IRANIAN JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE TEACHING RESEARCH
Year:2019 | Volume:7 | Issue:2|Papers Count:11

The start of summer for IJLTR family means the publication of a new issue. I am pleased to reach you with the news of the publication of our July 2019 issue (i. e., volume 7, issue 2). June is a special month for journals and their editors as it is the time when indexing services like Scopus, Scimago and Clarivate Analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters) complete their yearly evaluations of journals and announce new metrics; journal editors are meanwhile on the watchout and eagerly await the surprise scores. While our evaluation is still in progress for SSCI (following our recent inclusion in ESCI), our scores for both Scopus and Scimago have now been disclosed. As for Scimago, IJLTR (with an SJR of 0. 222 in 2017) ranked 229 (out of 748) journals indexed under Language Linguistics category. In 2018, with an increased SJR of 0. 277, our ranking has satisfactorily improved, earning us a ranking of 200 out of 753. A similar ranking gain has happened under Linguistics and Language category. As for Scopus CiteScore, IJLTR has significantly increased its metrics (0. 59 in 2017) to 0. 94 in 2018. This essentially means that from a 72nd percentile (Q2; 173/618) in 2017, IJLTR has moved to a higher ranking (79th; 144/702), jumping from a Q2 to a Q1 Scopus journal. This is to add to our success story with recently revealed ISC JCR values in 2016 where IJLTR ranks 1st among all English journals (318) in Humanities and 23rd among all English, Persian, and Arabic journals (1235) in Humanities. All these lines of success are without doubt attributable to our dedicated journal team as well as other supporters (that is, our readers, contributors, reviewers and even critics) whom all I feel obliged to thank and extend my warmest appreciation to. Following IJLTR tradition, this issue contains a mix of seven research articles (penned by both national and international researchers), two book reviews and an interview. In the first paper, Cirocki and his co-researchers survey the status of readiness for autonomy among school students in Indonesia and in the second paper Vodopija-Krstanović and Marinac investigate the divide in theory and practice between EIL and ELT. Drawing on SFL and works on multimodality, Zohrabi and his colleagues look at interpersonal meanings in children’ s storybooks in the following paper; and in article four, Marashi and Assgar investigate the link between teachers’ management practices and learners’ learning strategies and anxiety. In the next paper, Darja takes an ESP perspective to teacher talk in a higher education context in Slovenia and studies teachers’ awareness of specific features of their talk. Masoumpanah and her coworkers examine practicum courses at Farhangian University (Iran’ s state university for teacher education) in paper six; and the final paper by Taherkhani surveys Iranian language versus content teachers’ cognitions and practices of collaborative EAP teaching. The books reviewed are titled Teaching Graphic Novels in the Classroom (reviewed by Salehi and Farhang) and A Systemic Functional Grammar of English (by Kasap). The volume ends with an interview with Stephen Krashen (University of Southern California), the most cited figure in our field (personal communication with the interviewee), on his academic life and some of the theories he has advanced. Wishing you a happy summer, I invite you to have your pick form the collection we have prepared in this issue. To learn more about the journal and plan a future contribution, please visit us at: ijltr. urmia. ac. ir.

The notion of learner autonomy has attracted the close attention of scholars, teachers, policy makers and researchers in various countries. In Indonesia, while its scope remains limited, learner independence is one of the highlights of the current curriculum. The purpose of this study was threefold: to investigate how Indonesian secondary school students conceptualized the construct of learner autonomy; to ascertain the extent to which students were motivated to learn English; and to estimate how ready they were to participate in the teaching-learning process as autonomous learners. The study employed a mixed-methods approach and recruited 391 participants – EFL students and teachers – from urban and suburban schools, classified as state and private institutions. The data were collected using questionnaires and focus group interviews. The findings revealed that many students were not familiar with the concept of learner autonomy. They also had fairly low motivation to learn English and generally were not ready to act as autonomous learners, lacking the typical skills and competences. The results indicate that Indonesian students need to be trained in planning their learning process, setting objectives and taking a more active role in negotiating the teaching-learning process.

English as an international language (EIL) is considered by applied linguists to be a new paradigm for research, practice and English language teaching (ELT). However, it appears that English language teachers have little voice in these discussions, and the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom has remained largely unaffected by EIL, hinging upon the native speaker (NS) ideal. This is hardly surprising as insufficient attention has been devoted to EIL pedagogy, and to helping teachers integrate theoretical understandings of EIL into their teaching. This paper aims to address this gap by examining EFL teachers’ (non-native speakers-NNS) perspectives on the implications of EIL for classroom practice. Through an analysis of data gathered from an online questionnaire and 10 semistructured interviews, this study examined the attitudes of 53 EFL teachers working in Croatian public schools towards: a) the EIL paradigm, b) NS/NNS models in ELT, and c) the implications of EIL for language teaching. The findings show that although the teachers are familiar with and open to the notion of EIL, when conceptualized as a paradigm for teaching, it becomes a rather elusive concept, and a second best NNS English. Overall, the teachers are largely unaware of the potential of EIL for ELT, and rely on the NS as the benchmark and authority. They maintain that the EIL theory-ELT practice link is complex and difficult to operationalise. It is argued that, if EIL is to become a new paradigm for teaching, greater collaboration is required between applied linguists and ELF teachers, and explicit guidelines are needed to help teachers integrate EIL into ELT.

Semiotics as a broad field of study encompasses Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). SFL has paved the way for Multimodality which is the study of different sources of meaning. This study was conducted to analyze the visual sources of meaning in children’ s storybooks on the basis of what Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) developed and called visual grammar. The chosen books for this study consisted of A, Apple Pie, Princess Rose and the Golden Bird, Tyrone the Horrible, and Terrible Tommy Tom Cat. The aim of this qualitative study was to investigate the interaction between the viewer and the represented participants. Accordingly, interactional meta-function was analyzed through interpreting the frequencies of each dimension of interactional meta-function in all pictures. It is supposed that there are differences in interactional meanings in storybooks in which the characters are animals and in storybooks in which the characters are human beings. The results of the present study prove the assumption of differences between the two types of storybooks. The viewer can enter into relation with represented participants in stories with human characters easier than the ones with animal characters. The findings may help teachers and syllabus designers. Specifically, teachers can choose the stories with human characters in order to make easy the process of involvement of the children with intended subject. They also can choose stories with animal characters in order to teach some strange concepts in which they do not want their students to be involved.

This study was an attempt to investigate the relationship between EFL teachers’ effective classroom management and EFL learners’ anxiety and learning strategies. Accordingly, two questionnaires and a checklist were used: Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL), Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS), and Murdoch’ s checklist. A total of 750 male and female learners and their 30 teachers participated in this study. Once the questionnaires were administered and the checklist was filled, the researchers conducted the relevant descriptive and inferential statistical analyses and the results supported the notion that teachers’ classroom management was positively correlated with language learners’ learning strategies while it was negatively correlated with their anxiety. Hence, the major implication of this study is that EFL teachers can engage in employing more effective classroom management techniques in order to encourage EFL learners to use more strategies in the process of their learning and at the same time reduce their anxiety.

There is scarce evidence of publications pertaining to the phenomenon that a foreign teachers’ language in fact is a language for specific purposes. In the field of (foreign) languages for specific purposes, traditionally linked to a vast variety of professional and academic domains, it seems that LSP teachers’ language has not yet gained due attention. However, any FL or LSP teacher’ s language is used for professional, teaching purposes; yet it does not seem that FL teachers for specific purposes are aware of their teacher talk, either in class or conceptually. On the basis of classroom observation and semi-structured interviews among 17 Slovenian teachers of foreign languages for specific purposes this paper attempted to identify differences in the teacher talk used by them in class, and the level of their awareness of their own teacher talk. The results of the quantitative analysis indicate that there are some specific features in LSP teacher talk which led us to conclude that it could be identified and categorised as a separate LSP category. However, the related LSP teacher’ s awareness about their own teacher talk varied from highly profiled to absent, and there was a perceptible impact on working efficiency in the class. All discussed phenomena require further research.

This study was an attempt to evaluate practicum courses at Farhangian University. Since practicum is a significant component of teacher education which links theory to practice and prepares studentteachers for their work, this study was intended to explore the extent to which (1) the practicum objectives stated in the ‘ Curriculum Document of TEFL’ at Farhangian University were actualized, (2) the students’ language teaching profession needs were fulfilled, and (3) the participants were satisfied with the courses. To this end, based on the data gathered from interview, focus-group discussion and the University documents, a questionnaire was developed and administered to 144 student-teachers and mentors. Findings revealed that although the courses were relevant to the student-teachers’ occupational needs, and improved participants’ motivation, self-confidence, and class management skills, they failed to fulfill a number of their needs and course objectives to a considerable degree. Findings also indicated that the way courses implemented in practice was not satisfactory. The findings are discussed and some implications are provided for student-teachers, EFL teacher educators, and syllabus designers.

Many studies have addressed the issue of collaborative teaching in EAP courses; however, there is a gap in the literature concerning EAP teachers’ cognitions and actual practices regarding collaborative EAP teaching, especially in contexts like Iran where EAP courses are taught by either language teachers or content teachers-subject specialist teachers-with little or no cooperation between them. Therefore, the current nationwide study explored the cognitions and practices of language teachers and content teachers at medical sciences universities in Iran regarding collaborative EAP teaching. The participants were 128 representative language teachers and 190 representative content teachers, teaching at all five types of universities across the country. The instruments included questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The results revealed that the differences between the two groups of EAP teachers overshadow the similarities between them. The findings also disclosed inconsistencies between the two groups of EAP teachers in terms of their cognitions and actual practices. The conclusions outline implications for the EAP community throughout the world and specifically accentuate the urgent need for teacher education programs in Iran and micro-and macropolicy reforms in the Iranian EAP educational system.

The book is an edited volume made of three sections, each divided into several chapters. The first section focuses on different possibilities for the adoption of sequential art in the classroom, from introductory to advanced composition writing. In the second section, the graphic novel is foregrounded as a unique literary genre where the editor makes reference to authors who advocate graphic novels to be regarded as literature in their own right. The third section is concerned with graphic novels’ potential for triggering discussions that create opportunities for students to gain insights into the notions of social justice, identity, and empathy. In the introductory chapter of the book, which is a collection of essays on the use of graphic novels in the English classrooms, Burger enumerates the outstanding benefits of teaching graphic novels such as engaging reluctant readers, encouraging students to view familiar knowledge from a new perspective, activating, and developing students’ multiple literacy skills due to the inextricable combination of text and image in graphic novels. In this collection, the editor has attempted to feature essays that provide specific examples and in-depth assignment overviews which could be incorporated into educational settings. Given the enumerable instances of implementing graphical novels into English classrooms, the editor hopes that the present collection of essays would convince the readers to move towards various other pedagogical possibilities for further multimodal engagement. However, it would be highly desirable to have addressed the biggest barriers in integrating graphic novels in secondary content classrooms, the distinct literacies needed to read graphic novels, and to draw up clear methods/guidelines about appropriate inclusion of graphic novels in classrooms (as explicitly outlined in Brozo, Moorman, and Meyer, 2013). The first chapter (Not Just Novels: The Pedagogical Possibilities of the Graphic Narrative) of Part I (Reading, Writing and Graphic Narratives) comprises Andrew Bouelle’ s arguments regarding the incorporation of sequential art to teaching multimodal literacy. He underlines the pedagogical value of focusing on shorter graphical narratives which is worth studying and teaching. Drawing upon the experiences of students from an advanced composition course which focused on multimodal literacy, he highlights a surprisingly higher illustration and storytelling performance when they were provided with shorter graphic narratives compared to performance on full-length graphic novels. Interestingly enough, the effect of the shorter graphics turned out to be similar to that of longer works. However, the author’ s arguments could have been supported with a richer body of both quantitative and qualitative pieces of evidence. The second chapter (Understanding Rhetoric, Understanding Genre: A Rhetorical Genre Studies Approached Writing Course) includes Sara Austin’ s discussions concerning the use of a rhetorical genre studies approach in a writing course. She suggests the adoption of an approach beyond the traditional focus on argumentation and persuasion that represents only a small portion of genres students encounter during their education. In this essay, Austin has presented a good number of instances in which more value could be placed on students’ perspectives, types of writing in various academic and non-academic contexts; however, it could have been more informative, had it contained more in-depth descriptions of implementing materials during the course. The focus of chapter (Writing Through Comics) is on Riki Thompson’ s Writing through Comics that highlights the undeniable role of graphic textbooks in providing non-traditional texts to help students make sense of almost complex ideas. Further, she raises the issue of integrating comics into the classroom setting so as to meet a variety of educational objectives in several disciplines such as ethnic and cultural studies as well as composition and rhetoric studies. Also, she warns against the simultaneous instruction of reading and production of comics due to the potentially problematic integration of reading and writing as well as the teachers’ discomfort with writing through comics. However, more theoretical and empirical justifications are required for further elaboration of this argument. Chapter four (Teaching the History and Theory of American Comics: 20th-Century Graphic Novels as a Complex Literary Genre) in Part II (Graphic Novels in the Literature Classroom) outlines Lauren E. Perry’ s essay on the historical construction of graphic novels and narratives in an expository writing course in the form of a literature survey allowing the students to critically discuss important graphic novels from the 20 th century. Perry found the course a favorable experience due to the overwhelmingly positive reactions she received from the students. Compared to the beginning stages of the teaching program, the learners felt competent enough to approach comics and other various subgenres without apprehension. In the next chapter (“ What Is the Use of a Book. . . Without Pictures or Conversations? ” : Incorporating the Graphic Novel into the University Curriculum), Allison Halsall underlines the importance of further analysis in terms of the serviceability of graphic novels in university and college classrooms. She elaborates on her experience of adopting graphic novels in university as a practical tool to help students overcome the feeling of intimidation that is associated with sitting in a compulsory university English or general education classroom. In chapter six (“ Does Doctor Manhattan Think? ” : Alan Moore’ s The Watchmen and a ‘ Great Books’ Curriculum in the Early College Setting), Guy Andre Risko argues for the ease with which students read comics as a lighter load of practice compared with traditional textbooks. He contends that such narratives as Watchmen by Alan Moore are one of the most famous graphic novels whose foundation comes from generic expectations of the detective genre and 1950s superhero comic that occurs along philosophical underpinnings and political bounds. Chapter seven (“ If He Be Mr. Hyde, We Shall Be Mr. See” : Using Graphic Novels, Comic Books, and the Visual Narrative in the Gothic Literature Classroom) addresses one of the biggest challenges each English instructor encounters, that is, striking a balance between education and entertainment in the classroom. As long as the teachers increasingly opt for more data-driven educational methods, the need for increasing the students’ comprehension is still a crucial requirement. One approach to meet this requirement is to incorporate more visual narratives into the text-centric content. Introduction of visual narrative genre in the Gothic literature classroom potentially motivates the reluctant readers, supports the passionate readers, and obviously contributes to a greater likelihood of comprehending the complex images and ideas in Gothic literature. In Part III (Graphic Novels, Empathy, and Social Engagement), the chapter Teaching March in the Borderlands between Social Justice and Pop Culture switches the focus from the incorporation of graphic novels into the English classes to the notions of empathy and social engagement which could be introduced to the students through the graphic medium. Having centered upon John Lewis’ s three-volume graphic memoir, March, Susanna Hoeness-Krupsaw underscores the way text and picture interplay to lead the students to a wider understanding of various events by simultaneously developing their empathy for these issues. In chapter Revising the Rhetoric of “ Boat People” through the Interactive Graphic Adaptation of Nam Le’ s “ The Boat” , Jennifer Phillips examines a number of the issues that teachers of literature encounter as they present students with texts that engage with current global concerns in a world of increasing access to information and technology. The main focus of the essay is on how graphic adaptations of literature including graphic novels and interactive graphic adventures take on a more effective role in nurturing the empathy necessary to break through the inertia of the internet age by highlighting the visual sense and drawing the reader further into the experience of others. The last chapter (Performative Texts and the Pedagogical Theatre: Alison Bechdel’ s Fun Home as Compositional Model) outlines the review of Alison Bechdel’ s Fun Home as a memoir, as a Gothic novel, and as a graphic novel. William Cordeiro and Season Ellison in their essay present varied approaches to teaching this text in the classroom. Overall, the book is a good resource for MA students of TEFL to get some ideas for doing research. Implementation of graphic novels in language classes and how this can impact learning is relatively unexplored especially when it comes to Iranian EFL contexts. However, as this innovative approach of using graphic novels in classrooms is probably interwoven with challenges and issues, it is highly recommended that language teachers refer to Monnin (2010) who has brilliantly tackled the issues and presented valuable ideas for aligning the graphic novels to English learning curriculum. These novels can also benefit language teachers in that they can incorporate these novels in their curriculum to inject variety into their class routines. We believe that using graphic novels can bring a welcome change to traditional classes.

David Banks’ A Systemic Functional Grammar of English: A Simple Introduction has been written for learners of English as a foreign language and those interested in learning about English linguistics. The book comprises nine chapters and aims to serve as an easy-to-read introduction for Halliday’ s (2004) Systemic Functional Linguistics. This work is a fundamental introduction to this linguistic theory and is targeted at PhD students, researchers and linguists interested in a functional systemic perspective to studying language. As the book includes practical activities and exercises with an answer key, it has the potential to be used as a textbook in educational contexts with small groups of learners. The book also includes a glossary which also includes some terms not used in this book but which can be helpful especially for students and researchers who are not familiar with Systemic Functional Grammar. It, furthermore, has an index which alphabetically lists the terms and topics mentioned in the book. Functional Systemic Grammar is characterized by the assumption that the phonological, grammatical and semantic structures of the language are determined by the functions they perform in society. The social function of language is of particular importance for this linguistic theory, so that its analysis of the text is always contextual because there is a relationship between the text and the social context. This analysis helps to understand the relationships between language and society and this book presents the essential aspects of the Functional Systemic Grammar of English by attaching special importance to the textual function because Functional Systemic Grammar aims to study in detail the meaning of each text in its context through revealing how the text expresses that meaning. The writer of this book opts for Halliday's functionalism because, like him, he understands language as a social semiotic, that is, he interprets the language within a sociocultural context. The first chapter, “ Some introductory remarks to get us started” , focuses on the notion of language itself where Banks claims that language is not something or an entity but simply what happens when people communicate. According to the writer, language is not used to communicate, but it is the communication itself. The chapter provides a definition for Systemic Functional Linguistics, which is both functional in language and society, and is systemic since it is concerned with language as a network of choices. The second chapter of the book, “ Grammatical parts and how they work together” , gives a detailed description of the Systemic Functional Linguistics based grammar. The chapter sheds more light on Systemic Functional Grammar by defining the concepts of ’ system’ and ‘ function’ and their relationship with grammatical parts. The ‘ system’ is a set of two or more options and an important concept within the system is that of choice or opposition. Each choice within the system specifies a context and a set of options within which only one is chosen. The functional aspect of the language is complemented by lexicogrammatical choices that serve functions within social and cultural contexts; so for a grammarian, the text is a rich phenomenon, with different facets that expresses its meaning in different ways (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004) The third chapter of the book, “ Representing the world” , is mainly a discussion of representational function of ideational metafunction of language, which concerns the relationship between the speaker and his/her message. The founder of Systemic Functional Linguistics, Halliday (1994), argues that language can be used to perform the three functions of ideational, interpersonal, and textual. The interpersonal metafunction is about the social world we live in and it is related to the relationship between speaker and hearer. The textual metafunction is concerned with the information in a text and its messages. The ideational metafunction forms a relationship with the context of culture. However, the writer focuses on representational dimension of the ideational function in this chapter, which relates to representation our experiences in text or dialogue. When it comes to chapter four, “ The speaker’ s relationships” , the author turn turns to interpersonal metafunction--the use of language in expressing social and personal relations (Halliday, 1985)-and specifically elaborates on ‘ mood’ and ‘ modality’ while trying to explain the interpersonal metafunction of Systemic Functional Linguistics. According to the writer, there are two types of relationships: the first of which is the speaker’ s relationship with his/her addressees (mood) and the second one is the relation between the content of his/her message and interlocutors (modality). The fifth chapter, “ Getting the message in order” , deals with the ways the message is structured. The author discusses that there can be two ways whereby this structuring can be accomplished: through thematic structure and information structure. The thematic structure, as Halliday (2004) states, is the one that gives the clause its character as a message. The chapter gives information about two structural units which are the Theme and the Rheme. The Theme is defined as the point of departure of the message of the clause and the Rheme as the part of the clause which develops the Theme (Halliday, 1994). The chapter defines these two sources first and then offers helpful examples and sample analyses to supporting the definitions. The sixth chapter, “ Extending the interpersonal metafunction” , discusses aspects of appraisal which analyses the speaker’ s presence in a text in terms of attitude, engagement and graduation. The writer divides attitude into affect, judgement and appreciation, providing a framework to analyse the meanings in a text that might convey positive or negative assessment (Iedema, Feez, & White, 1993; Martin & White, 2005). These terms are regarded as an extension of Systemic Functional Linguistics to analyse the traces of the subjective presence of the speaker in his/her text. Chapter seven, “ Modelling the text” , provides information about grammatical metaphor, which involves the substitution of one grammatical class or structure for another. Most examples in English spoken by adults contain some instances of grammatical metaphor: clauses in which one type of process is represented in the grammar of another (Halliday, 2004). The chapter shows that grammatical metaphor is an essential resource of language and a resource that we use constantly. Chapter eight, “ The text in context” , generally deals with the notion of register--the time and place when and where a text was produced. The chapter points out three important semiotic functions of register, which are ‘ field’ (as an indicator of ideational metafunction), ‘ tenor’ (a sign of interpersonal metafunction) and ‘ mode’ (as representing textual metafunction). This section of the book offers brief information about these terms and backs it up with some activities and exercises so that the readers could have the opportunity to identify the terms in a text. The last chapter of the book, “ Final thoughts” , is devoted to the author’ s concluding remarks where he states that the book is short but an important source for students who are new to Systemic Functional Grammar of English and hopes that it will be helpful for linguists who are more familiar with other approaches. Even though the book, as the writer himself expresses, is a short one, it gives a significant account of various possibilities to analyse the language based on Systemic Functional Grammar. To put it more succinctly, the book explains some internal characteristics of the language by taking into account its functional diversity. The book provides a very brief but adequate theoretical and analytical framework to explore and explain how any text is constructed and expresses its meaning. This theoretical framework covers both the abstract (ideology) and the more concrete levels that intervene in the text (words, structures, etc. ). Reading this book would be useful both for linguists interested in functional systemic perspective and for those who are affiliated with other theoretical frameworks and would like to know more about the function of language. The book includes a good number of exercises and sample analyses of some examples, which is thought to be really helpful for readers in helping them understand the nature of language and how the grammatical elements work together to convey meaning. In addition, given the multiplicity of analyses on aspects related to Systemic Functional Grammar and having a very plain language, the book will be valuable to and can be a supplementary book for linguists so as to use in ELT and Linguistics departments.

Stephen Krashen (born 1941) is professor emeritus at the University of Southern California. Stephen Krashen received a PhD in Linguistics from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1972. Krashen’ s numerous papers and books have greatly contributed to the fields of secondlanguage acquisition, bilingual education, and reading. He is known for introducing various hypotheses related to second-language acquisition, including the acquisition-learning hypothesis, the input hypothesis, the monitor hypothesis, the affective filter, and the natural order hypothesis. Most recently, Krashen promotes the use of free voluntary reading during secondlanguage acquisition, which he says, "is the most powerful tool we have in language education” . What comes below is an interview with him by the editor of IJLTR. KS stands for Karim Sadeghi and SK for Stephen Krashen. . . .