محمودرضا عطایی

The competitive academic atmosphere of the higher education worldwide along with the current trend in producing research-oriented knowledge by universities has made research publication the first priority for doctoral students. In this study, we addressed the conceptions of purpose, process, and product of publishing research articles among Iranian doctoral students of applied linguistics. To this end, thirty students were interviewed and the data were analyzed using the grounded theory approach. The findings demonstrated that doctoral students publish papers to prepare a competition-winning resume, significantly contribute to the ELT community, turn into life-long learners and problem-solvers, and fulfill their course requirements. Furthermore, with regard to the research publication process, they highlighted the role of mixed-methods in spotting real problems in context and getting their papers published in prestigious journals. Additionally, the students believed that publishing in international journals grants them the opportunity to gain international recognition, attract an international audience, receive expert quality feedback from professional reviewers, publish in journals specific in focus and scope, and avoid publishing in cheap predatory journals. Finally, the findings suggest that the doctoral students need more systematic coaching to successfully conduct and publish their research.

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses are currently well-established university programs. These courses are run independently by English Language Teaching (ELT) instructors and content instructors without any collaboration. However, ELT instructors and content instructors do not receive the same level of collegiality and social support from the organizations and students. This paper probed burnout among Iranian EAP teachers, including content instructors and ELT instructors in 28 state universities and its variations in relation to their demographic and organizational characteristics. To this aim, the Persian version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was administered to content instructors (N=185) and ELT instructors (N=86) in the state universities in Iran. The results of the study indicated that while most of EAP teachers, both content instructors and ELT instructors, had low burnout, a considerable number had mid-levels of emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment. The findings of the study also indicated that the ELT instructors had higher emotional exhaustion than the content instructors, and it was also found that the content instructors with more than 13 years of experience and the ELT instructors with more than 20 years of experience in teaching such courses had the lowest burnout. Based on the findings of the study, educational administrators are suggested to take remedial and preventive actions against EAP teachers’ burnout and enhance ELT instructors’ occupational well-being. It also seems necessary to assist EAP teachers in adapting to the requirements of teaching EAP courses through pre/in-service teacher training courses to obviate the need for extensive experience for gaining expertise in it.

This study aimed to examine the policies in the Iranian English for Academic Purposes (EAP) education and the extent to which objectives match the policies and are materialized in practice. To this end, course descriptions in the syllabi for the EAP programs were evaluated through document analysis and triangulated with the experts’ perspectives through interviews to examine the current status of EAP policy-making and practice in Iran. Seven policy areas from Kaplan and Baldauf’s (2005) language-in-education planning were chosen as the framework of the study. Based on document analysis and interviews with the experts, the similarities and discrepancies in micro and macro levels were investigated. The results showed that EAP course descriptions do not include any comments on policy and there were discrepancies in policy and practice due to such factors as lack of communication channel between the EAP stakeholders and policy-makers. Finally, the study revealed that due to deficiencies in both policy and practice and in order to reach an acceptable status, EAP programs are in dire need for reconceptualizing policy-making and practice. The findings of this study have significant implications for EAP policies and practice in the academic system of Iran.

Although the importance of reading in higher education as an index of success has been highlighted, the metacognitive knowledge or beliefs of graduate students have remained under-researched. This qualitative study reports on a study that, first, examines how graduate students of applied linguistics conceive of academic reading and academic readers in their graduate programs; second, what factors they believe can contribute to the development of those self-conceptions; and, third, if there was the possibility of adding a course on academic reading to their MA programs, how they would judge the advantages and disadvantages of such a course. In so doing, in-depth interviews were conducted with 31 graduate students at eight different universities. The findings revealed considerable changes in the participants' conceptions as the result of taking part in their graduate programs. They attributed those self-conceptions to their efforts and struggles as well as their teachers' help and guidance. Their perceptions of an academic reading course were positive. Pedagogical implications are discussed.

Teacher professional development rests on the provision of knowledge, development of skills, and change of attitudes of teacher candidates and in-service teachers. Teachers’ professional knowledge, perceptions and teaching practice contribute greatly to student learning. This study sets out to investigate the relationships and inter-relationships among professional knowledge, academic self-concept and self-reported instructional practice which was found as a research gap in the literature. Using a sample of 92 pre-service TEFL teachers in Iran, a significant positive correlation was found between professional knowledge and academic self-concept. The findings also revealed that different domains of professional knowledge are not related to each other for TEFL. Finally, the obtained results indicated that academic self-concept affected instructional practice in total and at the level of sub-dimensions while professional knowledge had an effect on the two dimensions of instructional practice, namely cognitive activation and student learning support but not on the dimension of classroom management .

With the latest paradigm shift in SLA from Cognitivism to Sociocultural Theory (SCT), more studies are carried out to investigate the efficacy of Written Corrective Feedback (WCF) through a social and cultural lens. A more recent offspring of SCT is Activity Theory which provides an explanatory framework for scrutinizing an activity in a social setting. The present study aimed at investigating the impact of Scaffolded WCF within the framework of Activity Theory on Iranian EFL learners’ writing performance in terms of reduction of the learners’ writing errors with respect to the content, vocabulary, mechanics, organization, and grammar. Finally, different types of Activity Theory-based strategic mediations (i.e. artifact, rule, community, and role mediations) Iranian EFL learners employed in their writing revisions were investigated. Accordingly, 25 Iranian university-level students, through convenient sampling, were chosen to participate in the study. The treatment they received on their writings was a graduated Scaffolding WCF in their Zone of Proximal Development in the form of both peer and teacher feedback. The findings indicated that Scaffolded WCF statistically significantly contributed to the participants’ writing performance in terms of content, vocabulary, mechanics, organization, and grammar. With respect to the mediation strategies used by the learners, it was discovered that the learners benefitted from all the available mediators although with various degrees. It is hoped that the findings of this study will promise implications for promoting a teacher/learner-friendly method of providing WCF based on SCT, which can be utilized in large classes typical of Iranian EFL university courses.

Global EFL coursebooks are used in numerous educational contexts throughout the world based on the assumption that they are the optimal source of English educational input. Their widespread use calls for a systematic analysis of these coursebooks using a framework that can reveal their defining characteristics. One such framework is the knowledge process framework, which is based on the multiliteracies pedagogy. The present study deployed this framework in an attempt to analyze seven widely taught coursebooks in the Iranian context. The findings revealed that knowledge processes of "analyzing functionally" and "applying appropriately" were more frequent in the analyzed coursebooks and the other knowledge processes were present in lower numbers. Based on the findings of the study, EFL teachers in the Iranian context are encouraged to include more activities with the knowledge processes of "analyzing critically" and "applying creatively" to address the absence of these knowledge processes while teaching the global coursebooks.

Teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses is highly demanding for EAP teachers as they are faced with diverse pedagogical and administrative challenges in such courses. This study addressed the level of burnout among EAP teachers and variations in relation to their demographic and organizational characteristics. To this aim, a demographic questionnaire along with the Persian version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was administered to 276 EAP teachers from state universities in Iran. The results revealed that a considerable number of EAP teachers reported mid-levels of personal accomplishment. Moreover, variations in degree of burnout were found among EAP teachers in relation to marital status, age, years of experience in teaching EAP and content/general English courses, educational background, and the field and number of EAP courses taught. Also, EAP teachers with different demographic and organizational characteristics who were more susceptible to burnout were identified. Finally, implications for enhancing the working conditions of EAP teachers are presented.

Culture is an indispensable part of Foreign Language Education Policy (FLEP), especially in English Language Teaching (ELT). In addition, the spread of English around the globe has resulted in English users’ tendency to embed their local culture in their English communication (Kirkpatrick, 2012). However, literature remains silent on culture representation in FLEP, especially in an ideologized country like Iran. To address this issue, due to lack of an explicit FLEP in Iran, the present study analyzed the cultural schemas addressed in the seven major national policy documents of Iran, namely 20-year National Vision, Comprehensive Science Roadmap, Support for Comprehensive Science Roadmap in the Domain of Languages, Cultural Engineering Document, National Curriculum, Fundamental Reform in Education, and Islamicization of Universities. Results of content analysis using MAXQDA Software unmasked Islamic-Iranian culture as the baseline for ELT in Iran. In order to further examine the representations and implications of ‘Islamic-Iranian culture’ hidden in the documents, open coding, axial coding, and labeling along with constant comparative procedure revealed various Islamic cultural schemas. However, very few instances of Iranian cultural schemas were unveiled. The findings were discussed in light of the hidden curriculum and the power relations behind the extracted cultural schemas

This paper explores sub-disciplinary variations and generic structure of research article introductions (RAIs) within three sub-disciplines of applied linguistics (AL); namely, English for Specific Purposes (ESP), Psycholinguistics, and Sociolinguistics, using Swales’(1990) CARS model. The corpus consisted of 90 RAIs drawn from a wide range of refereed journals in the corresponding sub-disciplines. The results indicate sub-disciplinary variation in the structure of this genre in terms of Move 2 / step 1B that can be justified through the concepts of ‘established’ versus ‘emerging’ fields. The findings underline the need for further in-depth research into sub-disciplinary variation and generic structure of RAIs. The results also promise pedagogical implications for ESP/EAP practitioners, course administrators as well as material developers.