Zohreh Rasekh Eslami

Texas A&M University | TAMU · Department of Teaching, Learning and Culture

This study investigates parents' perceptions of bilingual education in a metropolitan independent school district and examines how parents' perceptions vary depending on their length of stay in the U.S., educational and income levels. Nine-hundred fifty nine parents' survey responses were collected , whose children participate in bilingual programs...

When Nepal promulgated a new constitution in 2015, discourse around the ‘New Nepal’, post-monarchical rule, was powerful; the new constitution was perceived as a landmark text to provide a clear vision for New Nepal’s overall development. The poor state of Dalits’ human rights and educational realities were widely cited as critical issues requiring...

Despite Nepal’s huge linguistic diversity, maintaining minority languages and providing the mother tongue-based education to non-dominant language children are Nepal’s two major obstacles. Scholars have pointed to a negative consequence of the standard language ideology on non-dominant language maintenance and mother tongue-based schooling. Using t...

Racism in TESOL and other academic fields is nothing new, nor are discussions on the topic. However, a majority of the racist encounters discussed in existing literature report on the negative experiences of language teachers and/or students. An area that has historically been ignored and is long due exploration is the negative experiences of nonna...

i>The main goal of adult English as a second language (ESL) education in the United States is to expand learners’ employment opportunities through traditional teaching methods with textbooks and fixed, pre-determined syllabi, which may or may not align with learners’ personal goals. Many studies compare different adult ESL teaching methods by langu...

Technical vocabulary acquisition holds paramount significance within academic and professional contexts. This research delves into the transformative potential of Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) in facilitating university students' mastery of technical words. The study examined the efficacy of digital flashcards (DFs) compared to tradition...

Pre-service teacher professional development could assume an urgent part in raising teaching quality and learning outcomes. Evolving technologies allow for new and different forms of professional development. However, teacher professional development opportunities are limited and outcomes are controversial. In this study, to capture the challenges...

This special issue continues the discussion of the impact of culture on identity, communication, politeness, and discourse strategies (see Russian Journal of Linguistics 22 (4) 2018, 23 (4) 2019, 24 (2) 2020). The topic has become particularly relevant in the context of two multidirectional processes, i.e., globalization resulting from current geop...

Abstract The current interpretive study aimed to characterize the (non-)ritual, phatic clusters of speech acts that conventionally recur around the opening/closing phases of Persian speaking students' social encounters or occur during the core (or ‘business’) phase of natural interactions as small talk in Persian. The study was conducted in Iran's...

Emergentist, usage-based L2 research has witnessed that emphasizing formulaic sequences as entry points in meaning-based instructional contexts contributes to the development of linguistic comprehension and production. Related studies have thus far striven to find the most effective methods of highlighting these word strings. This study explored th...

This paper explored and analyzed features of English pronunciation that could cause intelligibility problems for Nepali English learners (ELs), who use English as a foreign language (EFL) or English as a second language (ESL). We examined the Nepali ELs' pronunciation issues by juxtaposing them with comparable segmental and suprasegmental features...

This study investigated negotiations for meaning as conditions for second language (L2) learning in the context of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, World of Warcraft (WoW) (Blizzard Entertainment, 2004). Varonis and Gass's (1985) and Smith's (2003a) models were used to identify negotiation episodes during on-task and off-task talks...

There has been ongoing research contrasting online vs. Face-To-Face (FTF) interactions for more than a decade. This study fills the gap in the literature considering FTF vs. online contexts by comparing the norms and patterns of complimenting in Persian and explores the complimenting strategies, syntactic patterns, and internal and external modifie...

Pragmatic competence consists of both pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic components. The choice of pragmalinguistic strategies aligned with sociopragmatic norms may vary based on situational, cultural, and individual variables. The relationship between these important aspects of second language pragmatic competence, however, is underdeveloped in t...

This study examines the role of transcription and ideation, the dimensions in the Simple View of Writing, as predictors of narrative and expository writing of English language learners (ELLs). Data were collected from sixth-grade primary school ELL students (N = 56) in Taiwan. Two writing samples, a narrative and an expository, were collected and s...

Recent scholarship has viewed fatherhood from a variety of angles of encounter. In this paper studies that focus on the trope of authoritarian fatherhood in the Arab World were reviewed; extensive variability emerged as to what constitutes authoritarian parenting as well as how it is experienced by children. The authors conclude that current schola...

Language negotiations facilitate second language acquisition (SLA) in both face-to-face (FTF) and computer-mediated interactions. Research shows that dyadic type can impact the quantity and quality of negotiations. Although both learner (L)-learner and native speaker (NS)-L dyadic type interactions have shown to be beneficial to SLA, it is still un...

Recently, researchers have called for more teacher education programs to embrace a practice-based framework for teacher education (PBTE) centered around core practices, but few studies have examined the impact of PBTE beyond coursework, particularly as it influences the instruction of emergent bilinguals. This qualitative case study follows the cli...

Recent second or foreign language (L2) research has shown that integration of form-focused instruction into collaborative, communicative activity is highly influential. Sociocultural theory (SCT) provides a praxis-oriented educational ecosystem wherein L2 grammatical knowledge and practical use can be effectively linked. This SCT-inspired study exa...

To expand the literature on the rather new concept of student burnout, the present study examined the influence of teacher immediacy and stroke variables on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students' experience of burnout. To fulfill this aim, a group of 631 undergraduate EFL students from various universities in Iran answered questionnaires inc...

In this systematic literature review, we synthesize and critically analyze information from publications between 2010 and 2020 that answer the following overarching research question: What does being (or not being) advocates for English learner (EL) students look like for EL teachers? Findings indicate that EL teachers’ backgrounds and characterist...

This study utilizes a systematic review approach to examine current research in content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and English-medium instruction (EMI). Studies were examined for their use of language-related and content-related writing measurement and outcomes. Findings on CLIL/EMI writing measurement shows that studies have utilized...

Given the importance of complimenting and responding to compliments in everyday interactions, several studies have investigated the strategies used to compliment and also to respond to compliments. This systematic study offers a thorough review of research on Compliment Responses (CRs) in the Persian language conducted over the past three decades....

Transnational higher education (TNHE), often based on export models of Western-based universities and driven by neoliberal market economy agendas, has spread across the globe. One example of TNHE is Qatar’s Education City where six prestigious American international branch campuses (IBCs) all administer their degrees through English medium instruct...

Research in educational program administration provides insights into the operationalization of programs or organizational services; however, an area of research that is long due exploration and development is how English language programs (ELPs) differ in terms of planning, organization and services and the job English language program administrat...

Conversational implicatures (CIMs) are implied by the speaker in context rather than being linguistically encoded, and learners’ inability to infer the intended meaning, if not remedied through instruction (or mediation), leads to communication breakdowns. Given this premise, the current study aimed to examine effects of classroom praxis-based inst...

Despite the significant role of emotions in any aspect of language learning, including its pragmatic aspect, there has been few research studies on this topic. As a stride toward narrowing this research nitche, the objectives of this research were threefold. Firstly, it aimed to examine the two face-threatening speech acts of request and apology as...

Vocabulary development is critical for second language (L2) learners in both English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. Recently, a large body of research has been dedicated to how computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) can facilitate vocabulary knowledge in...

This study examined student attitudes toward the use of Arabic in English-medium instruction (EMI) in an international branch campus (IBC) in Qatar. A questionnaire was used to elicit attitudes of 57 engineering students (44 Arabic L1; 13 non-Arabic L1) taking EMI courses. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, a one-sample t-test, and a...

Although the effectiveness of computer-mediated collaborative writing (CMCW) is confirmed by many recent studies, only a few have investigated whether linguistic knowledge and writing skills learned through collaboration can be internalized and transferred to individual writing. This study uses a pre-and post-test design to investigate the impact o...

Translanguaging has recently been promoted as a socially just and academically beneficial way to teach English language learners, however, there is an absence of research on the compelling ways bilingual families in the United States flexibly apply their entire linguistic repertoire when reading, particularly within shared readings. The present stu...

This study examined the efficacy beliefs of nonnative English speaking (NNES) Iranian EFL teachers. EFL teachers' perceptions of their teaching efficacy in terms of personal capabilities to teach English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and their perceived English language proficiency level were examined. A modified version of the Teacher Sense of Effic...

This study deals with the application of the pragmatics research to EFL teaching. The study explored the effect of explicitmetapragmatic instruction on the speech act comprehension of advanced EFL students. The speech acts of requesting,apologizing, and complaining were selected as the focus of teaching. Teacher-fronted discussions, cooperative gro...

Bilingual education is spreading throughout the world as an approach for teaching content and language simultaneously. This is particularly true in Taiwan where implementation of bilingual education has begun as directed by the Blueprint for Developing Taiwan into a Bilingual Nation by 2030. However, the spread of bilingual education is often coupl...

This study examines female–male differences in English writing outcomes for Taiwanese primary school learners enrolled in a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) program. Narrative and expository writing samples of 212 primary school students (Male = 103, Female = 109) in Taiwan were collected and scored using several measures including s...

International students bring academic, cultural, and economic value to universities around the world. However, adjustments for these students can be difficult as a result of culture shock, resulting in early exit from the university. In order to help inform university personnel on how to better assist international students, this study examines the...

Game-based learning (GBL) defines an environment where game content and game play enhance knowledge and skills acquisition, and where game activities include problem solving spaces and challenges that provide learners with a sense of achievement (Qian & Clark, 2016). The findings of review studies on GBL indicate that GBL can facilitate knowledge a...

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) was proposed by the European Network of Administrators, Researchers and Practitioners (EUROCLIC) in the 1990s. CLIL refers to “any dual-focused educational context in which an additional language, thus not usually the first language of the learners involved, is used as a medium in the teaching and lea...

There are various definitions of pragmatics in the literature emphasizing different dimensions of this construct. One of the most encompassing definitions is provided by (LoCastro in An introduction to pragmatics: Social action for language teachers, The University of Michigan Press, 2003). She defines pragmatics broadly as: “the study of speaker a...

English-Medium Instruction (EMI) is defined by Macaro, Curle, Pun, An, and Dearden (2017) as “the use of the English language to teach academic subjects in countries or jurisdictions where the first language of the majority of the population is not English” (Macaro et al., 2017, p. 37). EMI is distinguished from other content-based approaches for h...

This systematic review examines whether the use of children’s literature in EFL classrooms supports the 4Cs of CLIL—content, communication, cognition, and culture. Previous research has shown many benefits for using children’s literature in English-dominant classroom settings, but it seems little attention has been given to its use in EFL contexts...

Language and Ideology is an area of critical discourse analysis that has increasingly gained importance in the linguistic sciences. The vast influence of the media has provided a need for the explicit analysis of common linguistic mechanisms, particularly those in political discourse. Codeswitching, general pattern in a speech community of switchin...

Compliments (Cs) and compliment responses have been a prevailing topic of study in pragmatics due to their pivotal role in effective intercultural and transcultural interactions. This paper provides a comprehensive survey of research on compliments in the Persian language conducted over almost about the past four decades. It summarizes key findings...

The present volume focuses on complimenting behavior, including the awarding of (self-)praise, as manifested on social media. These commonplace activities have been found to fulfil a wide range of functions in face-to-face interaction, discoursal and relational amongst others. However, even though the giving of compliments and praise has become a p...

1. Introduction One of the main roles compliments play is to “grease the social wheels” and serve as “social lubricants” (Wolfson 1983: 89). Moreover, through the expression of admiration and approval, compliments serve to “create or maintain rapport” (Wolfson 1983: 86) and to negotiate and consolidate solidarity between complimenter and compliment...

The present chapter focuses on the level of proficiency needed by nonnative English speaking teachers (NNESTs) to be effective teachers. It is argued that conventional definitions that associate general English proficiency do not address the type of classroom language teachers need in order to teach effectively. Suggestions on how NNESTs can enhanc...

The present study investigates variability among raters from different linguistic backgrounds, who evaluated the pragmatic performance of English language learners with varying native languages (L1s) by using both self- and peer-assessments. To this end, written discourse completion task (WDCT) samples of requesting speech acts from 10 participants...

In recent years Qatar’s higher education system has undergone major changes as a result of an ambitious educational reform movement within the country. While this movement has brought in numerous foreign branch campuses that opened up academic opportunities that had not previously existed, it also has created some discord between the values of loca...

This meta-analysis examines how components of the Simple View of Writing contribute to writing development for English second-language (L2) learners. Previous studies examining first-language learners suggest that transcription and ideation may predict writing achievement. In order to investigate whether these components similarly contribute to L2...

Researchers and educators in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) have long been interested in the role of corrective feedback (CF) in language teaching and learning (Cohen, 1975, 2018; Ellis, Loewen, & Erlam, 2006). The main goal is to explore how to provide CF, the kind of feedback to provide, when, and by whom in order to facilitate le...

In this chapter, we argue that a principle-based ethical opposition to translanguaging, the use of multiple languages simultaneously, may not be in the best interest of IBC students. In contrast to principle-based ethics, we propose that instructors should be driven and guided by the philosophy of ethical caring (Noddings, 2013) in their decisions...

It is substantiated that particular features of pragmatics are teachable, and instruction is both necessary and effective. Determining what kind of intervention is most effectual for facilitating learners' pragmatic development has been a central issue for researchers. To respond to the inconclusive findings in intervention studies and to extend th...

From Speech Acts to Lay Understandings of Politeness - edited by Eva Ogiermann July 2019

In this telecollaboration project, engineering students enrolled in a semester-long multicultural education course at a higher education institution in Qatar engaged online with pre-service teachers simultaneously enrolled in the same course in the USA. Learning community dyads including students from both institutions were formed. Cross-cultural c...

In order to raise global profiles of universities, governments around the world have pushed universities to offer English medium instruction (EMI) courses. While research examining the attitudes toward EMI has been conducted in various countries, these studies generally look at a single university and rarely examine attitudes between countries or r...

The growth of English worldwide has brought about myriad variations of the language, but many teachers in the United States are still relatively unfamiliar with these World Englishes (WE). Pre-service teachers must be made aware of the legitimacy of WE to become culturally responsive educators. We will describe six different activities designed to...

Translanguaging, as an approach to language, bilingualism, and bilingual education, considers all linguistic resources available to learners without partitioning their use and is essential for promoting student learning in the twenty-first century. Knowledge of university students’ beliefs about language use must be uncovered and examined; however,...

Applied Pragmatics aims to enhance research on acquisitional pragmatics and hence accepts studies which have strong implications for teaching, learning, and assessing L2 pragmatics, including L2 English and other languages. We encourage submissions from a wide range of topics falling within the scope of the journal. The topics can be approached fro...

This study examined the effectiveness of incidental focus on form in facilitating second language learning for learners of different proficiency levels in a synchronous computer-mediated communication environment. Sixteen native speaker (NS)-nonnative speaker (NNS) dyads and fourteen NNS-NNS dyads were formed. The participants completed two communi...

With continuous advances in communication, technology, and increased mobility, intercultural communication competence has become an essential element to address in foreign and second language education (Kramsch, 2013, Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013). This paper proposes a pedagogical approach to intercultural language education that utilizes the student...

Abstract This paper aims to explain survey findings regarding disaster recovery processes among ethnic groups in a rural Texas community. The research was conducted over a 4-year period with most of the survey data collected over the summer of 2004. The research was descriptive in nature, attempting to document processes and sources of recovery aid...

While there has been a lot of recent research on teachers’ translanguaging practices in K-12 educational contexts, research on teachers’ translanguaging practices in higher education is sparse, and even more so within the contexts of internationalized higher education, such as found in the Arab states of the Gulf. Over the last two decades, there h...

This study explores if service - learning significantly improves preservice teachers’ efficacy with English learners ( ELs ) . Furthermore, we examine if service - learning sites significantly differ in developing efficacy during service - learning . Two hundred preservice teachers served in three ELs location types: PreK - 12, intensive Engl...

This review examines the second language acquisition (SLA) literature with regard to the role of “massively multiplayer online games” (MMOGs) in second language (L2) learning. It focuses on commercially developed off-the-shelf (COTS) MMOGs only (some of them modified for educational purposes such as Reinders’ & Wattana’s work). It surveys the curre...

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the influence of Iranian EFL learners’ previously acquired capitals on their foreign language achievement. For this purpose, the Social and Cultural Capital Questionnaire (SCCQ) and Emotional Capital Questionnaire (ECQ) were administered to 403 participants. Application of structural equation model...

Prior research has documented cross-cultural differences in Western and East Asian societies as reflected in their language use patterns. Research also shows that people with bilingual and bicultural competency can flexibly change their language use patterns in response to different cultural contexts (Canagarajah, 2013). In this paper, we studied c...

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 interpers...

Despite the rising number of linguistically diverse students in countries where English is the primary medium of instruction in schools, there is a relative lack of research on how these students learn to write in English and respond to common classroom literacy practices. One practice found in early childhood classrooms is literacy-enriched play,...

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate how culture impacts recipients’ perceptions of the effectiveness of a public apology (Netflix apology). Data was collected through a survey instrument that included both Likert Scale items and short response items. A selected number of participants from each group were also interviewed. Quantitat...

This chapter reports on a study of the effectiveness of interaction in synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) context by comparing the nature of negotiations between learners of different proficiency levels in different dyadic types (NS/NNS and NNS/NNS). Dyads performed two tasks using textual SCMC interactions. Language-related episode...

The language proficiency of non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) is an issue that continues to gain significance as NNESTs become a focus of research in TESOL and Applied Linguistics. With the still controversial NNEST status, the field has realized that it has yet to investigate and address the issues of NNESTs, including language profici...

Trying to acquire and maintain power, politicians make use of certain rhetorical and linguistic devices to persuade voters in favor of their particular views constructed in the political discourse. The current study was an attempt to investigate Iranian president Hassan Rouhani’s use of persuasive rhetorical-discursive devices during his campaign f...

Despite the prominent status of world Englishes and its recognition by researchers, only few studies have been done to promote the awareness of pre-service teachers of the linguistic and cultural diversity that exists in English and its users today (e.g., Kubota, 2001; Suzuki, 2011). To bridge this gap, this study sought to reflect on how pre-se...

As English grows in popularity and usage around the world, so too does the diversity of English increase. No longer are there just two varieties of English, American and British; we now have Indian English, Chinese English, and many others. However, students and educators in the United States are still relatively unfamiliar with these varieties,...

The paper looks into discourse practices in American wedding invitations, identifying possible trends and patterns. Using predominantly genre analysis (Swales 2008) and Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclaugh 1985), the paper analyses a corpus of American wedding invitations collected between 2002-2013, identifying their discoursal characteristics,...

The purpose of this study was to explore the occurrence of incidental focus-on-form and its effect on subsequent second language (L2) production of learners of different dyads in an online task-based language learning context. The participants included Taiwanese learners of English as a foreign language at different proficiency levels, and native s...

Weak classroom instruction and low literacy levels of elementary school students are often associated with teachers who lack a basic understanding of the literacy constructs related to the English language. Is there a similar contributing factor related to the low literacy levels of young English language learners (ELLs)? What do elementary school...

The beliefs a teacher carries into the classroom are a strong predictor of behaviour and, thus, have educational implications. With more English Language Learners (ELLs) worldwide, in mainstream classrooms in English speaking countries and in content-based classes in other countries around the globe than ever before, it is essential that preservice...

Research on L2 pragmatic development forms the mainstay of many interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) inquiries. Yet exploring L2 pragmatic competence becomes an exceedingly demanding task when different constraints are brought to bear. This dilemma is due in large part to contrasting theories on interlanguage pragmatic development. From exposure to instru...

On multiple international assessments of student learning including the IEA's TIMSS and the OECD's PISA, Qatar students have performed poorly on both reading and science when compared with international peers. To counter this academic and societal challenge, NPRP 4 – 1172 - 5 – 172 “Improving Reading Skills in the Middle School Science Classroom” t...

This study aims to examine the relationship between bilingual experience and children's development of morphological and morpho-syntactic awareness. To capture both universal and language-specific bilingual effects, the study included four groups of participants: English-speaking children from a general education programme, Spanish-speaking and Eng...

This project investigated the authenticity of written DCT with request emails from students to faculty. The researchers collected 52 emails from 12 Chinese graduate students majoring in Engineering at a southwest university at the United States and categorized them into five settings (appointment, committee, registration, signature and updates). Th...