Abstract:
This study analyzes representation of ideology and manipulation of realities in written (newspapers) and oral discourse (politician' speeches) during Iran nuclear negotiations (2013-2017). It attempts to contribute to the field of Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) and examines how the lexical tools, i.e., euphemization and derogation, may incorporate and exhibit the ideology and the images of the self and the other created by discourse producer (manipulator) in political context. The study takes the following statements for granted: Firstly, discourse is a social construction which is not a presentation but a representation of reality. Secondly in a broader outlook, all discourses are ideological and therefore political whether or not discourse producer is attentive and even admits it. To achieve this goal, van Dijk’s (2000a) “ideological square” is implemented to the lexical choices of oral and written discourse of this issue to uncover manipulatory function of such tools. Firstly, the elements of X-phemism were identified in the corpora. Secondly, the X-phemism examples were placed in the right category. Thirdly, the frequencies of these categories were calculated. Finally, the elements in each category were compared in two groups of discourse items in order to locate similarities and differences. It follows quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis to determine the prevalence of one X-phemistic type over the other and evaluate the effectiveness of such dichotomous word selection in enhancing and mitigating realities. The four sets of data, which were selected from the two extreme poles of world belief systems (Iranian and Western) and analyzed in the present study, consists of 30 samples of news reports and 18 audio texts of political speeches which were issued during Rohani’s government nuclear negotiation with the 5+1 group. Findings revealed that euphemization and derogation were two discursive strategies at the disposal of media manipulators to reshape the reality and, therefore, shape the taste of society. The Chi-square analysis detected a significant difference between the two corpora (Iranian and Western) in making use of some of these X-phemistic categories. Western discourse outnumbered Iranian one in some of the categories. One reason explaining this fact is that Western users may be more capable of utilizing these lexical tools than Iranians who use English as a second language.
 

Abstract
This study investigated the effect of story grammar depicted through two types of preview questions on listening comprehension and summary writing of Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners. The sample of the study consisted of 40 students randomly selected from Hermes language Institute, Mahshahr, Iran and assigned to two experimental groups: group A and group B. Data of the study were collected within almost one semester period via a pre-posttest design for both groups. The two groups listened to the same stories. However, before listening to the stories, group A received preview questions directly depicting the story grammar, while group B received general preview questions not depicting the story structure constituents of the listening materials and revolving around the global meaning of the story. The collected data on listening comprehension were analyzed via SPSS software; to assess the statistical significance of the differences among the scores obtained from different instruction modes, a t-test was administered. For the summaries which the students were supposed to write after listening to the stories, the analytic procedure by Jacobs et al. (as cited in Weigl, 2002) and the holistic scoring procedure by Madnani et al. (2013) were utilized. The results pointed to an insignificant difference between the two groups’ performances in the presented situations. That is, none of these two types of preview question contexts showed superiority over the other in improving listening comprehension and summary writing performance within the present EFL context. However, within-group comparison of both groups showed that the performance of group B improved after the treatment. This study suggests that exposing the students to fewer pre-listening questions can be less demanding and more effective. After all, it seems that providing an appropriate environment in terms of proficiency level and cognitive development for the story presentation is of critical importance to achieve the expected goals.
 

Writing, As a productive skill, can trigger anxiety. According to Kimura (2008), anxiety has established itself as one of the most essential affective factors responsible for individual differences in the success or failure of L2 learning. Providing students with feedback on their writing may reduce anxiety about their writing abilities. The current study investigated the extent the writing anxiety of foreign language learners may relate to writing performance. It also aimed to find the relationship between corrective feedback and L2 writing anxiety. It further examined whether the students' perceptions (apprehension, usefulness and quality of feedback) about the feedback given by the instructor changed over the time or not. This study used both quantitative and qualitative methods. In the quantitative part of the study, first 38 male/female participants who majored in English language translation responded to the Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) (Cheng, 2004) to determine their writing anxiety level. Then they wrote their first writing assignment and received direct written corrective feedback from their instructor. After reviewing the comments they filled out instructor feedback anxiety questionnaire (IFAQ) (Di Loreto, 2014) to obtain information about their perceptions on instructor feedback. Later, they developed their second writing topic and received feedback and filled out IFAQ and SLWAIQ again. For the second time they completed SLWAI. In the second phase of study, 13 volunteer participants took part in semi-structured interviews to promote a discussion around the main items in the anxiety questionnaire. The interview was conducted in Persian. The quantitative results revealed that the majority of students experienced high level of writing anxiety (n=38, mean score=63.02). Furthermore, It was indicated that a high level of ESL writing anxiety is negatively related to writing performance (r=-0.838, p=0.000,).The results obtained from IFAQ demonstrated that their apprehension of feedback decreased over time; the students’ perceptions about the usefulness of feedback also changed positively, but their attitudes about quality of feedback showed no change from the first administration of IFAQ to the second one. The findings demonstrated that these EFL students had positive feelings toward the instructor feedback, which motivated them to write their next essays more confidently with less writing anxiety. The participants specially appreciated direct feedback and preferred it over general remarks. They mentioned that the provision of correct form facilitated the learning of appropriate forms. These findings have pedagogical implications which suggest the instructor feedback can help improve students writing competency and anxious students might benefit from feedback to decrease their writing anxiety.

 As a result of the rapid expansion in science and technology, the role of English for specific purposes in communicating ideas is undeniable. One popular way to consolidate and extend the ideas about knowledge of the world is using metaphor. Different studies have been carried out to investigate the role of metaphor as a cognitive tool in the ESP educational settings. The current study examined the idea that including metaphor instruction in the English for medical purposes program can serve as a useful device to raise students’ awareness of key concepts, models, and issues and thus improve their reading comprehension and the ability of producing metaphor in the context. Since in medical discourse using metaphor as a device for conveying difficult medical concepts is very common, the focus of this study was on medical texts and medical specialized metaphors. Seventy-two Iranian undergraduate students of medicine from Ahvaz Jondi Shapour University of Medical Sciences participated in the study. The procedure included a pretest for assessing leaners metaphor knowledge base, an intervention program, and a posttest which gauged the effectiveness of the treatment. Pre and posttests were researcher-made whose reliability and validity were examined in a pilot study and enjoyed identical format but similar contents consisting of three sections: recognition, comprehension, and semi-production. Two sessions were devoted to administering pre and posttests and the intervention program lasted four 90 minutes sessions holding twice a week. In the intervention program, learners got familiar with the definition of metaphor drawing on Lakoff and Johnson (1980) conceptual theory of metaphor. Then, the researcher employed exercises targeted at metaphor recognition, comprehension, and semi-production in relation to the medical texts. Materials used were selected from cancer-specific texts, as cancer is one of the areas with high use of metaphor frequency. The collected data were analyzed both descriptively and inferentially. Applying a paired sample T-test procedure to data analysis, the results revealed significant improvement in learners’ recognition, as well as in their reading comprehension and semi-production. This significant improvement can be attributed to learners’ full engagement in the treatment practices. The findings suggest that raising metaphor awareness can be beneficial to ESP programs in general, and EMP in particular.

Game-based instruction is one of the most innovative approaches that has ignited substantial interest by educators and is deemed as an inseparable part of language curriculum over the past few decades. The study was an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of Digital Game-based Learning (DGBL) on the learners’ short and long-term retention of grammatical rules. To achieve this aim, 50 elementary young adult learners from Goya Language Institute, Ahwaz, were chosen through taking a KET reading and listening test and a fill in the blank pretest for homogenization prior to the study. Later, participants were divided into two groups, i.e. (a) an experimental group (labelled as DGBL) and (b) a control group (labelled as Non DGBL). The participants in the Non DGBL group were exposed to the traditional book-based instruction; however, those in the experimental group received the online game-based instruction alongside the traditional approach to the same grammar areas as those in the control group. After treatment program, learners in both groups were asked to take the posttest immediately after the completion of the instruction course. An almost similar test, as the delayed posttest, was also conducted after three weeks to evaluate the long-term effect of digital games on learners’ retention. By and large, the results of Mixed ANOVA revealed that the learners in DGBL group demonstrated retention gain compared to those in the Non DGBL group in both the immediate and delayed posttests. In the light of the results obtained, some practical implications were presented which might provide insight for language learners, teachers, syllabus designers, and material developers

Vocabulary learning strategies play a crucial role in learning a second/foreign language. Among these strategies, dictionary use has proved, in many studies, to be one of the most common ones among language learners. And knowing what type of dictionaries leads to better results in vocabulary learning will be of great help to both learners and teachers. Thus, the present research study aimed to explore the most frequently-used VLSs and their perceived usefulness on one hand, and investigate the practical usefulness of four dictionary use strategies on the other hand. Furthermore, it was sought to look for probable perception changes in learners about dictionary use strategies after utilizing them in practice. In this regard, an adapted 47-item questionnaire based on the one developed by Soodmand Afshar, Ketabi and Tavakoli (2010) was distributed among 94 B.A. students majoring in English at Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Iran. The selected learners were then divided into six groups: printed bilingual group (PBG), electronic bilingual group (EBG), printed monolingual group (PMG), electronic monolingual group (EMG), blended group of printed monolingual and printed bilingual (bPG), and blended group of electronic monolingual and electronic bilingual (bEG). After taking a vocabulary pre-test developed based on Laufer’s framework (2004), they were given 24 words to study in two sessions, and then they took three post-tests within different time intervals. SPSS software was employed and the collected data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, MANOVA, ANOVA, paired t-test, and Pearson’s correlation. Based on the results of the questionnaire, ‘I learn new words from English songs and poems’ was perceived by learners both as the most common and the most useful strategy. As for the efficacy of the four dictionary use strategies, no statistically significant difference was found between the overall gains of the PBG, EBG, PMG, EMG, bPG, and bEG. Descriptive correlation analysis between the six groups revealed that, disregarding the PMG, the increase in the practical usefulness of the dictionary use strategies was positively correlated with their perceived usefulness. Finally, no meaningful change was observed in their perceptions of these strategies. Considering the obtained results, it is recommended that, instead of following their own perceptions and beliefs about VLSs, teachers should give instructions to learners on those strategies with which learners feel more comfortable. Language learners should also be guided on how to combine different VLSs to achieve more.

 Technology is exceedingly becoming popular these days, and it is being exploited for educational purposes. Some web-based tools such as blogs have recently come into fashion in language learning field and offer the potential for more interaction, collaboration, and engagement on the part of learners. The present study focused on, first, if anonymity can be a key strategy to decline learners' anxiety and strengthen their motivation in writing practice; second, to what extent anonymous blogging adds to the EFL writing sophistication in terms of content and organization; and third, what the learners' attitudes are towards anonymous weblogging. To answer the second research question of the study, students' writings were analyzed through Brown's (2005) analytical scale for rating composition tasks, and for the first and third questions, the motivation questionnaire was used for analyzing the participants' attitudes and feelings towards pseudonym-based weblog writing. With this end in view, 28 male and female junior students majoring in English Language Translation from Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz participated in this study, following convenient sampling procedures. The participants attending the essay writing course were randomly assigned to two groups of anonymous (experimental) and nonanonymous (control), and both groups were supposed to publish their writings on their personal weblogs which were designed by the researcher. The participants in the anonymous group wrote essays tagged by gender-free pseudonyms, while the members of the nonanonymous group wrote essays tagged by their real names. In addition to the qualitative analysis of the motivation questionnaire, the results obtained from descriptive and inferential statistics (paired and independent sample t-tests) were used to answer the questions raised in this study. The results reflect a remarkable progress in the writing skill of each group. However, no direct relationship was found between anonymous weblogging and writing improvement in terms of the five writing components of Brown's scale (2005). The findings as well imply the applicability of pseudonyms in blog-assisted writing instruction to soften learners' negative attitudes towards writing and enhance their motivation in writing practice. Last but not least, most of the participants found the experience a positive one in all.

  Studies in reading strategies bring together the assumption that individual characteristics may influence reading performance; different readers may process the same text in different ways, depending on their purposes, motivation, attitudes, interests and background knowledge. The present research aims to study the effect of motivation and attitude on the use of cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies among Iranian EFL undergraduate students in Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, during the academic year of 2014. The study was empirical, which employed quantitative research methods. From the whole population of 71 English students, 51 participants were selected to take part in this study. Based on their performance on Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency (2010), they filled two questionnaires and took a reading test for the sake of data collection. After checking the reliability and validity of the instruments, a normality parametric test was used to ensure normality distribution of data using SPSS 20 software. To analyze the data, t-test and Spearman correlation test were performed. Results of the Pearson Correlation Coefficient pointed to the impact of EFL learners’ level of motivation and attitude, on their reading comprehension ability indicating a relatively high direct correlation (0.67). Also the results of data analysis in relation to the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategy use revealed that the highly motivated students were in favor of using these two strategies more than less motivated ones. Overall, the finding suggests that learners' individual differences in terms of their motivation and attitude levels should be taken into account in their development of reading comprehension skills and reading strategy use.

Abstract: A myriad of studies have suggested that using humor in language classrooms can improve learning, recall and retention of presented items. The present study investigates the effect of anecdotes on the grammar learning of female language learners at the age range of 14-45. To achieve this purpose, a language proficiency test (TOEFL, 2010) was administered to 90 female learners at Iran Language Institute (Ahvaz branch). These learners had just finished studying the pre-intermediate level. 45 students were selected and divided into three groups as the humorous content-related, humorous non-content-related, and control groups. The first group received grammar instruction through humorous content-related short stories, and the second experimental group received grammar instruction through humorous non-content-related stories or jokes. Also, non-humor group (control group) did not receive any of these materials before grammar instruction. All participants were examined based on pre-test, mid-term acheivement test, post-test, and delayed post-test which probed into their grammar learning. The results of a series of t-tests and ANOVA revealed that the humorous content-related group performed significantly better than the non-humor and humorous non-content-related group, and in terms of recall and retention of grammar points, both humorous groups showed a significant improvement.

English reading has always been considered as an essential skill. In today's world, the ability to read a foreign language, especially English, is important in academic achievements, professional success and personal development. Despite this fact, most students have problems to read effectively in a foreign language (Keshavarz & Mobarra, 2003). Many factors are likely to affect success in L2 learning, and consequently reading comprehension, such as intelligence, aptitude, motivation and attitude, learner preferences, learner beliefs, age and personality. One important factor that would affect the process of reading comprehension is the readers’ personality type. When we accept that people are different in innate and acquired abilities, we will not expect everyone to have the same behavior, so an awareness of personality and individual differences can illuminate why we learn differently. The purpose of the study is an investigation of the possible effect of personality types of Iranian EFL learners on their reading comprehension of two types of genres, namely, short story and scientific. The participants in this study included 80 Iranian junior university students studying at the Faculty of Foreign Languages at University of Isfahan and Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Iran. After conducting a proficiency test, the students completed MBTI personality questionnaire. Then, Their performance on a reading comprehension test was analyzed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient. The resultsof the study indicated that high-sensing and high-thinking readers performed significantly high on the two genres included in reading comprehension test, while degrees of extroversion / introversion and judging / perceiving did not show any meaningful correlation with the performance on reading comprehension tests. The findings suggest that personality traits are among the factors which might be correlated with the success of readers in the process of comprehension.