حبیب سلیمانی

The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of Google Docs involvement as an instructional medium in the students' writing fluency, writing accuracy, and writing complexity. In the present study two intact classes were assigned to two forms of writing instruction: the traditional (with no Google Docs involvement) and Experimental Groups to examine the impact of using Google Docs on EFL learners’ writing fluency, accuracy and complexity. For this purpose, a cohort of 30 EFL learners was selected and exposed to an eight-week intervention where they wrote web based collaborative texts and compositions based on teacher determined topics and subjects. Significant improvements were found through utilizing Google Docs in the students' writing fluency, writing accuracy, and writing complexity. Furthermore, the results showed that Google Docs did cause more significant changes firstly in students writing fluency, secondly in writing complexity and finally in writing accuracy for the experimental group. This study can be of particular interest to educators who prepare students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for the complex world inside and outside the classroom. With regard to the implications of this study, it may be implied that Google Docs can be integrated into EFL writing courses in order to increase effectiveness of writing development by providing the learners with online peer-editing capacity.

The present study was an attempt to increase Iranian male and female EFL learners’ reading skill in short story narrating. To do so, A sample of 30 male and female elementary EFL learners participated in this study. These learners were studying English as a foreign language in language institutes located in Sanandaj. The participants' age ranged from 11 to 15. To carry out the sampling for participants, convenience samplings were used to select participant learners. In convenience sampling, the researcher selected participants who were willing to and available to participate in the study. A preliminary English test, short story narrating questionnaire, and semi-structured interview were used as the instruments in the present study. Mixed method design was conducted as an approach to inquiry that combines or associates both interview and questionnaire as qualitative and quantitative phases respectively. The findings indicated that the level of “Usefulness of Short Stories” factor is higher than “Interest on Reading Short Stories” and “Acceptance of Using Short Stories” factors. Additionally, the results of short story narrating questionnaire revealed that factors such as usefulness, interest and acceptance of using short stories among female EFL learners are almost the same but the level of “Acceptance of Using Short Stories” factor is higher than “Usefulness of Short Stories” and “Interest on Reading Short Stories” factors. Finally, the results indicated that the majority of male and female EFL learners who participated in this study have positive attitudes and perceptions towards reading skill using short story narrating. Hence, hopefully the findings of this study will assist educational teachers, administrators, academicians to better understand the usefulness of short stories narrating in male and female EFL learners’ reading skill.

This thesis attempts to measure the impact of a learning-by-teaching (LBT) strategy on the improvement of EFL learners' vocabulary and their participation in the classroom. To this end, a quantitative study was conducted on 50 students who were randomly divided into 2 groups (control group and experimental group), 25 members each. Specifically, the study evaluated the idea that students being taught under the LBT will achieve higher scores on the post-test of vocabulary compared to the pre-test, and that there will be a statistically significant difference at the 0.05 midpoint of the post-test of the experimental group and control group. It was also theorized that the experimental group would score significantly higher than the control group on the learning engagement questionnaire, administered at the end of the course. Various activities were used with the experimental group, while the control group were exposed to the traditional method. A homogeneity test was performed for both groups at the start of the experiment to ensure that they had the same language background. Finally, a post-test questionnaire for vocabulary and learning engagement (behavioral engagement, cognitive engagement, and emotional engagement) was assigned to both groups to determine if LBT had a positive impact on vocabulary enhancement and learning engagement. The study has revealed that: 1) the LBT enhances students’ vocabulary knowledge; 2) the LBT will significantly persuade learners to have a more active participation and engagement in classes. In light of these results, the following recommendations were made: 1) that LBT could be considered as a way of motivation and learning engagement. 2) That through LBT, students can overcome the problem of learning vocabulary in a joyful way.

Inquiry-based learning, which is not typically used in a foreign language classroom, can be added to the methods used by a teacher in the classroom. The purpose of this study is to see how Inquiry based learning is best used to understand a foreign language text. Joe Axline (2014) found that people create their own perceptions through the Inquiry-based learning process. Inquiry-based learning is about finding the right solution to the question and topic instead of finding the right answer. For educators, Inquiry-based learning emphasizes the development of questioning skills and the development of mental habits and questioning attitudes that enable individuals to continue striving to acquire knowledge through life. Ajit et al. (2016) describe Inquiry-based learning as a way to learn through questioning and experimentation. They argue that in the context of learning English text, Inquiry-based learning is an effective way to learn that creates more opportunities to create cultural, practical, and engaging lessons. In most classes in Iran, teacher-centered learning is the most visible method. Teachers tend to deliver lessons directly to students and provide them with all the lesson points students need. The constructivist view of education, founded by John Dewey and Lou Vygotsky, argues that knowledge is made from personal experience and is not obtained through the delivery of information (Kim, 2005). To address this problem, a potential strategy to maximize the role of students in learning should consider constructivist principles, one of the most widely used of which is Inquiry-based learning. No other studies have been conducted to examine or demonstrate the effectiveness of Inquiry-based learning on motivation, reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge in a foreign language. Thus, this research seeks to answer this question.

One of the most important problems for students in learning foreign language is speaking anxiety. This anxiety is experienced by foreign language learners during performing the target language in various class situations such as speaking in front of the whole class, small group discussion and whole – class discussion. This study aims at investigating the Emotional Intelligence and Verbal / Linguistic Intelligence as Predictors of Speaking Anxiety. The detailed design of the present study is based on the quantitative research method and it is designed to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and speaking anxiety of University of Kurdistan English students in addition to looking at relationship between Verbal / linguistic intelligence and speaking anxiety. In order to do this, the quantitative data which were collected through the questionnaires were used. The data gathered through these questionnaires were analyzed by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0. To conduct this research project, firstly, eighty upper intermediate EFL learners (male and female) were chosen in this study among which 55 of them were finalized as the research target group. They are all from University of Kurdistan. They were selected through convenience sampling.

One of the most important problems for students in learning foreign language is speaking anxiety. This anxiety is experienced by foreign language learners during performing the target language in various class situations such as speaking in front of the whole class, small group discussion and whole – class discussion. This study aims at investigating ‘the Emotional Intelligence and Verbal / Linguistic Intelligence as Predictors of Speaking Anxiety’. The detailed design of the present study is based on the quantitative research method and it is designed to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and speaking anxiety of Kurdistan University English students in addition to looking at relationship between Verbal / linguistic intelligence and speaking anxiety. In order to do this, the quantitative data which were collected through the questionnaires were used. The data gathered through these questionnaires were analyzed by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0. To conduct this research project, firstly, eighty upper intermediate EFL learners (male and female) were chosen in this study among which 55 of them were finalized as the research target group. They are all from Kurdistan University. They were selected through convenience sampling.

Given the importance of self-regulated learning and its interrelationships with language learning motivation and self-efficacy, this study was aimed to investigate the relationship between SRL and language learning motivation and self-efficacy as its predictors among Iranian EFL learners. To this end, three sets of questionnaires were distributed among 120 EFL learners studying English disciplines (Teaching English, English literature) in the Department of Linguistics and Foreign Languages of University of Kurdistan, Kurdistan province, Iran. SRL was measured using SRQ consisting of 63 items and 7 sub scales. Language learning motivation was assessed by the use of another questionnaire designed to assess attitudes of the language learners .Another questionnaire was used to measure the level of learner’s self-efficacy. Data analysis was done using SPSS software version 20.The Pearson Moment Product test was performed to find any significant relationship between variables. The multiple regression was run to determine the predictor power of variables on the dependent variable (SRL).The results of Pearson correlation indicated that there was a significant relationship between SRL and self-efficacy of Iranian EFL learners. Also, there was a significant relationship between SRL and language learning motivation of Iranian EFL learners. The results of multiple regression test showed that both two predictors (self-efficacy and language learning motivation) could positively predict the variations of the SRL (70⁒).This study contributes to the world of ELT, since it can have pedagogical implications for language teachers, syllabus designers, and material developers, such that they can actualize the concepts and contents obtained by this study to benefit from the advantages of self-regulated learning. K

Emotional intelligence and self-efficacy are two important factors in foreign language learning studied by many researchers (e.g. Salovey, & Mayer, 1997; Bandura, 1977). The present thesis attempted to investigate the predicting role of emotional intelligence and self-efficacy in writing anxiety, and the relationship among these variables. The participants of the study were 92 intermediate students majoring in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) in University of Kurdistan, Iran. To achieve the purpose of the present study, the participants were asked to complete three types of Likert-scale questionnaire including emotional intelligence (Schutte, et al. 1998), self-efficacy (Gaumer Erickson, et al. 2016), and writing anxiety (Cheng, 2004). The data were analyzed by calculating Pearson correlation and linear regressions. The findings indicated that there is no significant relationship between emotional intelligence and writing anxiety, and also self-efficacy and writing anxiety are not correlated significantly. Furthermore, writing anxiety was not predicted significantly by emotional intelligence and self-efficacy.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationships among self-efficacy, language learning strategy use, resilience and EFL learner autonomy. A total of 103 EFL learners, majoring in English Teaching and English Literature at University of Kurdistan were selected. A package of four questionnaires including Learner Autonomy Questionnaire, Foreign Language Learner’s Self-Efficacy Questionnaire, and Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL), and Resilience Scale was distributed among participants. The relationships among self-efficacy, language learning strategy use, resilience, and EFL learner autonomy were investigated using Pearson correlation. The results of Pearson correlation indicated that there are significant and positive correlations between self-efficacy and EFL learner autonomy, language learning strategy use and EFL learner autonomy, resilience and EFL learner autonomy. Also, there were significant and positive correlations between different components of language learning strategies and learner autonomy. Running linear regression showed that all eight predictors i.e. resilience, self-efficacy plus components of the learning strategies significantly predicted learner autonomy. Furthermore, the results of linear regression analyses revealed that the components of language learning strategies: metacognitive strategy was a significantly stronger predictor of EFL learner autonomy, with social strategy, affective strategy, memory strategy, compensation strategy and cognitive strategy coming respectively. Regarding the findings of the study, obtained results may help EFL learners and teachers, and material developers to acquire a more extensive perspective and attend to the benefits of developing EFL learners’ self-efficacy, language learning strategies use, resilience, and autonomy.

In educational systems, self-efficacious students try harder and challenge more to gain the goals and they relate any failure to their weakness and lack of effort. Therefore such students are more eager to use learning strategies (e.g. self-regulation). The main purpose of the present study is to investigate the relationship among self-efficacy, self-regulated learning and perceived language proficiency. The participants were 103 Iranian male and female, graduate and undergraduate English students at University of Kurdistan in Iran. Their age was ranged from 18 to 46. The data were collected through 3 questionnaires of self-efficacy (Gaumer Erickson, 2016), self-regulated learning (Seker, 2015), and perceived language proficiency (Butler, 2004) at the beginning of the semester in 2018. After analysis of the descriptive data, Pearson correlation and regression analysis were run. The results showed positive and significant relationships among self-efficacy, self-regulated learning, and perceived language proficiency. The results also showed a high prediction power of self-regulated learning by self-efficacy and perceived language proficiency. This study demonstrated how self-efficacious and perceived language proficiency learners can be the better self-regulated learners as well. The findings of this research can be useful for learners and teachers in the institutes and educational contexts.

One of the important factors in language teaching process is the teacher who is no longer considered as an implementer of external prescriptions but as an active decision-maker. Teachers in their Classroom Management dealt with their students and different class situations. Classroom management which is the dependent variable of this study, as defined by Martin (2010), is all the attempts made by the teacher to observe students’ learning, interaction, behavior and discipline in the classroom. This study was performed to research emotional intelligence, self-efficacy, and language proficiency of EFL Iranian teachers in Iranian public schools and relates this three independent variables to teachers’ classroom management as its predictors. The data were collected through the application of three questionnaires. Daniel Goleman’s (1995) Emotional Intelligence Scale was used to measure the participants’ levels of emotional intelligence. A modified validated version of the Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) was used to assess teachers’ perceived self-efficacy. And Butler’s (2004) modified version of Perceived English Proficiency Scale was used for assessing teachers’ English perceived language proficiency. The participants of the study were 200 Iranian EFL teachers (109 males and 91 females) who were working in the ministry of education in Iranian public junior and high schools. They were selected through availability sampling. The participants’ age and teaching experiences ranges were 23-61 and 1-30 years, respectively. Their education degrees were AD (Associates Degree), BA, MA, and PhD. Before giving the questionnaires to the participants, the researcher gave them enough information about the study, and also ensured the participants that all their collected forms and answered questionnaires would be safely protected. To analyze the collected data, first, descriptive statistics was run. After running descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis was run to investigate the association between the study variables Moreover, multiple regression was run to see which of the three independent variables can predict Classroom Management more. According to the obtained results, a significant and positive relationship was found between Iranian EFL teachers’ self-efficacy and their classroom management. Accordingly, the first research question ‘Is there any significant relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ self-efficacy and their classroom management?’ is positively answered. Concerning the second research question ‘Is there any significant relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ emotional intelligence and their classroom management?’ the results showed that there is a significant relationship between the two variables. This means that answer to this research question is also positive. Regarding the third research question ‘Is there any significant relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ perceived language proficiency and their classroom management?’ it was revealed that there is a significant relationship between perceived language proficiency and classroom management. According to its result, a positive answer is given to this research question. Finally, about the fourth research question, ‘Which of the three variables predict classroom management more?’ the results indicated that self-efficacy, emotional intelligence and perceived language proficiency all could predict classroom management. But according to the analysis and results of the study, teachers’ self-efficacy taught in public schools predicted their classroom management more than the other two variables.

The aim of the present study was to analyze two course books series of Iraqi-Kurdistan and Iranian high schools ELT course books in light of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) proposed by Howard Gardner (1983). The conversations, grammar and reading comprehension activities of the above course books were analyzed based on an MI checklist prepared and used by Christison et al. (1996) to examine where they included and engaged multiple intelligences. The intelligence profile of individual activities, course books and finally each series of the course books were specified and presented. The most frequently engaged types of intelligences in Iraqi-Kurdistan high school ELT course books were observed to be verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, spatial/visual, intrapersonal, and interpersonal. The most common types of intelligences engaged in students by Iranian high school ELT course books were observed to be verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, spatial/visual, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences the same as Iraqi-Kurdistan course books engaging five types of intelligence although different in the volume and number of activities. The frequency of distribution for multiple intelligences among the two series were compared using Chi-Square test and the results indicated a significant difference of distribution among the two mentioned course books. The results of the study can be applied in the instruction of the mentioned course books to engage MI

The aim of the present study was to analyze two course books series of Iraqi-Kurdistan and Iranian high schools ELT course books in light of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) proposed by Howard Gardner (1983). The conversations, grammar and reading comprehension activities of the above course books were analyzed based on an MI checklist prepared and used by Christison et al. (1996) to examine where they included and engaged multiple intelligences. The intelligence profile of individual activities, course books and finally each series of the course books were specified and presented. The most frequently engaged types of intelligences in Iraqi-Kurdistan high school ELT course books were observed to be verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, spatial/visual, intrapersonal, and interpersonal. The most common types of intelligences engaged in students by Iranian high school ELT course books were observed to be verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical, spatial/visual, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences the same as Iraqi-Kurdistan course books engaging five types of intelligence although different in the volume and number of activities. The frequency of distribution for multiple intelligences among the two series were compared using Chi-Square test and the results indicated a significant difference of distribution among the two mentioned course books. The results of the study can be applied in the instruction of the mentioned course books to engage MI.

The growing use of English in the world has opened a new research field under the title of “English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)” in ELT and applied linguistics. Empirical study on ELF corpus reveals that speakers in ELF interactions manipulate some features of language differently from its British and American norms and their main focus in communication is on intelligibility. From 2000, ELF studies and researches, particularly by Jenkins, Seidlhofer, have questioned the current paradigm “English as a foreign language (EFL) in the expanding circles countries. Iran like the other expanding circle countries is norm-depended in ELT and the EFL paradigm is dominant. This study has investigated how academic students behave as English language users in face-to-face interactions and how English language teachers consider the ELF characteristics in teaching. Nine academic students and 15 randomly selected in-service English teachers were interviewed. The semi-interview questions were developed mainly from Jenkins’ questionnaires and her interview questions. The results of this qualitative study show that the student had the chance to speak with different nationalities (the first and most important reason of the emergence of ELF). Likewise, instead of strictly following a standardized English pattern, they have created an ELF norm in the interactions. The findings from teachers reveal that ELT in Iran is still norm-oriented and the ultimate goal is to lead learners to become native-like speakers. Although strong preference for British and American norms exists, some teachers seemed more flexible towards ELF as an approach. By comparing two groups, it reveals that a substantial gap exists between teaching and learning English and the use of English in reality in the Iranian context.

The present research was a probe for understanding of whether or not the use of self-assessment in the classroom can enhance the learners’ motivation in the Iranian EFL context for the intermediate English learners of the University of Kurdistan. As a second goal, the research wanted to reveal whether or not self-assessment questionnaire has any priority over self-assessment report and can be used as a daily assessment classroom technique. For the desired goals, the researcher designed a quasi-experimental study in a form of mixed-method research in which he both quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed the learners’ self-assessments and motivation developments. Two classes were selected to participate in the study as experimental and control groups. Both classes had a pretest of proficiency and also pretest of motivation and then the experimental group received self-assessment questionnaires and self-assessment reports as their treatment. The control group received 10 minutes of conversation imitation in each session. Both classes received the second motivation questionnaire and the second proficiency test as their posttests to see what the differences of the two classes were. The quantitative results obtained from the SPSS software manifested that the experimental class outperformed the control group in a sense that the self-assessment was influential in the enhancement of their motivation. In addition, through the qualitative analysis of the learners’ self-assessment questionnaires and self-assessment reports the researcher came to a conclusion that because of the informative and awareness raising nature of self-assessment questionnaires on language elements, it is more beneficial to be implemented in the classroom in Iranian EFL context.