While there is a plethora of research on pronunciation problems of EFL learners with different L1 backgrounds, published empirical studies on syllabification errors of Iraqi Kurdish EFL learners are scarce. Therefore, to contribute to this line of research, the present study set out to investigate difficulties of this group of learners in the…

This qualitative study investigated the methods used in teaching English vocabulary to very young children (i.e. toddlers) at a bilingual school in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Not much research has been published on teaching English to toddlers in the EFL context; therefore, this research is important as the results can become additional input to L2…

While identifying the generic structure of academic introductions has been the focus of extensive research over the last few decades, investigating some, if not all, of the available linguistic resources that realize the identified generic structures seems to have been largely under-focused. In order to shed light on the way that the communicative…

Theoretically framed within Vygotskyan sociocultural theory (SCT) of mind, the present study investigated resurfacing of private speech markers by Iranian elementary female EFL learners in teacher-learner interactions. To this end, an elementary EFL class including 12 female learners and a same-sex teacher were selected as the participants of the…

Teacher talk is of noteworthy significance in mainstream education and several attempts have aimed at evaluating it. The existing tools, nevertheless, are only general frameworks and with no specific focus on the main functions of teacher talk in ELT contexts. The present study gives a comprehensive account of ELT teacher talk and aims at…

The aim of the current study was twofold: identifying the constituent components of language teacher educators' pedagogical knowledge, and investigating possible differences among teachers, teacher educators, and university professors' opinions about these components. Data were collected from 436 participants using a questionnaire. The results of…

Employing a quasi-experimental design, this study examined the efficacy of humorous idiom video clips on the achievement of Iranian undergraduate students studying English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Forty humorous video clips from the English Idiom Series called "The Teacher" from the BBC website were used to teach 120 idioms to 61…

The current study looks at whether bilinguals varying in language dominance show a processing advantage for idiomatic over non-idiomatic phrases and to what extent this effect is modulated by idiom transparency (i.e., the degree to which the idiom's figurative meaning can be inferred from its literal analysis) and cross-language similarity (i.e.,…

Pawley and Syder (1983) pointed out that idiomatic expressions can be discussed in terms of nativelike selection (NLS), which refers to the ability of the native speaker to express his/her intended meaning using an expression that is not only grammatical but also nativelike. In the current study, Pearson's correlation coefficients were used to…

Idioms feature prominently in daily communication. Accordingly, teaching and learning idioms should be a primary concern in language education, including English education. However, there is relatively little research on the role of formal instruction of idioms in developing idiomatic competence. This study investigated the instructional effects…

The present study explored the characteristics of 147 Iranian EFL teachers teaching at senior secondary schools (N = 62) and those teaching in private language institutes (N = 85). Data were collected through a Likert-scale teacher characteristics questionnaire mainly adapted from Borg (2006). Also, for data triangulation purposes, 20 teachers…

This study aims to provide foreign language professionals with a sound methodology for selecting a suitable lexicon apropos of their students' level in the language. The justification of said selection is, herein, rooted in a cognitive argument: If we are able to observe the manner in which words are organized within the mind, we will be better…

Lexical profiling has yielded fruitful results for language description and pedagogy (Liu, 2014), and particularly highlighted the significance of academic vocabulary for EFL learners in this process. This investigation, likewise, attempts to comparatively profile the vocabulary, more particularly the academic vocabulary, in the…

The study aimed at measuring the perceived Professional Self-esteem, Emotional Exhaustion (EE), Depersonalization (DP), and Personal Accomplishment (PA) of Iranian (n = 230) and Turkish (n = 156) EFL teachers and determining the prediction role of Professional Self-esteem in EE, DP, and PA processes. The Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey…

The present narrative study examined the purposes that language teachers pursue in their research studies. The study also explored the opportunities and challenges that teachers experience while doing action research. Data were collected through a survey of narrative frames among 68 teachers, reflective essays written by 9 teachers and individual…