Promoting mental health literacy in female students: A school-based educational intervention

Background and objective: Considering the worldwide increase in mental health problems among adolescents and the hypothetical positive impact of mental health literacy (MHL) on mental health promotive behaviours, this study examined the effect of a MHL intervention in a sample of Iranian high school students. Design: Educational intervention with a pretest–posttest and control group design conducted among Iranian high school students in 2019. Setting: Four public schools in Shiraz, Iran. Methods: In this study, 220 students (110 in each intervention and control group) were selected using the cluster multi-stage sampling and participated in the study. Participants completed the adolescent MHL questionnaire at two stages (pretest and posttest). A training programme which comprised six 60- to 90-minutes sessions using collaborative learning techniques and printed materials was conducted with the experimental group. Data were subjected to covariance analysis. Results: No significant differences were found between study groups regarding demographic and MHL scores before the intervention. After completing the training programme, the intervention group showed a significant improvement in MHL and subscale scores ( p < .01). Covariance analysis confirmed an improvement of MHL in the intervention group after controlling for pretest scores but not in the control group. Conclusion: Study findings demonstrated the efficacy of the training intervention to improve adolescents’ MHL. Further research is recommended to examine the effects of the same intervention among boys and longer-term outcomes.

A Breath of Fresh Air into Iranian English Textbooks Evaluation of English Textbook “Vision2” for Iranian High School Students from Teachers’ Perspectives

The Purpose of this study was to investigate the appropriateness of newly developed Iranian high school English textbook “Vision2” from teachers’ points of view. 25 male and female high school English teachers were randomly selected from Hormozgan province, Iran to participate in the study. The evaluation of textbook was conducted quantitatively through a 3-points Likert scale checklist which was proposed by Dr. Montasser Mohamed AbdelWahab (2013). The data was subjected to analysis through descriptive statistics. Findings indicated that although the book has some strong sides, teachers pointed to major weaknesses in textbook in terms of lack of glossary list, shortage of time to cover the stated objectives and a need to recycling the newly learned vocabularies in subsequent lessons. In the light of these findings, the researcher reported some recommendations to address the slight drawbacks of the English language textbook for 11th grade. The findings of the study would be useful for teachers and material developers.

Teaching English Pragmatic Features in EFL Context: A Focus on Request Speech Acts

This study attempted to explore the possible impacts of teaching English pragmatic features to Iranian high school students’ use of request speech acts. To this end, a sample of Iranian female high school students (n=50) between 12 to 18 years range of age participated in the study. The students with the same level of proficiency were assigned into two experimental and control groups. The data were collected by administering Multiple-Choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT) as both the pre and the post-tests. The pragmatic features were selected from the high school English textbooks and the excerpts taken from the Top Notch series (2A, 3A, 2B). With the focus on request speech acts, the control group received conventional instructions whereas the experimental group was exposed to the researchers’ request speech act interventions. After statistical analysis of the findings, the data revealed that teaching pragmatic features has significant impact on the Iranian high school students’ performance on request speech acts. Besides, the overall responses by the experimental group showed that indirect request speech acts were more widely used than direct request speech acts as the sign of social and cultural politeness.