نشریه پژوهش های زبانشناختی در زبان های خارجی
سال چهاردهم شماره 1 (بهار 1403)

Technology-assisted education is becoming increasingly popular due to its contribution to more efficient learning. As regards foreign language education, the use of new technologies to help language learners has attracted great interest from researchers and classroom teachers. Two such technologies are Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. The current study aims at investigating the effects of using Virtual and Augmented Reality on Iranian English learners’ vocabulary recall followed by an examination of learners’ views concerning the new experience. To this end, 48 high school students in East Azerbaijan were divided to two experimental (Virtual and Augmented) groups and a control group. After an eight-week treatment program, two posttests with multiple choice and completion tasks were given to measure students’ receptive and productive vocabulary recall. ANOVA and thematic content analysis were used to analyze quantitative and qualitative data respectively. Results suggested that Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality have statistically significant effects on students’ receptive vocabulary recall; for productive vocabulary recall, such positive effects were observed with Augmented Reality group only. Students’ lived experiences of the new program were categorized under four major opportunities and one challenge. Findings are used to argue for integration of technological tools and language education followed by a discussion of the implications of the study for teachers, material and curricula designers.

The new findings of corpus linguistics clearly attest to the uniqueness of some elements of the spoken grammar of English and their distinction from those of the written variety. This investigation has adopted a content analytic procedure and applied the models proposed by Cullen and Kuo’s (2007) to the dialogs and Timmis’s (2005) to the tasks of the English school textbooks in Iran, namely the Prospect and Vision series to reveal to what extent, if any, the series have availed themselves of the properties of the spoken grammar in their student books ,workbooks and teacher guides. The findings revealed that the majority of the characteristics of the spoken grammar, as used in the textbooks, belong to the fixed lexico-grammatical elements of Category II of Cullen and Kuo's framework, and that the instances of Category I, that is, those forms which undergo change as a function of the context in which they occur, are relatively uncommon. Additionally, the realizations of Category III, that is, those structures which are deemed ungrammatical via adoption of a prescriptive outlook but are still commonly found in the spoken English, were non-existent in the series. The analysis of the tasks based on Timmis’ (2005) also revealed that only some “global understanding” and very few instances of “language discussion task” were present and focused on in the materials investigated, leaving the two other principles unattended.

This study aimed at developing and validating a scale for measuring EFL teachers’ perceived strategies for reducing their learners’ language learning anxiety (LLA). In this mixed-methods research, adopting an exploratory sequential design and convenient sampling, 200 EFL teachers from Kish and Safir language schools in Tehran were selected as participants. To develop the items for the scale, 30 EFL teachers, randomly selected from the initial 200 teachers, were interviewed on their perceptions of learners' sources of anxiety and the strategies they preferred to use to reduce their learners’ LLA. The results of interview content analysis along with the extant theoretical standpoints and empirical literature were drawn upon to develop an 18-item questionnaire for measuring EFL teachers’ preferred English LLA reducing strategies for learners. The results of Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) revealed a four-factor model including learning process-related, explicit teaching of anxiety reducing strategies (ARS), materials, and presentation of instruction. The results of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) also indicated that this four-factor model has acceptable reliability and validity. On the basis of the results, the developed questionnaire enjoys acceptable psychometric characteristics and can be reliably used to quantify and measure EFL teachers' preferred use of strategies to reduce their learners' anxiety.

This research paper presents a systematic review of studies focused on investigating Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) among English as a foreign language teachers. The study employs a synthesis research method to analyze qualitative data and achieve practical objectives. Relevant sources were collected from international databases using appropriate keywords, resulting in a total of 18 selected articles for analysis. To ensure reliability, the quality of the data was assessed using Cohen's kappa coefficient, yielding a value of 0.76. The findings indicate that previous research on TPACK has primarily addressed four main areas: review, evaluation, development, and application. The research has predominantly explored two aspects: assessing teachers' TPACK and innovating methods for measuring its level, as well as investigating differences in TPACK levels among various groups of teachers to enhance and elevate their TPACK proficiency. In conclusion, this study highlights a lack of understanding regarding how English language teachers can effectively utilize the seven elements of TPACK to facilitate student learning through technology-integrated lessons. Additionally, this research aims to provide valuable insights for future researchers to further enrich the development of the TPACK model in this field. Also, this study will sharpen the perspective of future researchers in enriching the model development of this field.

The goal of this study was to investigate the influence of flipped, face-to-face, and blended instruction on EFL intermediate introverted and extroverted learners' pronunciation ability. To fulfill the objectives of the study, 60 EFL intermediate-level learners were selected from English language institutes of Esfahan City. Then, they were randomly allotted into a face-to-face, flipped, and blended group. Each group included 20 learners. After that, the Eysenck Personality Inventory was distributed among the learners of each group. As a result, the learners of each group were divided into an extroverted group and an introverted group. The next time, the pronunciation pre-test was given to the learners of the three groups separately. Subsequently, the learners of the flipped group were provided with the pronunciation instruction three days before coming to their classes, and then during class time, they performed various activities and exercises regarding the content. In the face-to-face class, the learners received the traditional instruction of pronunciation. In addition, in the blended group, during online training, the researcher taught the instructional content via Skyroom, and during face-to-face training, the learners were required to do the related exercises and activities of their book. After instruction, the pronunciation post-test was administered among the three groups. The findings showed that the three instruction approaches could positively increase the extroverted participants’ pronunciation ability but the flipped group attained more advancement in pronunciation learning.

This study delved into the effectiveness of Visual Feedback (VF) as a tool for enhancing the Voice Onset Time (VOT) of Iranian learners of English. In the realm of pronunciation instruction, VF is gaining recognition as a novel approach. The present research study involved an experimental group, and statistical analysis, along with visual data inspection, revealed consistent performance across the study's three phases. Surprisingly, the VF paradigm did not lead to significant changes in VOT. However, there were noticeable variations among participants regarding their average VOTs, with some showing improvement in English VOTs for the phonemes /p/, /t/, and /k/, while others did not. In the pretest, most participants exhibited English-like VOTs, suggesting a potential ceiling effect. Factors such as immersion in the target language and the prominence of English likely influenced participants' VOT scores before the study. The findings of this study indicate that visual feedback can serve as a different instructional approach for teaching pronunciation in the classroom. This approach is more student-centered, as it enables students to analyse visual representations of their own speech. The participants' VOT ratings may have been influenced by the frequency at which they were exposed to the target language prior to the study. Nevertheless, in order to obtain more reliable conclusions, it is important to carry out studies including a larger number of subjects with varying levels of exposure.

The Vinay and Darbelnet's model is one of the prominent models in the criticism and evaluation of translation. These linguists by examples from French and English, introduced techniques for translation that later could be generalized to different texts. Various techniques that fall under direct and indirect methods of translation. Modulation is one of indirect techniques of translation which a translator tries to recreate the source text in the destination language by changing the point of view. most common examples of this technique are in transformation of positive into negative, transformation of passive into active, clarification of irony, clarification of metaphor, and synecdoche. translators of the Quran, relying on their rhetorical knowledge, use different types of these examples. The present research explores how Salehi Najafabadi and Koosha employed this technique in translation of the last five parts of the Holy Quran aiming at identifying the concepts hidden in the translation of some words, while explaining this technique from Vinay and Darbelnet's perspective by descriptive-analytical method and with a confrontational approach and comparing the quality of two translations and their acceptability among the Persian-speaking audience, is concluded that the two translators have properly used this technique in most cases taking into consideration the rhetorical aspects of the words so as to accurately convey the message of the source text and have a favorable effect on the reader. Among the types of modulation, clarification of irony and transformation of positive to negative have the highest and lowest frequencies in the two translations, respectively.

Our main issue in this research is how to implement intercultural didactic. The research methodology is descriptive-analytical. Using a researcher-made questionnaire as the main research tool, which includes 20 five-choice questions and its validity has been measured and standardized, we will deal with the effectiveness of intercultural didactic. Therefore, by randomly selecting 200 people from among the total population of undergraduate students in the field of French Language in Iranian universities and in two experimental groups of 100 people, we will examine the effect of this teaching method on improving students' pragmatic competence and interest in literary content. All 20 items of the questionnaire have a strong correlation with their factors and therefore the questionnaire is standardized. Also, the results of descriptive statistics (Table 5-5) show that after removing the possible effect of the pre-test, the experimental group (45.19) obtained a higher average than the control group (35.28) in improving pragmatic competence. Table 5-9 also shows the descriptive statistics of the two experimental groups and the proof of interest in literary content in the post-test. Based on this, the result was obtained that the experimental group (mean = 25.69) compared to the control group (mean = 18.15) obtained a higher mean in the post-test of interest in literary content. Based on the results of the t-test of two independent samples in Table 10-5 (p > .05, t = 9.78 (198)), the effect size index of the t-statistic is 9.78 equal to 0.571, which shows a large effect size.