Many books have been written to illustrate the position of the new technologies in teaching and learning a foreign or second language (L2); nonetheless, most of these books have not been successful. The Handbook of Technology and Second Language Teaching and Learning edited by Caral A. Chapell and Shanon Sauro and published by Wiley Blackwell in 2017, provides a comprehensive overview of the various facets of the use of technology in teaching and learning an L2. This book has not been translated into Persian and no critical review has been published for it; accordingly, this study sought to both introduce and critically review this book. The current critical review revealed some advantages including comprehensiveness of the whole book, the expertise of the writers, up-to-dateness, content and format integrity, and the use of valid sources. The main criticisms are the exclusion of some of the very recent technologies, perhaps due to the ever-changing and exponentially volatile nature of the technological improvements and expansions, the introduction of too many technologies at the theoretical level without providing information about their practical use. Generally, the book is an invaluable and academically written source for L2 practitioners, postgraduate students, and researchers.

Scaffolding is an instructional strategy which significantly contributes to learning processes. Learning strategies, as well, have often been noticed as being important in helping EFL learners acquiring a new language. The study is an attempt to find out the effect of using scaffolding strategies on EFL learners' use of different language learning strategies. To achieve the aim of the current study, a fifteen-week experiment was conducted. A sample of 100 Iraqi EFL university students participated in the study. The participants were divided into two groups: an experimental group, receiving conversation instruction through different scaffolding strategies, and a control group, being taught according to routine lecture method based on a teacher-centered approach, dominating in Iraqi university contexts. In both groups, the students' use of learning strategies was pre-and posttested. A paired samples t-test, an independent t-test and a multivariate ANOVA were used for statistical analysis of the data obtained. It was found that there is a statistically significant difference between the two groups in favor of the experimental group. This indicates that using scaffolding strategies throughout the teaching process is more effective than the routine lecture method within the teacher-centered approach framework.

The present paper reports a study conducted among Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners, addressing the critical issue of imagined identity/community within a globalized world. The concepts of “imagined identities” and “imagined communities” (ICs) refer to the internalized self-conceptions learners develop regarding who they aspire to be and the broader social groups they envision themselves as part of in the context of language learning, respectively. Drawing on Norton’s (2000, 2001) framework of ICs, this study focused on the diverse imaginations that Iranian EFL learners possess while learning English. The study involved five participants, aged between 13 and 36, and employed a qualitative approach utilizing semi-structured interviews for data collection. Through these interviews, rich narratives illustrating the learners’ unique perspectives emerged. The findings revealed that while the imagined identities/communities differed among participants, a common thread was their significant influence on guiding learners through the language learning process. Moreover, the research indicated that a lack of awareness regarding learners’ desired membership in their ICs could detrimentally impact their engagement and commitment to language learning, often resulting in various forms of non-participation in the classroom. Pedagogical implications of the study for EFL teaching practices, emphasizing the importance of creating classroom environments that validate and support learners' ICs and foster their imagined identities/communities as essential components of effective language instruction, are discussed. The study also offers recommendations for future research endeavors to further explore the dynamic interplay between imagined identities/communities and language learning outcomes.

The present study was an attempt to explore any significant relationships among Iranian EFL learners’ beliefs about language learning aptitude and the difficulty of language learning, their concern over mistakes, and their language achievement.116 Iranian junior and senior EFL students majoring in English Translation and English Literature at Shahid Bahonar university of Kerman were chosen through available sampling technique to take part in this study. To obtain the required data, the following questionnaires were utilized: Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) developed by Horwitz (1987), and Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS) designed by Frost et al. (1990). The participants' GPAs of the basic courses were also used as a measure of their language achievement. Statistical test of Pearson Product-Moment Correlation and Independent T-Test were conducted to analyze the data. The findings of this study revealed that first, there were significant positive relationships between belief about language learning aptitude and language achievement, on one hand, and, belief about the difficulty of language learning and concern over mistakes, on the other hand; second, no significant relationship was found between these pairs: belief about language learning aptitude and concern over mistakes, belief about the difficulty of language learning and language achievement, and concern over mistakes and language achievement; third, regarding gender, it was revealed that females, in comparison with males, had higher scores on belief about language learning aptitude. Moreover, there were no significant differences between males and females regarding other variables. Finally, compared with belief about the difficulty of language learning, belief about language learning aptitude was found to have the higher relationship with language achievement: the former did not predict language achievement.

Foreign language learning disabilities (FLLD) is one of the new terms in the literature of learning disabilities (LD) which seeks to investigate the disabilities English language learners may have in their experience with language. Many areas affecting learning a language are being investigated. Motivation and two other related terms demotivation and amotivation, as affective factors, are among the most recent undiscovered areas in studying FLLD. This paper aims at investigating the learning disabilities of an Iranian girl student called Shiva in pursuing her language learning in university. Different research instruments like MSQ, WTC Questionnaire, and Nelson English Language Test were adopted to diagnose different aspects of her disabilities to devise the most efficacious type of help for her. The findings indicated that demotivation causes mostly as a result of the misconduct of the teachers in not only their teaching techniques but also their misuse of motivational strategies.

Many context effects in language comprehension appear at the earliest point in time – closely temporally coordinated with when context effects could emerge in line with interactive accounts of language processing; some context effects may even resemble preferences and override the short-term frequency of experience via language input. However, variability in the timing and robustness of context effects shines through when we look at contextual relations that are indirect and likely accessed via inferences or where knowledge may be variable (for instance, due to age differences or differences in language background). This talk discusses (accommodating) variability in context effects on language comprehension.

The present exploratory study aimed to provide a more tangible and comprehensive picture of the construct of investment in language learning through investigating the issue from a quantitative perspective. To this end, the researchers followed three main phases: First, a hypothesized model of investment in language learning with six components was developed for the Iranian learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) based on the extensive readings of the literature on investment, consultations with a panel of experts, that is three university professors in the relevant fields, and interviews with 20 language learners. Second, a questionnaire was developed and validated based on the proposed model to represent its components. Finally, the data collected through this questionnaire were fed into the model to determine the extent to which the model fitted the data. The participants were male and female English language learners belonging to different age groups and English language proficiency levels. The initial results showed poor values; however, the model was trimmed by removing one item from the questionnaire, and final statistical indices showed that the model fitted the data.