زهره محمدی زنوزق

Abstract Recent developments in mobile technologies are exerting considerable influence on the students’ daily lives and their educational practices. In this regard, mobile assisted reading in language education is gaining increased attention. Within these lines on inquiry, the current study investigated foreign language reading anxiety in mobile learning environment. The data were collected from 50 Iranian EFL learners, divided into control and experimental groups. The participants in the control group were given the reading materials on paper and used traditional materials, while the control group used mobile devices to read the assigned texts. Both groups participated in reading comprehension tests before and after the treatment. The findings revealed that mobile assisted reading in English contributed significantly to anxiety reduction among the learners, nevertheless, its impacts on comprehension were insignificant. The findings have some implications for teaching EFL reading, and contributes to growing body of knowledge in mobile assisted reading.

The growing literature on teacher professional development emphasizes the positive contribution of teacher engagement to the professional development of teachers. However, scant attention was given to the relationship between this concept and teacher ecological agency as one of the potential factors influencing teacher engagement and in turn professional development. To fill this research gap, a sample of 369 EFL teachers from different institutes in Iran selected through convenience sampling participated in this study. The required data was collected by administering two questionnaires: The teacher ecological agency questionnaire and the teacher engagement questionnaire. The relationship between teachers’ ecological agency and teachers’ engagement and their underlying components were investigated through structural equation modeling (SEM) and Pearson correlation. The outcomes of SEM revealed a significant association between teachers’ ecological agency and engagement. The Pearson correlation results indicated that all three components of teacher ecological agency are correlated significantly with all five components of teacher engagement. The highest degree of correlation was found between emotional engagement and practical-evaluative agency (.711), agentic engagement, and practical-evaluative agency (.705) and cognitive engagement and practical-evaluative agency (.692). The pedagogical implications of this study enhance the efficiency of the educational system and teachers’ professional development.