Learning environments have turned to a hot discussion among language scholars. Very popular nowadays, blended learning is not a new concept. It enjoys the advantages of face-to-face classrooms and virtual learning. This study is an attempt to discover whether conventional or blended learning environments can better enhance the reading comprehension for EFL learners. 107 Iranian students majoring in English at Abadeh Islamic Azad University and Zand Institute of Higher Education in Shiraz were selected. A reading comprehension test was administered as the pretest. Then, the participants were put in control and experimental groups. For the treatment, the experimental group received the instruction in the classroom and had assignments through virtual environments whereas the control group had the instruction and assignments in conventional mode. A post-test of reading comprehension was administered, and the participants' performances in both tests were compared. The results indicated blending traditional classroom instruction with technology can help learners outperform in their reading comprehension.

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EFL teacher's identity plays a significant role in the construction of teachers' characteristics in educational settings. In the Iranian EFL context, the study of teachers' role identity has been given more attention in recent years. The present study has two objectives. First, it aimed to investigate Iranian EFL teachers' perception of their role identity. The study also intended to determine the dominant role identities among participants. To this end, 19 Iranian EFL teachers were chosen through purposive sampling from three universities in Shiraz, Iran. Three data collection methods including semi-structured interview, classroom observation and narrative inquiry were used to collect data. The data were analyzed through Wellington's (2000) staging method. The findings revealed that various EFL teachers' role identities could be categorized under three main themes of teacher as a manager, professional and acculturator based on Farrell's (2011) model. The results of chi-square analysis also revealed that two role of teacher as a knowledge transmitter and caregiver were more dominant EFL teachers' role identities among Iranian EFL teachers in the present study. The findings can have pedagogical implications for EFL teachers, educators and educational staff to better understand teachers' role identities in various contexts.

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Vocabulary learning is one of the crucial matters in second language learning. There is a vast body of research in this field which has been done by famous researchers around the world, but still there is no specific solution for extending lexical knowledge in the best way. Therefore, we have conducted a meta-analysis on a body of 30 research projects to investigate the usefulness of different strategies of vocabulary learning. The results showed that the strategies which are used by students are as follows in order: determination, cognitive, memory, meta-cognitive, and social strategies. Besides, it seems that guessing from context and using the dictionary are among the strategies which are most favored by successful students. In addition, the relationship between context, treatment, and methodology by vocabulary learning strategy were studied. It was clear that learners of different contexts would prefer different strategies, and teachers used specific strategies according to their syllabus. For further research, it is suggested to select a larger body of studies. It is advised to make teachers aware of the importance of choosing an appropriate strategy of vocabulary learning for language learners to pave the way of improving lexical knowledge for them.