For many years, technology has been applied to improve the quality of language learning and teaching. However, the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the integration of technology in different language learning contexts. The sudden shift to online teaching faced educators with an array of challenges they had not experienced before. In particular, the teachers encountered many barriers with the online assessment of the students. To shed more light on what passed, following a qualitative mode of inquiry, the present study set out to find out how a group of 20 Iranian English language teachers at Persian Gulf University faced with the online assessment challenges posed by COVID-19. For this aim, the researchers conducted in-depth semi-structured retrospective interviews with the teachers at different times throughout the course. In addition, the teachers were asked to provide a narrative account of how they responded to the crisis. The analysis of the findings showed that after the shift to online assessment, the teachers initially faced with serious pedagogical, technical, administrative, and affective barriers, but as the course proceeded, they could adjust their practice with the new situation. However, the teachers recounted problems that still remained and negatively affected their practice. Overall, the study discusses that to improve the online assessment in the post-COVID-19 era several technological, pedagogical, and administrative measures should be taken into account. These would further improve the integration of the technology in the pedagogical context in the long run.

Abstract-The present study investigated the type of discourse markers in academic and non-academic writing of Iranian EFL learners. It tried to find out the most frequent types and tokens of discourse markers and to determine a significant difference between discourse markers in academic and non-academic writing. The 60 participants of this study were selected from Safire Lian language institute. Thirty were chosen to write academic writing and 30 to write non-academic writing. Fraser's taxonomy was used as the main taxonomy but to fulfill the aims of the study, some other taxonomy was used such as Cowan (2008) and Schiffrine (1981). The Chi-Square statistical test was used to analyze data in order to find out the differences in the use of discourse markers between academic and non-academic writing. Different hierarchies of discourse markers were observed in the present study. Elaborative and inferential were the most frequent types in academic genre while in non-academic genre elaborative was only the most frequent type. Moreover, the quantitative analysis showed that there was a significant difference in the use of discourse markers in academic and nonacademic writing. Furthermore, as the result revealed discourse markers were required more in academic than non-academic writing.

Vocabulary learning is one of the most important aspects of second language learning. One controversial way of teaching vocabulary is using authentic materials. The current study focused on teaching vocabulary using authentic materials and its influence on learners' vocabulary achievement. To this end, a population of 80 female Iranian EFL learners aged 17 to 20 from an institute in Bushehr were selected. All of them received Oxford Proficiency Test (OPT). Following the administration of OPT, those whose scores ranged between 105 and 119 (elementary level) were chosen for the purpose of the study. After the OPT only 66 participants were left for both experimental and control groups. Both groups received a pretest at the first session. After that the participants attended the English classes 3 times a week for a month. Every session took one hour. The control group received new vocabularies through their textbook (English Result) in each session and the experimental group received the same vocabularies through The New Straits Time online paper in each session. The students were asked to read and talked about the topics. After a month post-tests were run among all of the participants in both control and experimental groups. The analysis of data showed that the vocabulary knowledge of the participants developed in both groups but the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group.

Argumentative writing is the most important genre that undergraduate students need to learn to meet their academic requirements. Hence, many studies in different ESL/EFL academic contexts have explored different aspects of argumentative essay at micro text level and also wider educational, contextual and cultural levels. However, majority of these studies have focused on separate aspects of argumentative writing. Therefore, in the absence of studies which examine different variables involved in undergraduate EFL students’ argumentative writing, the present study was conducted by drawing on multiple data sources: students’ perceptions of the argumentative texts, writing teachers’ views on argumentative writing of the students and finally analysis of the structure of the argumentative texts written by the students. For this aim, a total of 66 argumentative essays written by the undergraduate students was analyzed. In addition, a group of 66 undergraduate students majoring in English literature and 20 university writing instructors were interviewed. The findings revealed that the concept of argumentation was poorly conceived and tackled with by the learners. Teachers also counted various grounds that students faced difficulties. Moreover, the structural analysis of the students’ texts showed that they had problems with developing secondary elements of argumentation. In sum, the study discusses that the failure to develop an argumentative essay by the Iranian undergraduate English majors entails several academic, contextual and pedagogical grounds. Implications for improving argumentative writing in the EAP context would be provided.

Background: Words in the Mental Lexicon (ML) construct semantic field through associative and/ or semantic connections, with a pervasive native speaker preference for the former. Non-native preferences, however, demand further inquiry. Previous studies have revealed inconsistent Lexical Access (LA) patterns due to the limitations in the methodology and response categorization. Objectives: To fill the gap, we employed a primed Picture Naming (PN) task for investigating the relations between concepts in the ML of Iranian EFL (English as a foreign language) learners. We also explored whether conscious priming at a long prime-target stimulus onset asynchrony affected the naming latency of the learners with different proficiency levels. Materials & Methods: The participants were 31 EFL learners (11-16 years old) at A1 and A2 levels based on the Common European Framework of Reference for languages. They were recruited in summer 2020 from language institutes in Bushehr and Kazeroon cities, Iran, through a convenience sampling method. They performed a PN task, including 66 prime-target pairs presented in associative, semantic, both semantic and associative, or unrelated conditions. The mixed-effects modeling was used for data analysis. Results: Based on the likelihood ratio test of model comparisons for condition effect (χ2 (1) =9.07, P=0.002), the interaction of condition, frequency, and length was significant in the semantic condition (t=2.72, P=0.008). A slight effect was also observed from the prime frequency in the associative condition (t=1.82, P=0.07). Conclusion: Results indicate one-level access to the ML, which is indeed a function of language proficiency. Findings are further discussed in terms of ML structure and patterns of LA.