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Considering the body of research on the intersection of psychology and assessment that suggests assessment is not only under the influence of the model against which a translation is assessed, the present study aimed to investigate the role of raters’ personality traits in their assessment. It was also intended to see if the application of an agreed-upon unified assessment tool could change the way evaluations are made, and if this possible change is the same among raters with different personality traits. To this end, seven raters were asked to score an English text translated by 23 students twice with an interval of at least two weeks. In the first scoring, they were asked to assess the way they usually did with no specific guidelines. However, the second assessment was done through the application of an agreed-upon model. Moreover, the raters were scored on the personality traits of agreeableness and conscientiousness as it is believed that these two traits are predictors of leniency. The data analyzed revealed (1) a significant correlation between the raters’ score on agreeableness and the scores they assigned to the translations, and (2) a significant negative correlation between the raters’ score on conscientiousness and the scores they assigned to the translations. This proved that more agreeable less conscientious raters are prone to be more lenient. The value of Cronbach alpha also revealed that more conscientious less agreeable raters were more consistent in their assessments in both rounds of scoring. This, however, turned out not to be the case for less conscientious raters.

AbstractA paradigm shift in education has led to implementing learner-centered pedagogy (LCP) which considers learners as the central element of the learning process, and it is progressively being encouraged in higher education. Examining the implementation of learner-centered pedagogy in English language teaching (ELT) context is important. While this paradigm of teaching has long been introduced to education in general and language teaching in particular, it is claimed that scant attention has been given to its implementation in Iranian EFL context. The present study was to compare the implementation of learner-centered pedagogy in assessment procedures at different Iranian universities. Therefore, using convenience sampling technique, 378 TEFL students from both genders and different ages (mostly 20 to 35 years old) were selected. To gather data, a reliable, valid researcher made LCP questionnaire was distributed among the participants. Gathered data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA. The results of the data analysis demonstrated that there was a significant difference between the performance of state university and Islamic Azad and non-state university, while no significant difference was observed between the performance of Islamic Azad and non-state university students. The outcomes can provide insights into considering learner-centered pedagogy in teaching to improve teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) program. Moreover, they can be practical for teachers, material developers, as well as syllabus designers.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of task type (i.e., sentence fill-in/sentence writing) and word type (i.e., real/ pseudo) on initial learning and retention of 10 word meanings, taking the predictions of Involvement Load Hypothesis (ILH) and Technique Feature Analysis (TFA) into account. Participants were 59 intermediate-level EFL learners from eight intact classes. Each intact class was randomly assigned to one of the four learning conditions: 1) sentence fill-in with real words, 2) sentence writing with real words, 3) sentence fill-in with pseudowords, and 4) sentence writing with pseudowords. Initial learning was measured by administering a meaning recall test immediately after the tasks and medium-term retention was measured by administering the same test with rearranged items one week after the tasks phase. The results of a mixed between-within subjects ANOVA did not show any significant interaction effect between test time and learning condition. Furthermore, the main effect for learning condition was not statistically significant but there was a significant main effect for test time, suggesting that participants’ scores dropped significantly from the immediate posttest to the delayed posttest. The findings of two independent-samples t-tests failed to show any significant difference between the immediate and delayed posttest scores of the participants who received either sentence fill-in or sentence writing tasks. However, some tentative findings demonstrated that those participants who were assigned to the sentence writing task achieved higher scores on the posttests. This finding indicates that TFA has probably more predictive power than ILH and it also provides some evidence in favor of the heavier weight of the evaluation component of the ILH when compared to its search component.

Synesthesia, among other rhetorical devices, has played a prominent role in conveying the intended messages in the realm of poetry. Nonetheless, it has not grabbed adequate attention to its nature and function. Belonging to the domain of comparative literature, this essay has benefitted from analogy studies as its methodology to render novel perspectives in the meaning and reading of the poetry of Sitwell and Ebtehaj. Here, we have attempted, firstly, to foreground the function of synesthesia and, secondly, to enrich the understanding of the mentioned poets. This paper concludes that the realization of synesthesia heavily and helpfully affects the perception of literary poems. In addition, to showcase such influence, a reasonable number of poems by Sitwell and Ebtehaj were subjected to scrutiny, indicating that a great deal of their poetry is best understood only after investigating synesthesia. This essay is merely concentrated on two poets, yet its findings can be helpful for the whole field of poetry.

This study set out to examine how stereotypes as social psychological phenomena are enacted in everyday discourse. Besides discussing how ingroups and outgroups are formed in mundane talk, it is argued that stereotypes are ideological constructs that are jointly achieved in social contexts. Moreover, it is assumed that the ways in which stereotypes are constructed and discussed in discourse are informed by a number of underlying moral conceptualizations which might justify the potential face-threatening acts and the impoliteness inherent in prejudiced talk targeted to a third party. The study is an ethnographic case study informed by an eclectic approach to the analysis of data so as to shed light on how the expression of thoughts and feelings are constructed as talk in ordinary social interactions unfolds and what these expressions achieve. The analyses revealed that the construction of outgroup stereotypes is a mutual accomplishment and possibly a face-threatening act moderated by mitigating discourse features

Vocabulary learning can occur incidentally when explicit and implicit cognitive processes are at work. The present study investigated how frequently a set of (implicit/explicit) lexical strategies was used by Iranian learners of English while reading journalistic texts for comprehension, and how effective they were regarding vocabulary retention in incidental vocabulary learning. Also, it examined the role of gender in lexical strategy use in such a context. To this end, 40 upper-intermediate learners of English, including 20 males and 20 females, were selected and asked to read journalistic texts. To collect the data, think-aloud and a retention test (Vocabulary Knowledge Scale) were used. Descriptive and chi-square data analyses revealed that the most frequent lexical strategy was consulting a dictionary (particularly a bilingual dictionary), followed by inferring (particularly contextual strategies) and ignoring strategies. The male participants were found to use inferring strategies more frequently whereas the female participants were found to use the ignoring strategy more frequently. Moreover, significant differences were observed between explicit and implicit strategy types with higher lexical use and retention effect for explicit ones. Findings provide implications for L2 vocabulary learning. 

Despite a currently proliferating interest in the second language (L2) willingness to communicate (WTC), much less has investigated Asian high school students’ beliefs about L2 teachers’ strategies to encourage WTC inside the classroom. This qualitative study explores the strategies employed by Vietnamese EFL teachers to encourage their students’ WTC inside the classroom and students’ beliefs about their teachers’ strategies. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews with seven teachers and eight students. Results revealed that the teachers employed six main strategy groups, namely grouping, warm-up, topic choice, correction strategies, class atmosphere, and motivational strategies. Also, the students indicated their preferences for some strategies and suggested other strategies which they believed to be effective. They expressed expectations and suggested ways to improve their teachers’ strategies to encourage WTC inside the classroom. The students’ preferences and recommendations of strategies reflected contextual factors. As WTC is a context-sensitive construct, it might be necessary for L2 teachers to understand their students’ beliefs to foster L2 WTC effectively inside the classroom.

Technology-mediated instructional activities have received increasing attention in second language acquisition (SLA) studies. Yet, research on the role of technology in language learners’ emotional intelligence has been limited. More specifically, the role of data-driven learning (DDL) using concordancing, as a technology-mediated approach to learning English, in developing emotional intelligence has been left unattended. Through a mixed-methods explanatory sequential design within a quasi-experimental comparison group pretest-posttest design, the present study examined if DDL statistically significantly influenced the English learners’ trait emotional intelligence (TEI) and its attributes, including emotionality, self-control, well-being, and sociability. The results of questionnaires, open-ended surveys, and semi-structured interviews with 92 female undergraduate English learners indicated that DDL did not statistically significantly influence their TEI and its attributes. However, in terms of well-being, learners in the experimental group were slightly higher than learners in the control group. Finally, analysis of the qualitative data pointed to an increase in the learners’ TEI through enhancing self-confidence, stress management, and emotional perception.

The present study, adopting a mixed-methods design, aimed to compare three types of task instruction entailing translation-based, meaning-based, and hint-based instructions for vocabulary acquisition. In so doing, a pool of 45 male Iranian intermediate L2 learners, which were divided into three groups, participated in the study based on convenient sampling. The treatment phase lasted for 20 sessions, allocating the last 45 minutes of each class to teaching vocabulary. Each class was exposed to a different treatment taking the experimental condition it was assigned into account. The treatment consisted of two tasks. The results obtained from one-way ANOVA confirmed that there was a statistically significant difference in learners’ vocabulary scores for the three sets of scores. Moreover, following the coding reliability and agreement, 12 common themes emerged from the students’ responses to the semi-structured interview questions. At the end, the study offers some practical implications for L2 learners and teachers.

Adaptive teaching addresses students’ diversity and their immediate learning needs. Particularly, in the high-interactive context of English teaching, fostering adaptive teaching in teacher professional development programs not only stimulates teacher change at the micro level, but also facilitates implementing the organizational and curricular innovations imposed by authorities at the macro level. The current English teaching literature lacks a measure for evaluating and fostering adaptive teaching within higher education. Hence, within the present study, the Interconnected Model of Teacher Professional Growth (IMTPG) was adapted and validated as a measure for evaluating and fostering teacher adaptability for 183 international English teachers in higher education. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was employed for validating two different enactment and reflection links in the original IMTPG, and the final adapted IMTPG for adaptive teaching (At-IMTPG) was proposed. The AT-IMTPG can be applied for evaluating how adaptive English teachers are, seeking to resolve the problem of implementing educational innovations by English teachers in higher education. It can also be used to design teacher professional growth programs for fostering adaptive teaching within English teaching higher education. Such a change in the classroom level is hoped to be translated into an educational change in English teaching higher education.

Drawing on qualitative research, this study explored, from a complex dynamic systems theory perspective, the motivation of Burundi junior high school students simultaneously learning L2 French, L3s English and Kiswahili. It aimed to fill the gap in research on (1) changes in motivational dynamics and factors responsible for any fluctuations in the levels of motivation over time and (2) complex interactions between different learner variables among multiple language learners. Twelve school pupils who were all Kirundi native speakers participated in this study. Retrospective interviews were used to collect data relating to the students’ multilingual learning experiences over the period of their formal education. The findings indicated that the intensity of learning each target language fluctuated over time, with English generally enjoying the highest increase and Kiswahili the lowest and that different factors were responsible for such dynamic changes. Besides, complex interactions between the students’ L1, L2, and L3s linguistic knowledge and their foreign language learning motivations were revealed. These results indeed highlight the complex and dynamic nature of motivation in learning multiple languages. In light of these findings, practical implications are discussed based on the Burundi educational context.

The first objective of the present study was to develop an inventory assessing EFL teachers’ professional identity perception (PIP) of technology-enhanced instructions (TEIs) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on the findings of a semi-structured interview administered with three teachers following their actual implementation of TEIs, a 55-item EFL teachers’ PIP inventory of TEIs was developed. The second objective was to investigate the construct validity and reliability of teachers’ PIP inventory of TEIs by gathering data from 157 Iranian EFL teachers. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity verified the suitability of the data for factor analysis. The results of Exploratory Factor Analysis indicated a nine-factor solution for the inventory items. Moreover, the PIP inventory of TEIs enjoyed a reliability of 0.77 suggesting a high reliability. Regarding teachers’ perceptions, various personal, professional, situational, and contextual aspects of professional identity were specified in relation to the implementation of TEIs in Iranian higher education. Some distinctive findings of this study comprised the society’s perception toward TEIs and the role of teachers’ pedagogical beliefs in the implementation of TEIs. This study has some implications for stakeholders to devote due attention to all aspects of teachers’ professional identity in the implementation of TEIs during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.