The present study is an attempt to investigate the status of the EFL learner's interlanguage system as dealt with foreign language (FL) speaking anxiety in the classroom. The objective of the study is first to specifically determine the extent to which Iranian EFL learners attribute their FL speaking anxiety to the constituents of their interlanguage system and second to indicate the related gender and level-based differences among the participants. To this end, the researcher divided the general notion of interlanguage system into its three main researchable constituents: interlanguage phonology, interlanguage grammar, and 'interlanguage meaning system' and then attempted to design a self-reporting questionnaire with a five Likert-type scale mainly on the basis of FLCAS developed by Horwitz, et. al. (1986). After analyzing the results, the findings indicated that the participants were more likely to attribute their most FL speaking anxiety experienced in the classroom to their interlanguage meaning system as compare with the other two subsets of their interlanguage system. In terms of the gender differences, the results suggested that the female participants were found to be more prone to experiencing FL speaking anxiety within the framework of their interlanguage system. With respect to level differences, the results demonstrated that gaining more FL knowledge may not necessarily lead to a substantial reduction in experiencing FL speaking anxiety, since more proficient participants were more subject to the anxiety-provoking factors within their interlanguage system than less proficient participants

No abstract

Abstract-The present paper is a contrastive study which attempts to investigate the errors made by Iranian EFL learners due to the cross-linguistic influence between their L1/SL and L2/TL language (i.e. Persian & English respectively). To meet the goals of the study, an error analysis was conducted to examine the status of different types of errors of prepositions made due to the transitional constraints between Persian and English languages. To this end, a translation task was developed by the present researcher. The translation task aimed at identifying the interlingual preposition errors caused by the process of transfer between the target language (English) and the source language (Persian). The translation task was then given to 53 adult EFL learners at intermediate level to translate the sentences from Persian into English during the allotted time. After collecting and analyzing the data, the corollaries of the study indicated that the Iranian EFL learners under investigation were faced with the errors related to the wrong and redundant use of prepositions more frequently as compared with the errors related to the omission of prepositions in L2 while translating from Persian into English. The findings might make a significant contribution to the preparation of corpus of preposition errors in Iranian EFL learners discourse and thus inform Iranian ELT practitioners and teachers of the cross-linguistic areas of difficulties concerning the acquisition of second language prepositions.

No abstract

Given the role of emotional factors in effective teaching and inspired by a number of socio-philosophical, linguistic and psychological theories including Developmental, Individual-difference, Relationship-based (DIR) model and the concept of emotioncy, the present study is an attempt to introduce envolver as a new role for teachers. Sense-related emotions towards a word or an entity that can relativise cognition fluctuate from avolvement (having no feelings) and exvolvement (having heard, seen or touched) to involvement (having had direct experience or having done research). Accordingly, teachers seem to adopt an envolving role in which they avolve, exvolve or involve the learners in different classroom practices. By conducting semi-structured interviews, the researchers asked 24 language teachers to nominate the topics they preferred the learners to be avolved, exvolved or involved in class. The findings revealed thematised topics for each category, including taboos for avolvement, routine topics for exvolvement, and life-related and thought-provoking ones for involvement. Finally, the results were discussed in the context of education.