Happy 2019! It gives me great pleasure to greet you on the eve of the new year with the news of the publication of our January issue. With your support as readers and contributors, we have now grown up to school age: we have just entered age seven, a testimony that we have successfully passed through our infancy period and are stronger than ever. Following our past achievements in recently being indexed in Web of Science (ESCI), I would like to so proudly announce that our ISC ranking has significantly improved in its most recent evaluation which has just been released. Jumping from a Q2 to a Q1 journal, IJLTR has achieved the highest IF among all English journals on Humanities (including Education, Literature, Applied Linguistics, etc. ). Our new impact factor of 0. 657 is the highest among some 135 Humanities journals, attesting to IJLTR’ s highest publication standards winning it the rank of #1. This achievement is a landmark gain and I would like to extend my sincere appreciations to journal board members, reviewers and all contributors whose unfailing and wholehearted academic support yields more fruit every season. Enjoy this new year gift, as this is a moment to remember and celebrate! This issue of IJLTR like its predecessors features seven research papers of national and international scope on various dimensions of language education as well as two book reviews and an interview. In the first paper, Olivier Jako studies the development of a writing self-rating scale through autonomography while Rashidi and Hosseini survey the perceptions of Iranian policymakers in Iran’ s foreign language policy document in the second paper. In a multiple case study, Mark Teng examines learner identity and investment in learning in a Chinese context in paper three and Asagri, Ketabi and Amirian look at interest and achievement in L2 reading as a result of internet based teaching in the following paper. The relationship between teacher’ s burnout and motivation is the focus of paper five by Rouhani and Dayeri, and in the next paper Ebadi and his co-researchers compare the rhetorical structure in abstracts and introductions of masters theses written by Iraqi and other international students while Munalim and Gonog study student-teachers’ spoken reflection with an aim to developing a reflection inventory. The book reviews are on written corrective feedback (by Yi) and English grammar for research (by Javidi). There is finally an interview with Prof. Henry Widdowson and Prof. Barbara Seidlehofer (by Salahshoor). It is my sincere hope that our readers will find something of value in this issue and help us flourish further by sending us their quality research productions on topics that they think have not been sufficiently covered in our previous issues. Let me remind you that our 2019 Special Issue is devoted to Reflective Practice in TESOL and will be guest-edited by Prof. Thomas Farrell (Brock University, Canada), the deadline for submission to which is 1 March 2019.

As we are approaching the summer, I am pleased to write to you with the announcement of the publication of a new issue of IJLTR. While most of my colleagues in other parts of the world have almost ended their spring semester and are starting to enjoy the summer holiday after a few final days of scoring and grading, here in Iran we are still running classes with exams to start soon. As an editor, even when the exams are over and you are entitled to enjoy the summer break, there is the duty of preparing the next issue of the journal which means that journal editors have essentially no break whether between the semesters or after them. What makes an editor survive such break-less life is the generous moral support received from editorial team as well as readers and contributors. All this contributes to journal growth which in turn is a strong motivation for the team to move forward more steadily. For the last several issues of IJLTR, I had the honour to share with you a new achievement of our publication, form being promoted to Q1 in Scopus in 2020, to ranking top in Iran and the Middle East, and the like. Indeed, IJLTR seems to have conquered all peaks last year and there is no new achievement expected; it seems that there is no higher rank than Q1 which IJLTR has once more gained in 2021 in Scimago’ s recent rankings (SJR) which was announced on the 1 st of June. Regionally, IJLTR has tanked top among 134 journals indexed in ISC (Islamic Science Citation) whose most recent JCR was recently announced. No doubt, these steady gains are a direct outcome of the quality papers published as well as invaluable academic support by the editorial team, reviewers and the journal internal staff; thank you all for playing your part so effectively and keeping IJLTR at the peak! Like all its previous issues, IJLTR’ s new issue comes out on time, 1 st of July 2021, as initially planned. In 2020 and earlier years, each issue carried seven full text articles, two book reviews and one interview. Beginning with January 2021 issue, we decided to leave out the interview to open space for one more research article, given the huge number of submissions we receive and the long list of accepted manuscripts awaiting publication. In line with the same policy and to open more space for international contributors, we decided to stop receiving submissions from our Iranian colleagues temporarily until the end of 2022. The current issue accordingly is packed with 8 original articles form Hong Kong, the UK, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, and Iran as well as two book reviews by Iranian and American reviewers. In the first paper, drawing on second language acquisition principles, Alessandro Benati presents a case for evidence-based language instruction, moving beyond methods and focusing on the key role of input. Fathi, Greenier and Derakhshan then concentrate on the role of EFL teachers’ emotion regulation in mediating the role of teacher reflection on their self-efficacy and burnout in the second paper, followed by a further focus on teachers by Bagheri and East in paper 3, where they investigate teachers’ cognitions and practices in the context of listening classes in private language schools. The next paper by Wotring, Chen and Fraser is a syllabus document analysis which looks at the alignment between learning objectives, teaching principles and curriculum policies in three East Asian contexts, followed by John Liontas and Patrick Mannion’ s argument for a place for digital story-telling in language classrooms to afford optimal learning conditions. In paper 6, Mohammadzadeh and Alavinia look at the role of motivation in task performance and analyse motivational changes during task supported instruction to seven young language learners, followed by Rahimi, Yousofi and Moradkhani’ s paper on challenges in ELT research in Iran’ s higher education system. The final research paper in the volume by Kaivanpanah, Akbarian and Salimi is devoted to vocabulary instruction where they compare differential effects of three modes of instruction (explicit, implicit and modified implicit) on its learning and retention. The books reviewed are The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching and The Routledge Handbook of Research in Applied Linguistics reviewed respectively by Kristen Fung, and Khodadust and Mohammadi. I trust the collection will fill part of your long summer days. As you enjoy reading the published work in this issue, please also watch out for our Special Issue on Online Professional Development in TESOL (edited by Jack Richards), that will appear on the 1 st of October 2021. Our 2022 special Issue will be guest-edited by Michael Byram and Petra Rauschert, and is devoted to Language Teaching, Education for Democracy and Cross-curricular Connection for which it is time to plan a submission. Moe information about all this is just a click away: ijltr. urmia. ac. ir.

Alas, 2020 has so far not been a happy year at all that it promised to be. Not soon after the start of the year, did the world experience the worst-ever pandemic of our age (Covid-19) hitting around 10 million people worldwide and claiming thousands of lives. While this incident has led to a new world order, it is at the same time a gesture that we need to value morality more and consider how weak human beings are in the wake of a new disaster, and that death and the other world are much closer to us than we have imagined. Lets’ pray for God to help overcome the disease and work together for a more peaceful world. It is also very saddening and hard to accept the shocking loss of one of our young and vibrant board members, Professor Farzad Sharifian of Monash University, who was a pioneering international figure in Cultural Linguistics. May his soul rest in peace! Apart from these sad events, 2020 was a fruitful year for IJLTR. A few days ago, Scimago and Scopus announced their most recent journal metrics (for 2019) and I am very pleased to announce that in both metrics, IJLTR has continued shining. As for Scimago, we have achieved a Q1 status, with an improved SJR of 0. 341. In Scopus rankings, our CiteScore has almost doubled jumping from 0. 94 in 2018 to 1. 7 in 2019. Our journal ranking has also improved considerably, earning us a ranking of 129 out of 830 journals indexed in Scopus under Linguistics and Language category (84 th percentile). These achievements are surely the outcome of the continued support of all editorial members, contributors, reviewers, readers and journal staff. Warmest congratulations and thank you all! Like its predecessors, the current issue includes seven national and international research papers on issues of importance to second language education and applied linguistics as well as two book reviews and an interview. In the first paper, Andrew Gill and Daniel Hopper report a study on reflective practice in a Japanese context where they investigate the potential of integrating conversational analysis and dialogic reflection. Sá nchez Ramos in the next paper explores the application of a Corpus Management Tool (CMT) to teach medical English in a Spanish context, followed by a research study on the effect of longitudinal teacher feedback on CAF, content, and organization in writing in an EFL context written by Rastgou, Storch and Knoth in the third paper. Fatemeh Sadeghi and her colleagues in the next paper use a constructivist grounded theory to examine Iranian EFL teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of the principles of critical thinking. In a case study in paper five, Thomas Farrell and his co-author delve into teaching principles of a TESOL teacher in Canada, analyzing the match between her practice and the principles in a reflective practice framework proposed by the first author. The relationship between vocabulary size and depth of Iranian EFL learners at different language proficiency levels is investigated by Enayat and his co-author in paper six; and the last research paper by Seifoori looks at negotiated strategic awareness-rising at postgraduate level in the context of a reading course. The first book reviewed by Soleimani and Sadeghi is titled English Language Teacher Education: A Sociocultural Perspective on Preservice Teachers’ Learning in the Professional Experience; and the second book reviewed by Mohebbi is the third edition of Schmitt and Rodgers’ An Introduction to Applied Linguistics. The interview in this issue of IJLTR is with another leading and highly cited researcher in the field of Applied Linguistics, who is the co-editor of the journal with the same title as the field. In the interview, Anna Mauranen shares with us highlights of her academic and professional life as well as offering advice on writing for publication in top-tire journals. Hoping that you will have a relaxing and healthy summer ahead I invite you to browse the current issue and other journal pages (all available online at ijltr. urmia. ac. ir) and plan a future submission to our mainstream or special issues. Our next issue will be a special issue on Classroom Discourse, to go online in October 2020. Do watch out for news on next year’ s special issue which will be guest-edited by Prof. Jack Richards.

Happy New Year!: 2020, as the worst ever year during the last century, has now thankfully come to an end. The world is still in turmoil and experiencing numerous challenges and changes brought about by the C-19 pandemic. There is almost none of us whose life, personal and professional, has not been impacted negatively in one way or another as a result of the worldwide epidemic. Let's pray for 2021 to be a year we have wished to have, and for us all and our loved ones to be bestowed with health, prosperity and happiness. Amen. . .

Happy 2020! I am very pleased to reach you on the first day of the New Year, extending my heartfelt best wishes for the year ahead and announcing the publication of our new issue. For the last eight years since our inception, we have successfully managed to publish the journal issues on exactly the first day of January, July and October each year; and this timeliness, which we owe to our dedicated journal team, is a great achievement to be proud of. In the words of one of our International Editorial Board members, “ I think the world calendars should be synchronized with the publication of IJLTR, rather than the other way round. ” Similar reflections by our friends are golden evaluative notes to remember and to take pride in, and are of course motivating nudges for us to keep moving forward steadily. Similar success stories and signs of recognition are without doubt attributable to journal board members, reviewers and contributors whom I feel obliged to express my gratitude to for their everlasting support. Thank you all! To follow the pattern we set in our first issue, the current issue comes with seven research papers written by both Iranian and international scholars on various aspects of second language education as well as two book reviews and an interview. In the first paper, Ali Malmir and Ali Derakshan report a research study on the pragmatic comprehension (as opposed to pragmatic production) strategies of Iranian male versus female EFL students. The next paper comes from a Chinese context, where Wang Lan and Ricky Lam investigated an EFL teacher’ s stated beliefs and observed classroom practices in teaching a speaking course called Topical Debates. The effect of teachers’ scaffolding and peers’ collaborative dialogue on speech act production of requests, apologies and refusals in symmetric versus asymmetric groups is taken up in the next paper by Zahra Fakher Ajabshir and Fatemeh Panahifar, followed by a study on how assessment is perceived by EFL students at a Turkish context by Ali Isik in paper 4. In paper 5, Fazilatfar and his colleagues’ study compare the effect of planning time (0-10-20 min) and task conditions (topic, topic + idea, topic + idea + macrostructure) on the production of writing in terms of CAF; and Chen reports a study on the online English information searching strategies of Taiwanese university students in paper 6. The final research paper, by Ghanizadeh and her colleagues, is devoted to discovering the link between error treatment, motivation, language achievement, and cognitive, behavioural and emotional engagement. The first book reviewed by Pirooz and Akbarian is Porte and McManus’ s Doing Replication Research in Applied Linguistics, and the second book, reviewed by Mohammad Salehi is by Joan Kelly Hall, titled, Essentials of SLA for L2 Teachers: A Transdisciplinary Framework. The final item of the issue is an interview with the President of AILA, Daniel Perrin, who reflects on his academic life as well as talking about highlights of AILA and the field. Hoping that you have enjoyed your New Year holidays and started a very prosperous year, I invite you to browse the issue and other journal pages (all available online at ijltr. urmia. ac. ir) and plan a future submission to it. Let me remind you that our 2020 Special Issue is devoted to Classroom Discourse and will be guest-edited by Prof. Zia Tajeddin (Tarbiat Modarres University) and Dr. Minoo Alemi (Islamic Azad University), with the submission deadline being 1 st of March.

September/October is associated with the start of schools and universities in many parts of the world and reminds us that education/research is a never-ending process despite the C-19 pandemic having affected the world and the education system. Our team in IJLTR have also worked non-stop to ensure that its issues are published on-time and as planned. 1 st of October is the time IJLTR publishes its Special Issue. Before introducing the content of this Special Issue, I would like to share the happy news that, following our recent recognition as the only Iranian journal in Humanities indexed in Scopus with an SJR-Q1 ranking, in its first evaluation by Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (MSRT), IJLTR has received 'International' ranking. MSRT evaluates Iranian journals using some rigid quality criteria and ranks them as International, A, B, C and D, with International being the highest and D the lowest ranks. Congratulations to you all for being part of this evaluation process and for contributing to this gain! I am also honoured to introduce the online publication of our 2020 Special Issue on Discourse in Second Language Classrooms. This year's Special Issue was guest-edited by Prof. Zia Tajeddin (Tarbiat Modares University) and Dr. Minoo Alemi (Islamic Azad University), to whom I would like to extend my sincere thanks for the time and energy they invested in reviewing and editing the papers published in this issue. I am also very thankful to the contributors who considered IJLTR as the venue for sharing their latest research findings. Like its predecessors, this Special Issue is also made of 7 research articles on the theme of classroom discourse. In addition to the guest editors' opening paper on functions and strategies of teachers’ scaffolding, other papers come from the UK, the US, China, Thailand and Iran and survey important topics such as linguistic designs of teacher questions and student responses, classroom greetings, novice teachers’ construction of identity, the use of L1 in primary English classes, peerpeer scaffolding in writing, and classroom discourse during C-19 pandemic. Further information on these works appears in guest editor's note at the end of the first paper. In addition to these research papers on the theme of the Special Issue, the issue also includes two book reviews and an interview as usual. The books are on Autonomy, Agency and Identity in TEFL and Reflective Practice in ELT and have been reviewed by Alireza Bonyadi and Teymour Rahmati, respectively. The interview features highlights of academic life and achievements by Prof. Claire Kramsch (University of Berkley, US). I am also delighted to announce that IJLTR will continue to publish special issues in 2021 and 2022. The Special Issue in 2021 is devoted to On-line Professional Development in TESOL, and will be guest edited by Prof. Jack Richards (University of Sydney, Australia). 2022 Special Issue will mark the 10 th anniversary of the publication of IJLTR (the guest-editors to be announced) and will be devoted to the latest developments in the field of TESOL/AL. To learn more about this issue as well as further information and deadlines for future Special Issues, you are only one click away from IJLTR website available at: http: //ijltr. urmia. ac. ir/. I trust that you will find something of interest here and look forward to your continued support and future contributions.

The paper entitled “Attitude of Male and Female Subjects towards Oocyte Donation in Shiraz” published in the Journal of Reproduction and Infertility in Spring 10[1 (38)]:51-57 is valuable research but seems to have a few methodological flaws that could have affected the results of the paper:1. The questionnaire used in the paper has been described to be “Researcher-devised” and does not seem to be a standard one and nothing has been mentioned about how it has been designed or what the validation procedure has been. Moreover, the questions seem not to be cohesively related resulting in a smaller internal validity….

We are delighted to announce that the July and August issue of LRR is released now. As you are aware, the papers in LRR have been published in Persian for 12 years, and since last year, two issues a year have been published in English and French as well. Since 2012, LRR has been indexed in Scopus. The 2021 index of SCOPUS is Q2 (SJR: 0. 2), and in the latest evaluation by the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (MSRT), LRR has received an “, International”,ranking. We appreciate you all for being part of this academic journey. We would like to extend our immense gratitude to the contributors who have considered LRR as the venue for sharing their research findings. We also appreciate the national and international members of the editorial board, reviewers, and journal’, s staff for their time and effort. We look forward to your support and future contributions.

Thanks for your scientific note in regard to my article entitled “Effect of magnesium sulfate on bleeding time in women with preterm labor pain,1 and Letter to the Editor,2 ” The optimal time for measurement of hemoglobin level is 24 hrs after transfusion and hemorrhage.3 In this study, the maximum amount of blood loss was about 500 ml of whole blood which is equivalent to a 2 g/dl decrease in hemoglobin concentration.In our study, none of the patients needed transfusion. Besides, no anemia was detected before or after delivery with and without magnesium sulfate infusion. Furthermore, measurement of hemoglobin level was not considered either as mentioned in similar previously published studies.4-6 Although anemia is known as a risk factor for hemorrhagic tendency due to lower RBC concentration,7 their presence may contribute to hypercoagulability state in anemia and hematologic diseases,3,8 due to producing a pathological erythrocyte procoagulant phenotype. These studies also indicate that there is minimal contribution of erythrocyte to homeostasis.

We are delighted to announce that the November and December issue of LRR is released now. As you are aware, the papers in LRR have been published in Persian for 13 years, and since last year, two issues a year have been published in English and French as well. Since 2012, LRR has been indexed in Scopus. The 2021 index of SCOPUS is Q2 (SJR: 0. 2), and in the latest evaluation by the Iranian Ministry of Science, Research and Technology (MSRT), LRR has received an “, International”,ranking. We appreciate you all for being part of this academic journey. We would like to extend our immense gratitude to the contributors who have considered LRR as the venue for sharing their research findings. We also appreciate the national and international members of the editorial board, reviewers, and journal’, s staff for their time and effort. We look forward to your support and future contributions.