Research in educational settings points out that some affective factors influence the students' performance positively or negatively. Anxiety, considered as one of the factors affecting the students' achievement, includes levels of communicative anxiety, fear of negative evaluation, test anxiety, and anxiety of English class or classroom. Hence, the purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between English language anxiety and the students' achievement in their examinations. To this end, 258 freshmen majoring in different fields of medicine at Gonabad University of Medical Sciences were recruited as the study participants. Two instruments were employed to collect data. The first one was the Persian version of Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale questionnaire (FLCAS) completed during the semester to determine the anxiety level on a five-point Likert scale, and the second was an achievement test administered at the end of the term. The obtained results were analyzed using correlation, t-test, and descriptive statistics through SPSS software V.19. The results showed that high anxiety affected the students' achievement (r=0.348, p<0.001). Moreover, the English classroom anxiety proved to be much more significant than other anxiety levels (r=0.36). Nonetheless, the mean value of fear of negative evaluation was higher than those of other FLCAS components. Finally, some implications and suggestions were set forth for teachers/students to take into account so that they might reduce English learning anxiety in classrooms.

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This paper investigated the effect of Content-based Instruction (CBI) on students' English language learning. In so doing, two methods of teaching English, that is, the CBI and the Grammar Translation Method (GTM) were compared with regard to the students' achievement in their final examination and language learning orientation. The subjects consisted of 82 freshmen who were randomly assigned into two groups at Gonabad University of Medical Sciences. To collect data, three instruments were employed: the Nelson test of achievement form 050 C, the Language Learning Orientation Scale (LLOS) questionnaire, and a final achievement test. The data were analyzed using t-test and some correlational analyses. The results indicated that there was no significant difference between the groups regarding the Nelson test and LLOS at the onset of the study, but there was a significant difference between the groups' performance regarding the method of teaching English. In other words, the group taught through the CBI outperformed the one taught through the GTM (p=0.006 and p˂0.05 for the GTM and CBI groups, respectively). Moreover, there was a significant difference in the subjects' language learning orientation after treatment (p=0.038). Some suggestions and implications were put forward for the EFL/ESL teachers to consider.

It seems that repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation could decrease spasticity and pain in patients with HAM/TSP, and this effect could persistently continue by 1 month, but it did not influence patients' muscle power and quality of life, and it could be used as an adjuvant therapy in patients suffering from human T-lymphotropic virus type 1-associated HAM/TSP.