To start with a relatively narrow focus, a corpus of thirty mathematics research articles were randomly selected from The Bulletin of the Iranian Mathematical Society(BIMS), and were analyzed in terms of their macro-organizational structure. An eleven-move structure was identified in the analyzed corpus, while it was also found that the research articles in the corpus did not follow the conventional Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion structure found in many other disciplines. Methods and Discussion sections which are frequently encountered in research articles of many other disciplines were missing in the analyzed articles. It is argued that the findings may have theoretical implications in revealing some discipline specific conventions of organizing macro structure. Since all the authors were Iranian, the emerging model should be treated cautiously because some aspects of the emerging macro structure may also be under the influence of culture specific conventions.

The current study aimed at investigating the relationship between life-wise syllabus- as a new type of syllabus which emerged as the result of recent developments in applied ELT and corresponding to the "education for life"- and teacher success in an EFL context. Life-wise syllabus introduced by Pishghadam in 2011 directed English teachers’ attention to give priority to life issues rather than language in class. These new concepts encourage curriculum development based on life and all of its manifestations which is the core principle of humanistic education. Then teaching should not only comprise mathematics, chemistry, or literature, but also emotions, relationships, attitudes, thinking styles, feelings, and states of mind. Due to the recent emergence of this syllabus and the dearth of research over its effectiveness, this research study was carried out to shed more light on the issue. To this end, 200 teachers- 100 from private sector and 100 from public sector- and their 1771 students were chosen as the participants of the research study from Mashhad and Ghaen cities. In this study, the teachers were given "Life-Responsive Language Teaching beliefs Questionnaire" (hereafter LRLTB), and their students were given the "Characteristics of Successful EFL Teachers Questionnaire" (hereafter CSET). The results of the correlational study indicated that the main variables and also their subscales were highly correlated. The comparison between male and female teachers regarding correlation between variables did not show any significant difference. But the comparison between private and public school teachers in terms of the relationship between the variables displayed that they were more strongly correlated for the latter.

The aim of this study was to find out whether listening to English songs can improve pre-intermediate EFL learners’ listening comprehension. To this end, a non-randomized pretest-posttest control group design as one of the quasi-experimental research designs was employed. The sample of the study consisted of 40 male and female English learners from two classes in an Institute in Marand, Iran. The two classes were randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups.  Then, a PET test was used to check the homogeneity of both groups. The listening section of PET was also considered as the pretest of the study. Then, fifteen English songs were used in the experimental group during the treatment period. Each session, within 45 minutes, one song was played for and practiced with the learners. Meanwhile, the control group had their usual teacher -fronted class without listening to songs. At the end, both groups were post tested on their listening comprehension using the listening section of another version of PET. The collected data were analyzed using Independent-Samples and Paired-Samples t-tests. The results revealed a statistically significant improvement in the performance of the experimental group. It is implied that songs are not only an entertaining tool but they can also be used as a pedagogic material in improving learners’ listening comprehension.

Keeping pace with the continuous changes and innovations in the field of English language teaching is considered to be a necessity for the quality of teachers' teaching. There are numerous approaches to teacher development, among which self-initiated development stands as one of the noticeable trends. Although teacher development is crucial for the quality of education, it appears that there are not many studies on self-development of English language teachers in Iran.  There are studies mostly concentrating on the evaluation of pre- or in-service programs in English language teaching. Addressing this call, the main purpose of this study was to investigate perceptions of 48 in-service English language teachers towards their professional development. The data collection instrument used was a researcher-made questionnaire consisting of both open-ended and close-ended items. Employing descriptive statistics, the data was analyzed. The results indicated that the teachers agreed with most of the concepts that indicate the importance of professional development. Moreover, they were aware of the importance of major professional development activities for their development. Yet, peer observation and action research were not preferred as much as the other activities.

Owing to the growing interest in communicative, cultural and pragmatic aspects of second language learning in recent years, the present study tried to investigate representations of pragmatic aspects of English as a foreign language in Iranian high school textbooks. Using Halliday’s (1978), and Searle’s (1976) models, different language functions and speech acts were specifically determined and examined in high school textbooks. The results indicated that there were major insufficiencies in pragmatic representations in these books. These problems were related to inadequate coverage of different speech acts and language functions, lack of authenticity in the dialogues, inappropriate simplifications and reductions, lack of grading, unsystematic presentations, providing no meta-pragmatic information, and presenting English speech acts embedded in dialogues with Iranian culture, religion, and norms. The results indicate that material developers and textbook designers need to consider these aspects to help learners to be able to learn second language more efficiently and appropriately.

The role of teachers in affecting students’ attitudes and motivations to language learning and teaching cannot be denied. To improve the field of foreign language teaching and learning we need to improve the qualities of EFL teachers. To achieve this goal, recognizing and identifying the qualities of effective EFL teachers is essential. So this study attempted to investigate the view points of male and female English language students about the characteristics of effective English language teachers based on four categories: English proficiency, pedagogical knowledge, organization and communication skills, and socio-affective skills. For this purpose the researchers administered a questionnaire adapted from Park and Lee (2006) to 60 (28 female and 32 male) foreign language learners at Tabriz Islamic Azad University. The results of the U-Mann-Whitney test indicated that there was not a significant difference between the perceptions of the male and female students regarding the characteristics of effective teacher. However, the overall mean score of the female students’ perceptions was a little bit higher than the male students. For the female students the most important features of the teacher was his/her English proficiency, socio-affective skills, pedagogical knowledge and organization and communication skills, while the preferences of the male students were the organization and communication skills, pedagogical knowledge, socio-affective skills and English proficiency, respectively. The findings have some implications for EFL teachers and students.