Learners’ personality traits and self-assessment have an essential role in their academic achievement and the well-being of society. Although L2 grit and the core of self-assessment (CSA) have attracted considerable attention in educational research, few studies have focused on the impact of L2 grit on boosting CSA and managing foreign language anxiety (FLA). Drawing upon this existing research gap, the present study set forth to test a structural model of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university learners’ L2 grit, CSA, and FLA. The language-domain-specific grit scale (LDSGS), the core of self-assessments questionnaire (CSAQ), and the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) were administered to 418 Iranian EFL university learners. The findings of structural equation modeling (SEM) reflected the contributions of L2 grit and CSA to overcoming language learners’ experienced anxiety. Furthermore, the significant influence of EFL learners’ CSA on FLA was concluded. The implications of the findings are to raise learners’ awareness of their personality traits and self-assessment that can foster effective language instruction and assessment.

This study investigated the effects of different text difficulty levels on Iranian EFL learners' foreign language reading motivation and reading comprehension. To fulfil this objective, 40 Iranian participants were selected among 50 students based on the results of Interchange Placement Test (Richards et al, Placement and Evaluation Package Interchange Third Edition/Passages Second Edition with Audio CDs, 2008). The pre-intermediate selected participants were then randomly divided into two equal groups; "i + 1" group (n = 20) and "i-1" group (n = 20). Afterwards, the researchers measured the participants' English reading comprehension by administering a researchers-made reading comprehension pre-test. Moreover, Motivation for Reading Questionnaire was also conducted. After the participants were all pre-tested, the treatment was practiced on the both groups. The participants in "i + 1" group received reading passages beyond the current level, on the other hand, the "i-1" group received those reading passages which were below their current level. After the instruction which lasted about 3 months, a modified version of reading comprehension pre-test was administered to the both groups as posttest and finally the data were analyzed by using paired and independent samples t-tests. Moreover, Students' answers to the questionnaire was also analyzed. The obtained results indicated that there was a significant difference between the post-tests of "i + 1" and "i-1" groups. The findings indicated that the "i + 1" group significantly outperformed the "i-1" group (p < .05) on the post-test. Furthermore, the results revealed that the 'i + 1' materials could help Iranian EFL learners increase their reading English motivation. This study has implications for teaching and learning reading comprehension.

This study intended to investigate the effect of using authentic texts on Iranian EFL learners' incidental vocabulary learning. To this end, a population of 52 Iranian female EFL learners aged 15 to 17 was selected. They were two intact classes; experimental group (25 students) and control group (27 students). Both groups received a pretest at the first session. Regarding the treatment, the authentic reading texts selected from World News for students of English, Level1 was taught to the experimental group while the texts selected from book 1 was taught to the control group. After a month post-test were run among all of the participants in both control and experimental groups to find out the possible effects of the treatment on the participants' vocabulary improvement. The analysis of data paired samples t-test and independent samples t-test showed that there was a significant difference between the post-tests of experimental and control groups. The experimental group outperformed the control group on the post-test.

The present empirical study investigated the relationship between Iranian undergraduate TEFL learners' self-regulation and their self-efficacy. For this end, there have been a total number of 120 college students learning English as a foreign language who volunteered to complete the two quantitative questionnaires of self-regulation and self-efficacy respectively. The participants were informed of the anonymous nature of the data collection process in advance. They were also told that their responses would certainly be kept confidential and that they had the right to quit at any part of the survey. It took around 15-20 minutes for each respondent to complete the survey. In the meanwhile, some of the participants (around ten) also willingly answered the qualitative descriptive semi-structured questions of the interview, until that the interview responses were saturated. After the process of data collection, the findings were measured through correlation analysis, indicating that self-regulation and self-efficacy were jointly linked and had a directly positive relationship. Accordingly, it was revealed that the employment of these two highly associated psychological constructs could systematically guide and help learners to enhance their learning capabilities and lead them to ultimate desired learning goals. Ultimately, it was concluded from the findings of the current study that the delicate association between self-regulation and self-efficacy was really helpful for learners to lead them successfully to their academic goals.