Teaching English Language and Literature Society of Iran (TELLSI)Journal of new advances in English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics2676-29271220190901Relationship between Demotivation Factors and Gender among Iranian EFL Students and Teachers in Iranian Academic ContextsRelationship between Demotivation Factors and Gender among Iranian EFL Students and Teachers in Iranian Academic Contexts11613595913ENShahla TavanapourEnglish Department, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, IranAzizeh ChalakEnglish Department, IAU, Isfahan Branch0000-0002-6701-8366Journal Article20190422One of the essential factors that influence the rate and success of learning a foreign language is motivation. The present study was an attempt to consider the relationship between demotivation factors and gender among Iranian EFL students and teachers in academic contexts. To this end, 40 EFL students and 15 teachers at Islamic Azad University, Ahwaz Branch (IAUAB) were selected based on available sampling. They were females and males and their ages ranged from 25 to 50. The Demotivation Questionnaire was given to the students to explore the sources of demotivation and also if there were any relationship between demotivation factors and gender among the Iranian EFL students. Additionally, the Teacher Demotivation Questionnaire was distributed among 15 teachers to understand the reasons for their demotivation. After administrating the questionnaires, an interview was conducted with 10 volunteer teachers (5 males and 5 females) and 15 students (8 males and 7 females) to extract a detailed description of their demotivation factors. For analyzing the collected data, Independent sample t-test was employed to consider the relationship between demotivation factors and gender. The results indicated that males and females were different significantly and males were more demotivated than females. Moreover, teachers and students were demotivated because of the methods of teaching, lack of facilities, working, and physical conditions. The findings of this study may help students, teachers, and syllabus designers to eliminate the demotivation factors in the academic contexts and raise motivation to facilitate the learning process.Teaching English Language and Literature Society of Iran (TELLSI)Journal of new advances in English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics2676-29271220190901Determining the Relationship between Learners’ Beliefs, Peer vs. Teacher-Ratings and Iranian EFL Learners’ Writing PerformanceDetermining the Relationship between Learners’ Beliefs,
Peer vs. Teacher-Ratings and Iranian EFL Learners’ Writing Performance13615895930ENNazila SayahTEFL Dept., Humanity Sciences Faculty, Tehran-IranShokouh Rashvand SemiyariEnglish Teaching Dept., Humanities Sciences faculty, IAU East-Tehran BranchJournal Article20190915Writing is an indispensable part of any language learning process, the mastery of which requires a lot of time, effort, and energy. The process of writing itself is always influenced by some factors that may lead to individual differences. Among those contributing factors, the learners' beliefs along with peer vs. teacher ratings have been taken into account in this research. Ninety intermediate Iranian EFL learners studying English at Shayestegan English Language Institute in Tehran participated in this study. The homogenized sample of the study was selected based on their scores on the Michigan English Language Test. Then six writing assignments along with the general learners’ belief scale designed by Horwitz (1988) were administered to the participants. The participants’ writing assignments were scored analytically according to Jacob et al.’s scale (1981) once by the teacher and once by the peers. The results of the correlational analyses revealed that there was a statistically significant difference between the mean of ratings of teachers and peers. In fact, rating types had a significant but small effect on writing scores of the participants. To investigate the relationship between learners’ beliefs and their writing performance, a series of Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficients were estimated. The results of the analyses indicated that there was no significant relationship between students’ beliefs and their writing performance when it was rated by peers and/or the teacher. The pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research were also proposed.Teaching English Language and Literature Society of Iran (TELLSI)Journal of new advances in English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics2676-29271220190901Investigating Choice of Compliment Response Strategies on Social Networking Sites by Different Genderبررسی نقش جنسیت در انتخاب نوع پاسخ به تعریف و تمجید در سابت های شبکه اجتماعی15917695953ENFarzad Sharifian=Azizeh Chalak-0000-0002-6701-8366Zeinab DehkordiDepartment of English,Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, IranJournal Article20190518Introduction of online communications and social networking sites have provided a new channel for sharing ideas and opinions all over the world. The present study aimed to investigate how gender can play a role in the realization of Persian and English compliment responses commented by EFL learners on social networking sites. To this end, a sample of 30 Iranian EFL learners was selected based on convenience sampling. Observing the ethical issues, participants’ compliments and compliment response strategies were recorded, coded, and analyzed in terms of frequency and percentage. The Chi-Square test was applied to examine the effect of gender on the choice of response strategies across genders. The statistical results revealed that gender plays a role when participants use Persian as the medium of communication to English compliments. However, male and female participants had the same response strategies when they used English response to English compliments and Persian compliments. The findings indicated that the most frequently used response strategy to English compliments was acceptance strategies, while it was non-acceptance strategies in Persian compliments. The study concluded that male and female participants applied different response strategies when they shifted the language of communications. The findings may benefit EFL learners and language teachers and it may contribute to understanding the concept of cultural linguistics.Teaching English Language and Literature Society of Iran (TELLSI)Journal of new advances in English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics2676-29271220190901The Impact of Teachers vs. Peers Corrections and the Explicit Instruction of Discourse Markers on Iranian EFL Learners’ Writing ScoresThe Impact of Teachers vs. Peers Corrections and the Explicit
Instruction of DMs on Iranian EFL Learners’ Writing Scores17720196036ENMahdy DayyaniTeaching English Dept., IAU West Tehran BranchShokouh Rashvand SemiyariEnglish Teaching Dept., Humanities Sciences faculty, IAU East-Tehran BranchJournal Article20190426This study investigated the effects of two independent variables including Discourse Markers’ (DMs) instruction as well as teacher and peers’ corrections on the Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ writing scores. The participants of the study were 60 EFL male learners. To examine the impacts of explicit instruction of DMs, the participants were divided into two groups of 30. One of the researchers as the EFL teacher taught the key DMs including consequences, reasons, additions and contrastives to the experimental group, while no DMs were taught to the control group. Independent sample t-test results showed a significant difference in EFL learners’ post-test writing scores in two groups. In fact, the experimental group (M = 2.40, SD = 4.35) outperformed the control group (M = 0.47, SD = 1.70) due to DMs’ use. Also an independent sample t-test was applied to compare the teacher’s and peers’ ratings in 3 writing tasks. These writings were scored analytically according to Jacobs et al. (1981) scale. The results showed a significant difference between two groups’ ratings; peers had given higher ratings (M = 85.63, SD = 10) than what the teacher had given (M = 80.71, SD = 7.97). The conclusions of this study revealed that: 1) cooperative learning activities could improve the writing skills in EFL classes, and 2) All of the components of an acceptable piece of writing, that is, content, organization, vocabulary, language use, and mechanics could be enhanced through cooperative learning activities. The implications and suggestions for further research were also formulated.Teaching English Language and Literature Society of Iran (TELLSI)Journal of new advances in English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics2676-29271220190901A diachronic cross-disciplinary study of Readability in Literature Review Section in Research ArticlesA diachronic Cross-disciplinary Study of Readability in Literature Review Section of Research Articles20221497310ENHossein Saadabadi MotlaghDepartment of English, Bushehr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bushehr, Iran0000-0002-7672-8570Leila ShadiDepartment of English, Bushehr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bushehr, IranJournal Article20191004The purpose of this study is to investigate the comprehensibility of the text of the literature review section in research articles over the last 30 years. In other words, this study aims to investigate the trend of the change of LR text readability from 1988 to 2018. In this study, readability is defined as the level of difficulty of understanding a text based on the style of writing. This study follows previous studies to use the Flesch Reading Ease for measuring readability of the literature review section of research articles from 1988 to 2018. The literature review section of each selected research article was copied to a word file and their readability index of each was determined using the Flesch Reading Ease of the three distinct periods over the last 30 years. Results indicated an increase in the difficulty level of the text of the LR section over the last 30 years. Results also revealed a significant difference in the difficulty of the three distinct areas of research articles. Readability is generally considered one of the most important characteristics of effective writing. Yet little is known about the readability of the literature review section of academic articles in different journals. It is suggested that more research be conducted on the topic to shed more light on the stated gap.