This study aimed at investigating the influence of learners’ previously acquired capitals on their response to the teacher’s attempts to trigger their attention. For this purpose, 403 EFL learners completed three different questionnaires. The results of Structural Equation Modeling showed that emotional capital was a positive predictor of interpersonal, intrapersonal, visual, musical, and kinesthetic joint attention styles. Similarly, social capital was a positive predictor of interpersonal, verbal, visual, and musical styles, and cultural capital was a positive predictor of logical and verbal styles. Moreover, the proposed model of L2 achievement based on the capitals and joint attention styles showed good fit to the data. It appears that learners’ socio-cultural and emotional backgrounds influence their response to the teacher’s initiation of joint attention. And their L2 achievement is enhanced when the teacher uses different joint attention modalities. In the end, pedagogical implications and areas for further research were provided.

Cultural awareness and intercultural understanding are crucial parts of learning a new language. However, not everyone has the chance to have face-to-face interaction with the people from diverse cultures. Computer-mediated technologies are favorable tools that can help learners to engage in intercultural communications. This chapter aims at intercultural learning through technology-enhanced language learning. Five main themes have emerged as the result of literature review alongside a report on major research descriptive. The literature revealed that there are 1) positive attitudes toward using digital tools in intercultural language learning, 2) the development of critical cultural awareness and intercultural communicative competence, 3) opportunities for improving all aspects of language learning. However, 4) textbooks are still the predominant learning resource, and 5) a necessity is felt for special technical skills and competencies. This study is helpful to consider the existing challenges and find new directions for future investigations.

The current study aims to investigate Iranian EFL learners' cognitive styles and their explanations of conceptual metaphors, offering a possible range of individual differences in metaphor processing. 71 participants were asked to explain some established conceptual metaphors that are commonly used in English. Then, their cognitive styles were classified into “analytic” or “holistic” and “imager” or “verbalizer” by means of cognitive styles test. Data analysis revealed that 29 participants (40.85%) explained the three conceptual metaphors by making structural correspondences between source and target domain. Moreover, 20 participants (28.17%) explained at least one of the metaphors by applying elements which were not part of the source domain. The results of the experiment revealed that learners with “holistic” cognitive styles were more likely to blend their conception of the target domain with the source domain in comparison to participants with “analytic” styles; also, “imagers” were more likely than “verbalizers” to refer to stereotypical images to explain the metaphors.