This study investigated the effectiveness and efficacy of teacher's direct vs. indirect feedback on students' composition writings in an EFL context. Two classes (each class 10 students) of female intermediate students in a private English language learning institute were given writing assignments for ten class sessions. The students in every class provided with either direct or indirect feedback. The results were recorded and later analyzed. The data revealed that the class with indirect feedback improved better compared to the class with direct feedback. Moreover, the study has insights and implications for teachers.

The present study was conducted for two purposes:(1) to compare the learners' comprehension ability before and after the implementation of two types of pre-reading activities, guessing reading content from asking pre-reading questions and vocabulary definition, (2) to investigate the learners' attitudes towards the implementation of two pre-reading activities. Research participants consisted of 60 grade-10 students studying at Omol Habibeh high school in Ilam, Iran. A test of reading comprehension ability was administered to assign the subjects into two groups. The two groups were given different pre-reading activity, guessing reading content from asking pre-reading questions and vocabulary definition, respectively. The research instrument consisted of reading comprehension test (used as pre-and post-tests). The experiment using the two pre reading activities were carried out for 5 weeks two sessions a week .The data was analyzed statistically to identify means, standard deviation, and t-value. It was found that after implementation of the 2 pre-reading activities the subjects performed better in the post-test, at significant level of .05. When compared the results of the 2 pre-reading activities, it was found that the group receiving guessing meaning from pre-reading questions performed better that their counterpart who experienced vocabulary definitions, at.05. It was also found that both groups were satisfied with the activity they experienced.

The present study was aimed at exploring and describing apology strategies among Kurdish bilinguals in Ilam, Iran. It attempts to systematize the various strategies used for the purpose of apologizing from the pragmatic point of view. The current study involves 80 subjects of Kurdish bilinguals in Ilam, consisting of 40 male and 40 female subjects. The subjects were chosen randomly to participate in this study. The data of this study was collected through a controlled elicitation method based on a questionnaire which is a modified version of 'Discourse Compilation Test'. Descriptive and inferential statistical such as T-Test have been used to show the meaningfulness of the relationship between gender of respondents and their apology strategies. The prime finding of this study revealed that there is no meaningful relationship between gender and apology strategies used by Ilami people. The results indicated that respondents have frequent tendency toward using "explanation", "taking responsibility" and "offer of repair" strategies. So, they do not have much inclination toward intensification and concern for the hearer.

The purpose of the study was to examine the effect of the video captioning on Iranian EFL learners' listening comprehension. A total of homogenized students in a private English language institute in Ilam, Iran (Safir English language institute) participated in the study. The students were randomly assigned to two groups to receive treatments. Both groups watched 10 short episodes (20 minutes) of an English instructional videotape. The difference between these groups was in presence of the caption of the film; that is, the experimental group watched the film with English caption and the control group watched the film without caption. The results of the post-test multiple-choice exam revealed that using captions had a significant effect on students' listening comprehension and those who received the English captions outperformed the other groups. Based on the obtained results, it was concluded that providing captions for Iranian EFL learners could be helpful in overcoming some of their listening comprehension difficulties.

The present study focuses on the relationship between teacher empowerment and teacher self-efficacy. The research is a quantitative study in which the data is obtained to get a great understanding on the relationship between empowerment and selfefficacy of Iranian English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers. The sample consisted of 60 teachers in Ilam and Eyvan high schools. Participants in this study answered the School Participant Empowerment Scale (SPES) questionnaire (Short and Rinehart, 1992). The Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001) was used to measure teacher self-efficacy and differences in teachers on age, gender, and years of teaching experience. Pearson Product -Moment correlation was computed to determine the relationship between teacher empowerment and teacher self-efficacy. The findings indicated significant positive correlation between teacher empowerment and teacher self-efficacy. Independent sample t-test revealed no statistically significant differences on empowerment or self-efficacy based on age and empowerment based on years of teaching experience or gender. In addition, a statistically significant difference was found between teachers' self-efficacy and gender. The results of this study can be useful for EFL teachers and administrators.