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Textbooks are the instruments that assist both teachers and learners in process of second language learning. With respect to the importance of textbooks in a language course, evaluation of course books is a significant issue for most researchers. The present study investigated and analyzed Listening Comprehension parts in Top Notch 2A & 2B 2nd edition. Top Notch 2A & 2B have 10 Units. The number of listening comprehension parts is in the range of 2 to 4 parts in each unit through the book. So the number of listening comprehension parts is not equally distributed. The participants of this study are 10 EFL teachers of two English language Institutes in Jahrom. Strong and weak aspects of Listening Comprehension parts have indicated in this research. The weaknesses involve the pictures and visuals are not clear enough to enhance students' motivation and interest, the audio is not completely suitable for students' English level, and Discussion parts are not stimulating students' talking. Furthermore this study revealed the crucial function of teachers in listening achievement of students.

This study tried to investigate the effectiveness of authentic and pedagogical films with English and Persian subtitles in learning vocabulary. Moreover, the role of these two types of subtitles and the films with no subtitles were investigated. To conduct the study, 30 Iranian EFL students were selected based on the results of an Oxford Placement Test and were assigned in two experimental groups as authentic and pedagogical groups. The students were given twelve sessions as treatment. Then, the researcher administered a post-test at the end of the treatment period. The post-test was a multiple choice test with 25 items. To answer the research questions statistical analysis was performed. The results of t-test showed that the students in authentic group had a better performance than the students in the pedagogical group in vocabulary learning. Regarding the findings of One-way ANOVA and post-hoc Tukey test, revealed that the students who received films with English subtitles had a better performance in comparison to groups of students who watched films with Farsi subtitles or those watched films with no subtitles.

The need for the application of technology in education has been increased. One of the new approaches in technology is using email for learning a second or a foreign language. The present study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of using email in improving writing skills among Iranian EFL students. The participants of the study were 42 pre-intermediate Iranian EFL students in an English language institute in Shiraz, Iran. The participants were randomly assigned into an experimental and a control group. Each group consisted of 21 participants. The treatment continued for three weeks and 3 sessions a week. The students in the experimental group used email for sending their assignments. These students were in contact with their teacher via email and asked writing questions. In contrast, the students in the control group taught writing without using the computer in traditional way. To be sure of homogeneity of the participants, a pre-test was administered before the treatment. After three weeks treatment, a post-test was administered to check the students' improvement in writing. The findings revealed that the students in in the experimental group performed significantly better than the students in the control group.

This study aims to investigate the effect of peer review training on the Iranian EFL students' subsequent revision in an advanced writing class in Larestan Islamic Azad University. After 12 weeks class demonstration, teacher-reviewer conferences with 20 male and female students, the students' first drafts, revisions, and reviewers' comments were collected and compared the comments before and after peer review training. The findings revealed that the students incorporated significantly more comments into subsequent revisions after peer review training. Therefore, peer review training had a positive effect on the students' subsequent revisions.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to a better understanding of how prepositions are used. One of the grammatical features of contrastive analysis is preposition. In English there are more prepositions than in Persian. The contrastive analysis of this paper is focused on two English prepositions: "of" and "from." These prepositions are used in many situations, but most of the time the learners get confused. They don't know the correct usage in a context. This study defined the prepositions "of" and "from" based on two dictionaries. Understanding these definitions help EFL learners to decrease their mistakes in using this group of prepositions. As the study will show, their usage differs in certain contexts.

The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of storytelling in improving English vocabulary learning among children in kindergarten. Twenty Iranian children (9 boys and 11 girls) in a private kindergarten in Kerman, Iran, were the participants of the study. All of the children were five years old and were taught English with the same teacher in a class in a kindergarten. The design of the study was one group pre-test post-test quasi experimental design. Both pre and post-tests included 20 vocabulary picture items taken from a story book teaching in the kindergarten. The statistical analysis revealed that storytelling was effective in increasing vocabulary learning among kindergarten children.

Since age plays an important role in learning a second or foreign language, the present study investigated how different students in different age groups used language learning strategies. The participants of this study were 94 Iranian EFL students from four educational levels and different age groups as, primary (10-12), guidance (13-15), high school (16- 18), and university students (19-23). The Strategy Inventory for Language Learning was used as an instrument in the study. The results revealed that different age groups used different language learning strategies. Running a one-way ANOVA indicated a significant difference between age groups and using language learning strategies. Moreover, the outcomes of this study showed that in comparison with other learning strategies, compensation strategies used more frequently by guidance, high school, and university students. Among different learning strategies, social and affective strategies were used more frequently by university students. Therefore, teachers should consider age group preferences for using language learning strategies and adjust their teaching in a way to meet the students' needs in learning a second or foreign language.

The current study aimed at investigating the differences between male and female Iranian students in using different learning strategies. The participants of the study included 60 Iranian EFL students (30 male and 30 female) in Islamic Azad University in Larestan branch. The results of this study revealed that the frequency of using different learning strategies were different for the students. In this case, memory strategies were the most frequent and cognitive strategies were the least frequent strategies used by the students. However, there were significant differences between male and female students in the use of different learning strategies. In fact, female students were the ones who were using language learning strategies more often.

The current study described the uses of smart boards in English as foreign language (EFL) classrooms. This study also investigated the role of smart boards in promoting student engagement, the benefits of smart boards for teachers, using smart boards for improving motivation, and smart boards in the service of linguistic and cultural elements. The review of previous studies revealed that smart boards are very innovative and powerful support for language acquisition. Moreover, they increased learning process.

With the advent of technology, the implication of authentic multimedia-based teaching materials are using widely in language classrooms. Technology can be in service of teaching different skills such as listening, reading, speaking and writing. Among these skills listening comprehension is a skill in which the learners have problems to master. Regarding this issue, utilizing captions for the education purposes has been a good motivation for conducting some research on the effects of captions of listening skills. However, it seems that there is a gap in the literature whether to use captioned movies in the classroom and whether they are effective in improving listening comprehension. Many studies have been conducted on this issue. However, their findings are conclusive. While some studies refer to the effectiveness of using captions, others revel that they are not so effective for improving the learner's language skills. Hence, the present study is a review of the effects of captioned movies on the improvement of listening skill. In this case, the findings of this study can clarify the role of using captioned movies in improving the listening skill.

This study aimed at investigating the attitudes of Iranian EFL students towards teachers' motivation and classroom strategy in English classroom. The subjects of the study included a sample of 235 students in their classes. The findings of this study revealed that teachers' motivation and classroom strategy used by teachers have effects on the students' motivation.

This study aimed to evaluate an ESP textbook in terms of McDonough and Shaw (2003) based on external and internal evaluation. The ESP textbook was "Special English for Computer Sciences" (2010) by Hojjat Baghban. This study also discussed the external evaluation and a detailed evaluation of a chapter of the ESP textbook. This ESP textbook was designed for teaching to students of computer sciences in the department of computer sciences in "Islamic Azad University," Larestan Iran. This evaluation revealed that the ESP textbook would be appropriate with some modifications and also with some additional materials to meet the needs of the students of computer sciences.

Learning a second language for Iranian students may not be simple at all parts, and it may be difficult for them, especially in some parts that is different from their first language principles. One of these parts is Metaphor, which is different in most languages according to their culture and history. This article is a kind of comparative study which aimed to describe some differences between English and Persian interpretation of animal metaphor. We have three categorizations for animal metaphors and different examples according to cultures of both languages.

Testing subject has many subsets and connections. One important issue is how to assess or measure students or learners. What would be our tools, what would be our style, what would be our goal and so on. So in this paper the author attended to the style of testing in school and other educational settings. Since the purposes of educational system have been changed, there have been some inevitable changes in testing style. Therefore, in recent years, computer-based testing (CBT) has grown in popularity and will likely become the primary mode for delivering tests in the future. So different aspects of computer-based tests and paper-and-pencil based tests like motivation, anxiety and students' performance with different styles will be reviewed in this paper.

Communication is an important skill, but how do we, as teachers, teach this to our students? This question will present many challenges to the course designer. We all know that language is the means of communication among human beings and it is necessary for second language learners to take control of communication. So, designing the courses for communication will be placed in a special place. Among the communication ways, conversation with oral language is an easy way. Making a conversation is an ability that appeared from breaking the speaking ability into its sub-skills. Communicative competence of learners includes this ability. Course designer and textbook writers have to focus on different dimensions of this skill and pay attention to the conditions of their learners in different societies. Formats of the syllabus have many types in relation to the given guidelines, tasks types, or other features. One of them is Topic-based syllabus. We focus on it and its relation to the communication skills and their common issues. Topic-based instruction model means that using four skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) in an integrated manner and use these in an inter-related manner to improve all the skills. So, in this paper, we will be talk about the approaches and the views of investigators about the topic-based instruction model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper presents a comparative analysis Persian and English collocation and its function. The aim of this paper is to study collocation in Persian and English and investigate how collocation is used in Persian and English and what are the differences and similarities between these two languages from this point of view. The paper investigates the different functions of collocation and their use in Persian and English. Collocations are one of the areas that produce problems for learners of English as a foreign language. Iranian learners of English are by no means an exception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]