Iranian Journal of Foreign Language Teaching Innovations
Volume:2 Issue: 1, Winter and Spring 2023

Elementary school teachers should keep pace with the constant changes in educational research, subject knowledge, and teaching strategies. As Farhangian University plays an essential role in the pre-service teacher training, acquainting teacher-students with the specialized language is essential. Therefore, this qualitative cross-sectional study was conducted to investigate problems with translating specialized English texts among elementary education student-teachers. The target population was the elementary education student-teachers of West Azerbaijan Farhangian University. 30 students were selected by random sampling. Participants were asked to translate an English text of 120 words into Persian and, in addition, they were also asked to translate a 120-word Persian abstract into English and to calculate how long the translation took. The translation scripts were collected and their content was analyzed and the initial coding was done. Based on the coding, for English to Persian translation, the main categories identified were vocabulary, structure, and comprehension; and two categories including vocabulary and structure were identified for Persian to English translation. Then translation scripts were analyzed based on these categories. The results indicated that little acquaintance with the necessary grammatical structures and principles of effective writing were major challenges for participants. Furthermore, interviews were conducted to identify the steps taken by participants in the translation process and the problems faced in this process. The analysis of the conducted interviews indicated that the majority of the participants hadn’t taken the proper sequence of steps in the translation process.

This study examines how different two modes of face-to-face and mobile-mediated peer review (FFPR versus MMPR) affect the commenting patterns based on the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) assessment criteria and actual revisions among L2 academic writers. Moreover, the students’ attitudes towards peer review will be explored to demonstrate how they mediate between the comments received from their peers and subsequent revisions which might result in writing development. A 16-session IELTS academic writing course was held in a private university in Vancouver, Canada and seventy-two English for Academic Purpose (EAP) students participated to exchange peer comments in the classroom and in a mobile application called Telegram. In order to conceptualize the peer comments in both groups, the IELTS academic writing assessment criteria were used. The results indicated that the MMPR groups generated significantly more comments with more revision-oriented responses and actual revisions. In addition, the MMPR groups’ notes were mainly in terms of lexical resources and grammatical range and accuracy, whereas the FFPR groups centered their topics on task achievement and coherence and cohesion. Finally, based on the results, not only both FFPR and MMPR students showed positive attitudes toward peer review sessions at the end but their negative attitudes decreased. Generally, MMPR students showed more positive attitudes, yet the difference was not significant.

This paper aimed to adopt a multidisciplinary approach to investigate language selection in bilingual speech production.The present paper first reviews the sociolinguistic aspects of bilingual language choice, moves on to investigate the notion of language choice presented in the models of bilingual language production and comprehension, and view different factors a single window into the bilingual language selection and finally examines language choice in dialogue. I examined models of bilingual language production in order to provide a better understanding of bilingual language selection.When language choice is formulated, information about language is included in the preverbal message at the conceptual level in order to channel the preverbal message into the intended language. This study suggests that as bilingual language selection is highly affected by the context, language tag specification is formulated outside the language system and the output is sent to the conceptualiser level where it is included in the preverbal message.Language cue may have various values depending on the linguistic context. In a bilingual mode or a dense switch context, the value of language cue is not very high. Information about language choice at the higher level of processing, language membership information,and language nodes at the lower level of processing construct a language information network that regulates bilingual language processing. Language selection in dialogue settings was also discussed. This study suggests that bilinguals may not formulate a language choice for every utterance they produce during a course of dialogue or when there is a language history between the two participants.

Identity studies have gained ground in applied linguistics and many conventional research areas are explored under the more inclusive term of identity. Due to the fluidity of identity, important life events including immigration play a major role in (re)construction of the identity of teachers. In this autoethnographic research, my identity positions as an Iranian English teacher in Turkey are recounted. Employing autoethnography research, I use my reflection, diary, and records of my social media communication to recount the related events. While having my professional identity at the focal point, I will recount social, cultural, and even political narratives which might have affected the reconstruction of my identity. The reflection mainly includes narration of happenings at the school I used to work at, which was managed in a more strict way than other schools. There are also explanations about areas where I needed to show openness to adapt myself to the new roles in the school, while at some points I was more comfortable with being a foreigner than making efforts to blend into the new context. It also includes cultural and social differences from those in my hometown ranging from simple greetings to major behavior of the society toward a crisis that made the process of full integration not easily achievable. Finally, there is a reflection on some distinctive features that I observed over the period of my stay in Turkey. Encouraging teachers to keep a diary journal can be the main implication for classroom practice.

The studies on L2 argumentative writing have surveyed different dimensions of learners’ argumentative behavior and performance. However, less attention has been given to the strategies and techniques enhancing students’ argumentative repertoire. As such, the current study, which the design was repeated measures ANOVA, taking a pedagogy-based perspective, examined the argumentative writing behavior, introduced by Toulmin as Toulmin’s model, of 30 Iranian IELTS candidates before, during and after the instruction in both English and Persian languages. The sample questions were of the previous IELTS Writing part 2 essays from a real test by Cambridge University Press, chosen by 3 IELTS instructors in the Institute to meet the research objectives. To this end, 180 IELTS Task 2 argumentative essays were written by 30 volunteers, each having to write 6 essays, at least 250 words, (Persian and English). As for the students’ English and Persian argumentative writing performance, the results indicated that there were significant differences between the EFL learners’ overall means on argumentative tests in both languages. The results demonstrate that a sound pedagogy in argumentation can both influence the use of argumentation elements in both English and Persian written texts. The pedagogical implications for writing instruction and argumentative writing are discussed.

Second Language (L2) writing has always been a matter of difficulty for foreign language learners and an appealing topic for researchers of the field. Following a quasi-experimental method, this study aimed to investigate the comparative effects of shared, interactive, and independent writing on Lebanese EFL learners' writing accuracy and complexity. To achieve this aim, 74 non-Iranian female EFL learners were selected through convenience sampling technique. The results of Oxford placement test indicated that their level of English proficiency was intermediate. Afterward, the participants were assigned to three experimental groups (i.e., shared, interactive, and independent writing groups). The syntactic accuracy was gauged in terms of t-units and complexity was calculated based in the number of the words in t-units. The results of statistical analysis manifested that the group which used interactive writing strategies outperformed the other two groups, and no significant differences were found between shared and independent writing groups. Moreover, the performance of the interactive writing group differed significantly from those of the other two groups. Hence, it was concluded that interactive writing strategy may lead to a more accurate and complex writing performance. This study might have implications for language instructors, EFL learners, material developers, and also syllabus designers.

The importance assigned to the role of English language learning (ELL) software and websites has been even more highlighted in online classrooms during the COVID-19 pandemic where teachers and students did not have a face to face interaction. One of the language skills which seems to be negatively affected by the lack of face-to-face interaction between teachers and learners is writing. Among various technology-assisted tools, websites can be effectively used as a source for improving L2 writing skills. However, not all websites encompass suitable content for developing learners’ ESL/EFL writing skills. Therefore, it seems to be a logical concern to guide the students in both selecting and implementing the most relevant and, at the same time, efficient websites for teaching writing skills. Evaluating such websites is one way to respond to this concern. For this purpose, this study aims at evaluating two of the widely used websites specially designed to develop and improve learners’ L2 writing skills: The Purdue Online Writing Lab and Pro Writing Aid. Besides, the two websites would be compared with each other in order to introduce the strengths and weaknesses of each website. The results of such an evaluation would be helpful for both teachers and learners in selecting the most efficient website for improving their writing skills based on their purposes and practical needs.

Forgiveness has been identified as one of the 24 fundamental character strengths, and its reflection signals one's temperance, which is among six major virtues residing in the human psyche, alongside wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, and transcendence. However, (un)forgiveness has been rarely discussed in language teaching and learning research. Thus, the present exploratory sequential mixed-methods study sought to profile the preliminary evidence on the psycho-emotional outcomes of unforgiveness among Iranian EFL teachers. The thematic analysis of the data obtained through semi-structured interviews with 25 teachers revealed that unforgiveness in L2 class entails rumination, increased anxiety, disrupted authority, and reduced energy. Building upon the qualitative findings, the researcher obtained the quantitative data by surveying 276 teachers to determine the extent to which they are forgiving towards themselves, their students, and situations in stressful situations. Results indicated non-significant differences in-between the three subcomponents of forgiveness, suggesting that teachers rely on forgiveness as a tension-coping strategy to detach themselves from the unpleasant consequences of unforgiveness. Findings imply that the extent to which teachers remain in the darkness of hatred and bitterness depends on their choice of grudging over things that cannot be reverted but can be compensated or forgiving themselves and others in favor of spreading love, kindness, and humanity.

Language teaching and learning have become more technologically advanced in recent years. These technological advances may change the nature of education and the place and the time at which the learning process takes place. In this regard, the present study investigated how the HelloTalk application affected Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ autonomy. The study enjoyed a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design. In doing so, 54 intermediate EFL learners were randomly selected from an institute in Isfahan, Iran. The participants were divided into two homogeneous experimental groups based on their level of education (N = 27). Both groups received a multidimensional Learner Autonomy Questionnaire (LAQ) as an online pre-test and post-test on Google Docs. The data analysis was done through Paired Sample T-test, frequencies, and percentages. By comparing different dimensions, and the p-values of the two groups from the pre-test to the post-test, the results revealed that utilizing the HelloTalk application significantly and positively affected Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ autonomy. Besides, experts and EG learners had a positive attitude toward using the application. The findings of this study could be fruitful for learners with enough competence with inadequate knowledge of how to become autonomous through mobile applications. It could also provide insights into how technology tools and computer programs could facilitate teaching and learning English.

Critical thinking disposition as an important feature of the critical thinking concept is considered as the active representation of critical thinking skills. This study investigated the contribution of gender and critical thinking disposition (CTD) on improving Iranian EFL learners’ argumentative writing development. The participants were 150 intermediate EFL learners in five groups ranging from 20 to 30 years of age who were equally divided into three experimental (EGs) and two control groups (CGs); one group only males (CG1), and the other only females (CG2). Participants took two TOEFL writing exams before and after the treatment sessions, followed by a CCTDI questionnaire before and after treatment sessions. The researchers taught both the experimental groups and control groups. Attempts were made to determine whether there were any gender differences at work while the EFL learners in the EGS were exposed to the treatment and the CGs received conventional instruction. The findings indicated no notable variation in writing scores based on gender-related distinctions among the participants in this research (17.84 vs. 18.43), but gender did play a role in the critical thinking disposition scores of the learners in which, male learners significantly outperformed female learners in the CCTDI, and there was a statistically significant difference in CCTDI scores was observed, which indicated a statistical significance among groups: males (M = 355.22, SD = 13.66) and females (M = 325.94, SD = 16.92). The findings provide further evidence for the effectiveness of the role of gender in Iranian EFL learners’ critical thinking disposition.

Though the emotional aspects of language learning and teaching have received due attention in the past decades, this area of research remained almost untouched in Iran. To comply with this weak treatment, the present research adopted a mixed-methods approach to investigate how Iranian EFL adult students in higher education regulate their emotions and their ability to identify and manage their feelings. For this purpose, a group of 21 adult participants were chosen from various EFL colleges and academic locations in Iran. Data was collected using the reliable and valid TEIQue questionnaire developed by Petrides (2009) and supplemented with open-ended interviews. The findings made it clear that variables such as culture and society played an important role in shaping and changing the emotional vocabulary of English language students. The results also indicated that most EFL students did not use the Feeling Wheel tool (1980) to regulate their emotions, indicating emotional immaturity. Additionally, when using Daniel Siegel's technique (2012) to regulate their feelings, they were unable to connect it to their emotional repertoire derived from the feeling wheel tool. The findings, therefore, imply for a balanced attention to be given to learners’ emotional maturity as well as their knowledge achievement in higher education.

Teacher professional development (TPD) is a kind of continuing education effort that can strengthen teachers’ skills and, in turn, boost students’ learning outcomes. Teachers’ creativity and reflective practice have also key roles in teachers’ daily practice. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the mediating role of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ creativity in the relationship between their reflective practices and their professional development (PD). Participants of the study consisted of 150 Iranian EFL teachers aged between 30 and 41 years old with 1–up to 15 years of teaching experience. Three different questionnaires were used to collect the relevant data. The collected raw data were analyzed with SPSS and Partial Least Squares (PLS) software. The results of statistical analyses, namely Spearman correlation, and semi structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated that there were statistically significant relationships between teachers' reflective practice, teacher’s creativity, and their PD. In particular, the results revealed that teachers’ creativity can mediate the relationships between teachers' reflective practice and their PD. The obtained results are discussed in the light of the literature. The results also have a number of implications for the main stakeholders including administrators and EFL teachers. The results also have a number of implications for the main stakeholders including administrators and EFL teachers.