It is generally recognized that many second language learners have difficulties with cohesion in academic texts. Writing seems to be the most difficult subject for many students. To produce good writing, it is necessary to know how to organize Theme and Rheme in a text. Thematic structure as an important feature in textual metafunction plays a significant role in promoting the textual coherence. This research is concerned with the insights presenting the relationship between theme and rheme derived from Systemic Functional Linguistics. Halliday (1994) claimed that the structuring of language as a message is realized in the thematic structures of the constituent clauses of a text. To Halliday, the basic unit for thematic analysis is the clause. Thereby, this study was an attempt to compare different thematic types and thematic progression patterns in EFL students' academic writing texts. For this purpose, the researcher selected 30 MA students of English language teaching as the participants of the study after administering a TOEFL test and excluding the outliers. Each participant was required to write three different types of argumentative, process and cause & affect compositions. The collected data were analyzed according to the Thematization process from the textual metafunction aspects. The results showed some differences in the thematic structure of the different types of compositions. The findings of this study have some implications to the EFL students. They can learn to perform the same analysis in their own writings; thus improving cohesion in their own texts. Theme/rheme plays a major role in organizing the message and in enabling it to be communicated and understood clearly. Manuscript profile

Different methods of language teaching have tried to help EFL learners to develop good language skills based on their various perspectives. Research findings have underscored the effect of using task types in promoting language skills in terms of accuracy in written discourse. Therefore, this study set out to investigate whether there is an evidence of correct use of simple past tense (Accuracy) based on Task Complexity (Task type :Here-and now & There-and-then),Task Conditions (Gender: Male & Female), and Task Difficulty (Proficiency: Lower-intermediate & Intermediate). Sixty Iranian English learners in a language institute participated in the study and were assigned to four groups of lower-intermediate male, lower-intermediate female, intermediate male and intermediate female. Initial homogeneity of the groups was verified using two general proficiency tests; KET for lower-intermediate and PET for intermediate. All groups in here-and-now task type were asked to write a story using simple past based on a picture strip while for there-and-then task type the participants were supposed to write about their last birthday. The results from paired samples t-test, independent samples t-test and two-way ANOVA analysis of the written data revealed significant differences in performing task types, at different proficiency levels and interaction between them. The findings have significant pedagogical implications for EFL learners to understand the relationship among Task Complexity,Task Conditions, Task Difficulty and L2 written production leading to various degrees of Accuracy. Manuscript profile

The present study was an attempt to investigate the effect of meta-cognitive strategy (planning, self-monitoring) awareness raising instruction on reading comprehension of Iranian ESP learners. Participants of three groups each comprising of 21 Iranian male students studying “Civil Engineering” in “Islamic Azad University of Buin Zahra” were selected and assigned to three groups: two experimental groups (group A, and B) and one control group (group C). To meet the aim of the study, two reading comprehension tests were administered to the participants in three groups. In the first phase, a reading comprehension was administered as a pre-test. In the second phase, two experimental groups received five sessions of instruction on planning and self-monitoring awareness raising strategies on the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA) and control group received no training. In the third phase, after completion of the instruction, a reading comprehension test as a post-test was administered to the groups. The findings indicated that the participants in two experimental groups outperformed the control group in the post-test of reading comprehension. It is concluded that the instruction of planning and self-monitoring metacognitive strategies as learning aids can lead to the improvement of students’ reading comprehension performance. Manuscript profile

Group Dynamic Assessment (G-DA), introduced by Poehner (2009), applies mediation through concurrent and cumulative approaches. This study investigated the effect of the two approaches on Iranian homogeneous and heterogeneous EFL learners' auditory memory in listening tasks. Eighty female intermediate EFL learners were chosen as the participants of the study. They were assigned to two groups of forty homogeneous and forty heterogeneous learners. Then, each group was divided into two experimental groups with twenty participants in each. Homogeneous and heterogeneous participants were assessed through both concurrent and cumulative approaches. To find out the main and interaction effect of concurrent and cumulative G-DA and homogeneity and heterogeneity of EFL learners, the post-test scores of the participants were analysed through a two-way ANOVA. The results indicated that G-DA approaches on the one hand and homogeneity and heterogeneity of EFL learners on the other, had both significant main and interaction effect on EFL learners' auditory memory. For the independent effect of both approaches, a one-way ANOVA was also used. The results indicated that cumulative G-DA had more significant effect than concurrent one on heterogeneous EFL learners' auditory memory. ANOVA analysis also proved that the two approaches did not differ in their effect on homogenous learners. Manuscript profile

The effects different awareness-raising techniques might have on language learners’ performance have been studied by many researchers. The present study specifically focused on improving EFL learners’ oral narrative task performance in terms of accuracy, fluency and complexity by awareness raising through semantic fields. The participants in the study included 40 intermediate learners whose initial homogeneity in terms of language proficiency was assessed via a Preliminary English Test (PET). They were further randomly assigned as one experimental group and one control group, each comprising 20 participants. The amount of instructional time was 17 sessions, during which the participants in the experimental group received an awareness raising technique through 'semantic fields'. Before and after the treatment, an oral narrative test was administrated. The results of the data analysis revealed that the experimental group which received the awareness raising technique outperformed the control group in three measures of accuracy, fluency and complexity on their performance. The participants showed significant improvements in language proficiency as they retold the narratives. The findings of the present study can create the floor for researchers to go deep through the EFL contexts and find more about the probable effects awareness raising techniques might have on language learning and teaching. Manuscript profile

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of context on learning idioms among 60 Iranian female advanced English learners. To this end, the researcher assigned the participants to two experimental groups and one control group: Group 1 (first experimental group, the extended-context group), Group 2 (second experimental group, the limited-context group) and Group 3 (control group or the decontextualized group). First a 50-item idiom test was constructed using Vocabulary Knowledge scale (adopted from Wesche and Paribakht, 1993) and answered by the participants. The results of this test revealed that thirty idioms were not at all familiar to the participants. So these 30 idioms were selected as the target idioms. Then, the researchers applied two types of treatment to the participants in groups 1 and 2. Group 1 was taught idioms in extended-context through listening to short stories including the target idioms, Group 2 in the limited-context through listening to single sentences including the target idioms, and Control group (Group 3) was taught idioms through their decontextualized definitions of the target idioms. The analysis of the results of immediate and delayed post-test showed that extended contexts had significant influence on the participants’ idiom learning and retention. Pedagogical implications are provided. Manuscript profile

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. Manuscript profile

هدف این تحقیق بررسی تأثیر خواندن سایه‌ای و خواندن راهبردی مشارکتی بر عملکرد خواندن و درک مطلب زبان آموزان ایرانی در سطح مقدماتی بود. محققان 3 کلاس در سطح مقدماتی در کانون زبان ایران که شامل 90 زبان‌آموز مؤنث بود را انتخاب کردند و آنها را به صورت تصادفی به دو گروه تحقیق و یک گروه شاهد تعیین کردند. همگنی آنها در مهارت درک مطلب از طریق پیش آزمون برگرفته از آزمون کت تأیید شد و 66 زبان‌آموز (22 نفر در هر کلاس) برای شرکت در تحقیق انتخاب شدند. سپس گروه‌های تحقیق به مدت 10 جلسه در خواندن سایه‌ای یا خواندن راهبردی مشارکتی شرکت کردند. در حالی که گروه شاهد تدریس معمول خواندن را دریافت کردند. در پایان همان پیش‌آزمون درک مطلب کت به عنوان پس‌آزمون به زبان‌آموزان داده شد. تحلیل آماری داده‌های پس‌آزمون نشانگر پیشرفت معنی‌دار گروه‌های تحقیق در مهارت درک مطلب بود. گروه خواندن راهبردی مشارکتی عملکرد بهتری نسبت به دو گروه دیگر داشت و گروه خواندن سایه‌ای عملکرد بهتری نسبت به گروه شاهد داشت. کاربردهای آموزشی خواندن سایه‌ای و خواندن راهبردی مشارکتی در پیشرفت مهارت درک مطلب زبان‌آموزان بیان شده‌اند. Manuscript profile

The present study aimed to examine the impact of instructing metacognitive strategies involving planning, monitoring, and self-evaluation, within proactive and reactive classroom contexts, on the writing accuracy of Iranian EFL learners. Employing a quantitative quasi-experimental design, the research comprised 168 participants, drawn from an initial pool of 206 undergraduate students within the science and engineering department of Azad University, Tabriz Branch, who had completed a general English course during the Spring of 2021. Employing purposive sampling, the homogeneous sample was divided into two experimental and two control groups, aligning with the study's independent variables: the teaching of metacognitive strategies and the classroom environment. The experimental groups underwent instruction in metacognitive strategies, with one group exposed to proactive instruction before commencing writing tasks, and the other receiving reactive instruction when encountering writing difficulties. Pre- and post-treatment writing samples were collected and evaluated for accuracy, and ANOVA was conducted on the pre-test scores, establishing initial comparability among the four groups. Subsequently, a Two-Way Analysis of Variance was employed to assess post-test scores. Notably, teaching metacognitive strategies exhibited a statistically significant influence on writing accuracy only within reactive classroom conditions. Conversely, the classroom environment exerted a negligible direct influence on writing accuracy, though a noteworthy interaction effect emerged between the two independent variables. This study holds substantial implications for EFL instructors, learners, and curriculum developers, highlighting the significance of incorporating metacognitive strategy instruction to enhance writing accuracy within specific instructional contexts. Manuscript profile

The present study attempted to investigate English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers and students’ perceptions of the possibility of teaching communication strategies (CSs) among pre-intermediate learners. A review of the related literature suggests that the teachability of CSs has been the source of controversy among different researchers. The participants of this study were 20 EFL teachers and their 110 students from three universities and a private Institute in Tabriz. In this mixed methods study, three research tools were used for gathering data: a language proficiency test, a modified questionnaire, and a structured interview. The quantitative phase included the administration of the CSs questionnaire at the beginning and end of the course and instructions on these strategies for 12 weeks. The qualitative phase included the analysis of the teachers’ responses to the interview and coding comments thematically by the researcher. After analyzing the quantitative data by running paired sample t-test, it was found that EFL students confirmed the possibility of teaching communication strategies and suggested that CSs are teachable and useful. The important implication of the study is that strategy training was the factor of progress and the teaching of communication strategies can be pedagogically possible and their instruction is beneficial to students. Manuscript profile

The present study set out to develop a willingness to communicate (WTC) questionnaire addressingteachers’ socio-affective strategies. It also aimed at exploring learners’ perceptions toward thesestrategies affecting their WTC. Participants of the study, who were selected by a non-probabilityconvenience sampling method, were 153 English as a foreign language learner in three popular EnglishInstitutes in Iran. A questionnaire including 45 items was designed by referring to a previouslyconducted focus group interview of Iranian EFL teachers and the review of the literature. Afterthe questionnaire was administered to and completed by the learners, an exploratory factor analysis(EFA) 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 (6items), (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 sixfactors were compared against each other and teachers’ enthusiasm and fairness were found to be themost important factor in promoting learners’ WTC. Implications for teacher trainers and teachers arediscussed and suggestions for further research are offered. Manuscript profile

The present study aimed to examine the rhetorical structure of the discussion sections of English PhD dissertations authored by Iranian students in an EFL context, Indian ESL students and native (English speaking) PhD students at Applied Linguistics. To this end, 300 discussion sections were gathered from three contexts under study at the time frame of 2005 to 2020. Following Benson et al’s (1986) model, the researchers analyzed the discussion sections of the dissertations for both lexical and grammatical collocations and their different sub-classifications. The findings showed that the natives overused collocations in a significantly greater number in developing the PhD dissertations discussion section than those of EFL and ESL PhD students' dissertations. Moreover, despite variations, there were similarities between EFL and ESL PhD students' dissertations in terms of utilizing the sub-categories of collocations that can be considered as signs for standardization of academic writing by non-native speakers of English. The implications for researchers, teachers and students were discussed. Manuscript profile