This qualitative study investigated EFL young learners’ responses to reading activities in reading sessions. It was an attempt to examine students’ responses towards the implementation of individual and collaborative reading activities in teaching reading as a foreign language in reading sessions. To this purpose, 16 Iranian EFL young learners at a primary bilingual school in Tehran together with their English teachers contributed to the study. They were both randomly selected from available teachers and students in Tehran. The learners were around eight years old. The study lasted for 12 weeks. The method used in this study was qualitative. Teachers’ reflective journals, some participant observations, and face-to-face interviews with teachers were the instruments used in this study. The data elicited from the interview transcripts and observations transcription were analyzed inductively. The narrative analysis of interview transcription was coded into themes. The results indicated that collaborative and individual reading activities in reading sessions have a positive effect on young learners’ reading comprehension. Moreover, the students showed noticeable responses to the implementation of collaborative reading activities in reading sessions. Manuscript profile

Speaking is challenging for EFL learners as it calls for grammatical competence and discourse knowledge, including Discourse Markers (DM), which help them speak naturally. This study sought to investigate the effect of extensive listening tasks on the use of DMs in speaking by Iranian intermediate EFL learners. Sixty intermediate EFL learners were randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups. The participants' oral production was checked in the two groups before the treatment, and the frequency and types of DMs were detected. For the treatment, the participants in the experimental group were required to listen to different short stories as part of out-of-class activities for three months. However, the control group did not receive extensive listening tasks. A posttest was administered only one day after the last treatment session to realize the impact of the treatment on the participants' use of DMs. After four weeks, a delayed posttest was administered to examine the participants' long-term DM use. The data collected from the posttest and delayed posttest were then analyzed using independent paired samples t-tests. The findings indicated that extensive listening tasks did not impact the use of DMs in speaking by Iranian EFL learners at the intermediate level. The results of the delayed posttest did not yield any significant difference either. Manuscript profile

Previous research indicates that task-based collaborative output activities (TBCOA) and scaffolding techniques (ST) lead to improvements in English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ writing skill. However, there seems to be a lack of research on the comparative effects of these activities and techniques on EFL learners' writing accuracy and fluency. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the comparative impacts of two types of TBCOA (debating and dictogloss) versus two types of ST (teacher and peer scaffolding) on Iranian intermediate EFL learners' writing accuracy and fluency (A&F). This research followed a quasi-experimental design. A sample of 80 intermediate-level EFL learners, selected through convenience sampling from a Language School in Malayer, constituted the participants of the study. The learners were divided into four groups (each with 20 members). The homogeneity of the participants in terms of writing A&F was checked through a pretest at the outset of the study. Paired-sample t-tests were run to examine the possible significant changes in scores from the pretest to the posttest in each group. Furthermore, the effects of debating vs. dictogloss, teacher scaffolding vs. peer scaffolding, and overall TBCOA vs. overall ST were compared through ANCOVA, with the pretest scores being treated as the covariate. It was found that debating significantly led to more improvement than dictogloss in the learners' writing A&F. Moreover, teacher scaffolding was more effective than peer scaffolding. Regarding overall TBCOA and ST, the latter was significantly more effective. This research provides implications for EFL writing instruction. Manuscript profile

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Abstract Literature review confirms that TBCOA and ST were effective in improving EFL learners’ writing skills. However, a new study is necessary to compare the rate of effectiveness of these activities and techniques on Iranian intermediate L2 learners' writing performance. Moreover, the impact of two types of TBCOA versus two types of ST on intermediate EFL learners' writing performance was compared. This research followed a quasi-experimental design. A sample of 80 intermediate-level EFL learners, selected through convenience sampling from a private language school, constituted the participants. The learners were divided into four groups. The homogeneity of the participants in terms of writing performance was checked through a quick placement test at the outset of the study. Furthermore, the effects of debating vs. dictogloss., teacher scaffolding vs. peer scaffolding, and overall TBCOA vs. overall ST were compared through ANCOVA, with the pretest scores treated as the covariate. Debating outperformed dictogloss, teacher scaffolding was more effective than peer, and the overall TBCOA group significantly performed better than the general ST group in writing performance. The learners' interview results concerning the role of TBCOA and ST in their writing production resulted in several common themes, which were categorized into 16 codes for debating, 11 codes for dictogloss, six common codes for teacher scaffolding and peer scaffolding. This study provides implications for EFL writing instruction. Manuscript profile

Abstract:This study sought to determine the impact of self-regulation and emotional labor on reflective action among Iranian EFL teachers in online EFL classes using structural equation modeling. To achieve this, a combination of cluster sampling and stratified random sampling of 500 people was recruited. The participants were administered with the English version of Dutch questionnaire of emotional labor, Teacher Self-Regulation Scale and Teaching Reflection Inventory. After collecting data using three distinct questionnaires pertaining to latent variables, SEM analysis was conducted using IMB SPSS version 28.0 and Amos version 24.0 to analyze the path model relationships. To this end, a hypnotical model was proposed, evaluated, and specified to fit the data. The confirmatory factor analysis was employed to assess the hypothetical model by employing goodness of fit indices and analyzing all the convergences between the latent variables and the related sub-scales. According to the criteria for a good model's fitness, all of the model's values are above 0.90, indicating that the model has good fitness. And it was concluded that there was statistically significant relationships between the variables of the study. Manuscript profile

Along with growing technology, the flipped learning model has emerged as an alternative to conventional teaching methods. The present study attempted to investigate the students' perceptions of a flipped learning classroom experience contrasted with those of a non-flipped or conventional classroom. To this end, 23 Iranian EFL learners were assigned to two groups. During the first ten weeks, non-flipped teaching was applied to class A and flipped learning to class B. After the midterm, during the next ten weeks, the teaching methods were reversed. The students were interviewed in-depth about their impressions of the learning experience. Also, a questionnaire and students' portfolios were used to draw comprehensive conclusions. The qualitative analysis of data revealed four themes: flipped or non-flipped, working with technology, group commitment, and student-teacher relationship. Overall, learners had contrasting views about learning in the flipped classroom. In general, they preferred non-flipped classroom. Manuscript profile

This study investigated the effects of English as foreign language (EFL) proficiency on what the authors of this study called pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic recognition of EFL learners. To elicit the data, the study used two types of pragmatic measures: a pragmalinguistic recognition (PLR) test and a sociopragmatic recognition (SPR) test. Both tests were developed by the researchers of this study based on the distinction made by Leech (1983) between pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics. Subsequent to the development of the tests, 80 Iranian EFL students were divided into two groups based on their EFL proficiency level: the low level group (n = 41) and the high level group (n = 39). Each participant group was tested on the two pragmatic measures. Pearson correlation results indicated construct differences between PLR and SPR of speech acts. Moreover, independent samples t-test results revealed that there were developmental differences in pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic recognition of speech acts by EFL learners. The findings offer insights to EFL teachers and testers regarding pragmatic instruction and assessment. Manuscript profile

This study aimed to investigate collaborative reading in reading sessions among young Iranian EFL learners. It actually was an attempt to examine the process and components of collaborative reading which are expected to improve young learners’ reading ability in the English language. To this purpose, a group of second year Iranian EFL young learners at a primary school in Tehran together with their teachers participated in the study. The young learners were around eight years old. The duration of the study was 12 weeks. Since the study was qualitative in nature, teachers’ reflective journals, a number of observations and face-to-face interviews with teachers were used as instruments to collect the needed data. The analysis of the qualitatively-elicited data presented a in so far as reading processes and reading comprehension enhancement through collaborative deeper understanding of the importance of the process and components of collaborative reading. In fact, the findings revealed that collaborative reading promote young EFL learners’ reading performance. Thus, the study has practical implications for both teachers and young EFL learners reading in terms of reading performance enhancement. Manuscript profile

This study aimed to inquire about EFL reading sessions across Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) and Individual Reading (IR) among young EFL learners. In essence, the researcher’s goal was to investigate how reading sessions using CSR and reading aloud across individual and collaborative activities promote EFL learners’ reading comprehension skills. To this end, 2 Iranian EFL teachers from a primary school in Tehran, and 16 Iranian second-graders studying at a primary school in Tehran, were randomly selected as participants. Then, using teachers' reflective journals, participants' observations, and face-to-face interviews with teachers, the needed data were elicited and descriptively analyzed. The obtained results showed that reading sessions using CSR and reading aloud strategy across individual and collaborative activities promote learners' reading comprehension skill more than IR reading sessions. Moreover, teacher-student interactions (TSI) and student-student interactions (SSI) proved beneficial in improving the participants' reading comprehension skills. Manuscript profile