The aim of this study was to investigate the predictability of global L2 writing performance of Iraqi Kurdistan English as a foreign language (EFL) learners through the affective and linguistic variable of L2 writing anxiety, writing self-efficacy and writing motivation. To this end three types of lingua-affective questionnaires were distributed among 129 EFL learners whose age range was between 18 to 24. They were also required to hand in a writing performance in one session which were scored by two different scorers to have inter-rater reliability. Using a correlational design and running a linear regression test, the researchers investigated the correlation of L2 witting anxiety, writing self-efficacy, writing motivation with global L2 witting performance. The results indicated that writing self-efficacy and writing motivation had a positive and significant relationship with global L2 writing performance while L2 writing anxiety was a different variable from them, indicating a significant but negative correlation with L2 writing performance. The linear regression also indicated that  the sole predicting variable to predict L2 writing performance was observed to be writing motivation and the writing self-efficacy though having a high and significant relationship with L2 writing performance and expected to be among the predictors, did not do this.

The aim of this study is to investigate the challenges EFL student-teachers experienced during their six-week teaching practicum. The participants were 20 student-teachers from the University of Halabja/ English Language Department who have participated in the teaching practicum in 2018-2019 academic year. Qualitative data collected from two focused group interviews )10 participants each( concerning the challenges studentteachers have experienced while practicing teaching in the basic schools. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. The themes were identified using generic inductive analysis. The collected data were transcribed, coded and then analyzed. The results revealed that student-teachers faced various challenges during their teaching practice such as lack of technology in the schools, dealing with students with special needs, classroom management, use of L1 in the classroom, large classes and dealing with students' difficult questions.Based on the results of the study, some recommendations will be made.