The impact of flipped teaching on EFL students’ academic resilience, self-directed learning, and learners’ autonomy

IntroductionThis study attempted to investigate the impact of flipped teaching (FT) on EFL (English Foreign Language) students’ academic resilience (AR), self-directed learning (SDL), and learners’ autonomy (LA).MethodTo do this, the researcher selected 354 participants by the two-stage cluster sampling method. This research was quasi-experimental based on the pretest, and post-test, with experimental and control groups. Three questionnaires were administered to collect data. The questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS 24 software and inferred analysis of covariance (ANCOVA).ResultsThe covariance study showed that FT significantly affected AR, SDL, and LA in learning with the help of the pre-test covariate variable (p<00.5). Also, the mean scores of students in the pre-test and post-test in the experimental group were significantly different. The mean scores of EFL students’ AR, SDL, and LA were higher through FT. It is suggested that school principals provide the ground for teachers’ participation in workshops on new teaching strategies so that teachers can benefit from new teaching approaches, including FT in the classroom.DiscussionThe study results showed that the mean AR of students in the experimental group’s post-test compared to the pre-test in both groups has significantly increased. The research findings indicate a positive effect of the flipped class on the levels of SDL. Based on the results, the flipped lesson class approach significantly affected the LA of English language learners as a foreign language. The findings of this study confirm previous relevant studies on the impact of flipped course classes on the LA of English language learners as a foreign language

Barriers in Teaching Reading to ELLs and Ways of Overcoming Those Obstacles

Reading is one of the language skills, which is imperative in English learning and the requirement for exploring the effect of instructional strategies on instructing reading to the students have elevated in recent years. The purpose of this study was to determine what knowledgable and expert teachers of ELLs in the junior high schools make out as the barriers to the reading accomplishment of English students and what are the methods for conquering those barriers. The information were gathered from 60 successful teachers who taught in junior high schools of Zanjan, Iran. The successful educators were identified based on student accomplishment using purposive sampling. A Likert scale was utilized for the questionnaire. The successful teachers sort effective instructional tactics in the five constituent of reading and had the capacity to set up supplementary instructional tactics, barriers, and ways they overwhelmed barriers in an open-ended question on the questionnaire. The study was mixed-method research, which, as stated by Isaac and Michael (1995), is utilized " to explain systematically the realities and the features of a given population or domain of interest, factually and precisely ". The open-ended questions of questionnaire were intended to gather data in regards to barriers and methods for overcoming barriers for instructing reading to English students The findings uncovered that the participants’ thoughts regarding barriers and ways of overcoming those barriers in instructing reading to English students

The Impact of Task Complexity along Single Task Dimension on Iranian EFL Learners' Writing Production

This study was designed to explore the manipulation of cognitive task complexity along +/- single task dimension (a resource dispersing dimension in Robinson’s triadic framework) on the Iranian EFL learners’ writing production in terms of accuracy, fluency, lexical complexity, and syntactic complexity, and put two different views (Skehan’s [1998] limited attentional capacity model and Robinson’s [2005] cognition hypothesis) into test in the Iranian context. Based on the results of the writing test of TOFEL (2004), 48 learners were selected and assigned into two groups, simple task group (STG, n=24) and complex task group (CTG, n=24). The participants in the STG were given an eight-frame picture arranged in the correct sequence (+ single task). The participants in the CTG were given all the eight frames in scrambled order. These participants were required to order the frames in the right sequence first (- single task). Four independent sample t-tests were run. The results indicated that the participants’ output in the complex task were significantly more fluent, more lexically and structurally complex. However, their performance on the accuracy measure decreased in the complex task. Based on the findings, at least in the Iranian context, Skehan’s (1998) predictions are more convincing

The Effect of Computer-mediated Communication Tools in Online Setting on Iranian EFL Learners’ Teaching, Social and Cognitive Existence

This study was conducted to explore the effect of computer-mediated communication tools in online setting on Iranian EFL learners’ teaching, social and cognitive existence. The population of the study included 60 English Language Teaching students (B.A) of Zanjan Islamic Azad University using convenient sampling method. Experimental group included half of the participants (n=30) and other half of the participants (n=30) was assigned to control group. As a pretest, participants were asked to fill in the Community of Inquiry (CoI) questionnaire in both experimental and control groups. The learners in the experimental group were taught through electronic mail and chat and the assignments and homework were sent to the learners by E-mail. The teachers asked the learners to answer the questions and send the fulfilled assignments in the telegram group. The learners in the control group were taught conventionally. After the treatment, the questionnaire was re-administered among the learners in the both groups as posttest. The learners who received synchronous online communication tools, compared to the respondents who received no treatment, gained higher mean scores on social, teaching and cognitive presence. The findings of the present study can have implications for ESL/EFL contexts from several aspects

Effects of PowerPoint Presentations on Reading Comprehension of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students in Iranian Exceptional High Schools

It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the role of PowerPoint presentation on reading comprehension of deaf and hard of hearing (D/HH) students in schools. Based on different studies, PowerPoint, a common multimedia tool, has a crucial role in teaching and learning through providing a suitable understanding of the text and motivating students. The present study aimed to examine the predictive effects of PowerPoint presentations on reading comprehension of D/HH students. As reported in the literature, reading levels of deaf high school students are equal to those of fourth grade hearing students. Therefore, a visual computer-mediated approach was implemented to monitor the reading comprehension progress of 20 D/HH students in Iranian high schools. The reading comprehension of the experimental and control groups were compared by conducting the Stanford Achievement Test and applying paired t-tests. Our findings indicated a significant difference between the mean reading comprehension scores of the two groups

The Impact of Listening Strategies on Improving Learners’ Listening Skill in Iran

Viable listening comprehension skills are essential as the world gets to be more and more worldwide. Multi media and the web get to be discussions for English communication. EFL learners struggle to grasp oral English writings in their listening comprehension categories. In this study, a group of 103 Iranian EFL learners participated in this study and answered a general proficiency test of Nelson and 81 students responded to the listening section of TOEFL. Students were classified into effective and ineffective listeners by application of O'Malley et al's subjective criteria (1989) and the scores of students in TOEFL. To elicit the listening strategies of each group, listening strategy questionnaire was developed. A Case II t-test analysis of the questionnaires (P < .05) showed a meaningful difference between effective and ineffective listeners. The subjects were divided on the basis of their pre-listening scores into experimental and control groups. The experimental group received the instruction of listening strategies and control group received the placebo treatment. The treatment included introduction, modeling and practicing the listening strategies. A posttest of listening section of TOFEL was administered to both groups. The results imply that listening strategies can be taught

The Study of Learners’ Educational Level and Their Knowledge of True Cognate Words in Iran

Our purpose of the study was to determine the learners’ educational level and their knowledge of true cognate words. 385 had been selected from 3,789 statistical population participated in 2014–2015 at three levels of associate, bachelor, and master of Islamic Azad University as well as teachers of English in English educational institutions in Zanjan (Iran). The participants’ age was between from 18 to 52. The materials were 45 words of true cognate words from 500 words by doing CVR (content validity ratio) and CVI (content validity index) (Lawshe’s table with the index of 88% and 82% respectively). ANOVA (Analysis of variance) was used for studying the effect of educational level on the rate of awareness. The results showed there is no significant difference between the awareness of Associate diploma (A.D.), Bachelor of art (B.A.), and Master of art (M.A.) levels, but there is a significant difference between the level of awareness of teachers group and the other groups in true cognate words. Our result showed that all of them were weak in recognizing true cognate words. It also suggested the mean of true cognates recognized by the students based on educational level had increased trend

The Use of Cognate Words and Interlingual Homographs to Investigate the Cross-Linguistics in Second Language Processing in Iran

Various investigations have shown that the native language impacts foreign word recognition and this influence is adapted by the dexterity in the nonnative language.  Cognates, words which are similar across two or more languages in some fields signify an interesting, illuminating, and crucial aspect of foreign or second language learning and research. Forty-five (males and females) participants have been randomly chosen and participated in the experiment in Islamic Azad University, Zanjan, Iran, in 2014-2015 school year. The participants’ age ranged from 18 to 28, with a mean age of 21.5 years. The materials were divided into two groups   which include 30 true cognates and 30 false cognates words from 300 words by doing CVR and CVI (Lawshe’s table with index of 88% and 82% respectively) for being reliable and valid. These words have been taught to them, after a week, a test has been prepared about those words. According to the results of T-test for comparing the average marks of learning in every 2 groups can be said that there is a meaningful difference between the scores.   The results show that the students learned true cognate words better than the false cognate words.  The results of this study also confirm the expectations that cognate-based instruction can positively influence in second language acquisition. Keywords: false and true cognates; L2 structural relationship; second language vocabulary acquisition; teaching through cognate

Investigating EFL learners’ knowledge of vocabulary and idiomatic expressions in a culture-based instructional environment

This study attempted to investigate the influences of cultural background knowledge on improving Iranian pre-intermediate EFL students’ vocabulary and idiomatic expressions. To reach this purpose, the Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) was performed on 100 English as a foreign language (EFL) learners and 60 of them were selected. The selected respondents were then randomly divided into three groups: group A (Target Culture=TC), group B (Iranian Culture = IC), and group C (Culture-Free=CF). Afterwards, a vocabulary- idiomatic expressions pre-test was given to all groups. Then, the respondents of the three groups received three different treatments. Regarding the treatment, 10 texts pertinent to the customs and the culture of Iran were taught to the IC group, meanwhile, 10 texts with the new vocabulary and idiomatic expressions relevant to the target culture were taught to the TC group, and 10 culture-free texts including some new words and idiomatic expressions were trained to the CF group. After the instruction which took 10 sessions of 60 minutes each, the data were analyzed by using one-way ANOVA and paired sample t-test. The results depicted that the TC and the IC groups outflanked the CF group. This study has numerous implications for learners, teachers, and curriculum designers