This research investigates methods to enhance the conversational portion of the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbook called 'Vision 1' that is utilized in Iranian high schools. The study involves 50 Iranian EFL high school teachers within the age range of 25-40, who have been teaching for 3-7 years and currently incorporate 'Vision 1' into their English curriculum. The collection of qualitative data was accomplished by conducting semi-structured interviews to gain a deeper understanding of their viewpoints. The findings highlight challenges faced by teachers, such as limited oral practice opportunities, lack of authenticity in dialogues, and difficulty in engaging students. Proposed solutions include incorporating authentic dialogues, increasing oral practice opportunities, incorporating interactive activities, and providing teacher support materials. Implementing these insights can benefit not only the designers of EFL textbooks but also curriculum developers and language educators in Iran and similar educational contexts. By addressing the identified issues and incorporating the proposed solutions, it is expected that the conversational component of the 'Vision 1' textbook can be significantly enhanced, leading to more effective English language learning experiences for Iranian high school students.

In a taxonomic study on the genus Podosphaera sect. Sphaerotheca, several newly collected specimens and all specimens from fungus collection of the Ministry of Jihad-e- Agriculture, were examined. A total of 13 taxa including Podosphaera aphanis var. aphanis, P. aphanis var. hyalina, P. balsaminae, P. dipsacacearum, P. erodii, P. euphorbiae, P. ferruginea, P. fugax, P. fusca, P. macularis, P. plantaginis, P. pannosa and P. xanthii were identified. Morphology of the thin-walled apical portion of the asci (oculus) was examined among taxa. The results revealed the usefulness of this feature for identification of some taxa as shown by other researchers. On the basis of morphological characteristics of P. aphanis var. hyalina, it was shown that taxon differrs from type variety in having short appendages, ascus size as well as wider oculi. It seems there is enough evidence to raise this variety as a separate species. Hence, it is necessary to investigate more characteristics especially ribosomal DNA or other genes sequencing to make an indisputable decision. Plant species viz. Hieracium sp., Potentilla hirta and Scabiosa persica are recorded as new hosts for Erysiphaceae of Iran. A key for the Iranian taxa of this section is provided.

In a speech community, people utilize their communicative competence which they have acquired from their society as part of their distinctive sociolinguistic identity. They negotiate and share meanings, because they have commonsense knowledge about the world, and have universal practical reasoning. Their commonsense knowledge is embodied in their language. Thus, not only does social life depends on language, but language defines social reality. With practical reasoning, people in a speech community use, appropriately, their commonsense knowledge in different social settings in order to negotiate suprasentential meanings. All of this knowledge is acquired without overt, explicit and intentional training. Proceeding along linguistic ethnography and functional lines, we may attempt to specify just what it means to be a truly successful and competent speaker of a particular language within the framework of a speech community.

The Holy Our'an has been revealed in the Arabic language, utilized its linguistic mechanism and at the same time has its own linguistic and non-linguistic peculiarities. As a book of guidance, the Noble Our'an has been sent down to show the way of life to every Muslim, and if its guidelines are followed, to guarantee their life to come. Unfortunately, not all Muslims know the Arabic language to gain access even to its literal meaning. Many of them have to resort to its translations to understand the surface meaning: It is a pity that nearly all these translations suffer from different kinds of shortcomings. Some of these deficiencies are due to overlooking the role that applied linguistics, contrastive linguistics and translation theories play in translating from one language to another. This article is an attempt to shed light on the application of Grice's Conversation Implicature on the processes of understanding the divine message and its rendering into another language.    

Introduction: Conversational repair strategies are among the most important pragmatic skills and are classified under the category of conversational skills. The importance of these skills has been specifically explored in hearing-impaired or specific language-impaired children who are prone to communicative breakdowns during interactions with others. Speech-language pathologists' knowledge about the conversational repair strategies (i.e., repetition, revision, addition and cue repair) and their normal application during communicative interactions is at best limited and tentative. The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare these strategies in children with 3, 4 and 5 years of age.Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional research, the employment of conversational repair strategies were evaluated across 72 speech samples derived from Farsi-speaking children resident in Isfahan-Iran. The subjects were divided into three age groups: 3, 4 and 5 years.Results: The results indicated that revision, cue repair and inappropriate responses had significant correlation with age whereas repetition and addition strategies did not show such relationship. With regard to gender of subjects, revision was the only strategy which was more applied by boys than by girls.Conclusion: Repetition was the most frequently applied strategy in each age group. The employment of revision strategy was more common in younger children and, with increasing age, its application decreased. However, subjects used cue repair more frequently as their age increased. These results were in agreement with study results of foreign researchers.