the present study was an attempt to determine the types of motivation and levels of foreign language learning anxiety among efl students studying at azad and state universities in kermanshah and to determine the relationship between these two factors and language proficiency and gender. to this end, the foreign language learning motivation scale, by deci and ryan )1985(, were administered to 12...

this thesis is a study on insurance fraud in iran automobile insurance industry and explores the usage of expert linkage between un-supervised clustering and analytical hierarchy process(ahp), and renders the findings from applying these algorithms for automobile insurance claim fraud detection. the expert linkage determination objective function plan provides us with a way to determine whi...

the present dissertation aims to investigate four-word lexical bundles in applied linguistics research articles by iranian and internationally-published writers. the aims of this study are two-fold: first of all, attempts have been made to create a comprehensive list of the most commonly used four-word lexical bundles categorized by their type and token frequency, their structural characteristi...

the purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between fear of negative evaluation (fne) and communication strategies (css) among iranian efl learners. it was aimed to examine the differences in the use of communication strategies between speakers with high or low degree of fear of negative evaluation. the current study was a case study consisting of 10 english learners at...

hedging is a multi-purpose rhetorical strategy which is usually used in scientific arguments to secure ratification of claims, reduce the risk of negation, avoid conflict, manage disagreement and leave room for the audience to assess presented information. hedges are frequently used in research articles to mitigate the findings of research endeavors. the present research aims to investigate the...

abstract this study examines the relationship between reading anxiety and difficulty of texts as well as the relationship between reading anxiety and students perceived difficulty of the texts. since difficulty is a relative concept, i limited its definition by sticking to the readability formula. we also took students perceived difficulty levels into account. therefore, in the present study, ...

testing plays a vital role in any language teaching program. it allows teachers and stakeholders, including program administrators, parents, admissions officers and prospective employers to be assured that the learners are progressing according to an accepted standard (douglas, 2010). the problems currently facing language testers have both practical and theoretical implications but the first i...

the world wide web becomes very popular recently and plays an influential role in english learning. by burgeoning role of source-based writing as partial fulfillment of tefl courses and vast use of the internet, lack of empirical studies to explore these areas is obvious. this study aimed to explore the effect of the amount of familiarity with the web (internet literacy) on junior english stude...

critical thinking ability has an important role in education. accordingly, scholars around the world are searching for new ways for teaching and improving students critical thinking ability. in line with the studies in efl contexts supporting the positive relationship between critical thinking and writing performances, this study investigated the differential effects of halverson’s critical thi...

abstract the main purpose of this study was to investigate whether there was any significant difference between the speaking achievement of learners who were trained by means of consciousness raising of sociolinguistic skills and that of learners who were trained without the above mentioned task. the participants of this study consist of 60 intermediate level students participating languag...