مهرشاد احمدیان

This study explored Iranian learners’ perceptions of the effect of context, cognitive, metacognitive, procedural and motivational scaffolding on their listening comprehension, listening anxiety and metacognitive awareness. To this end, a grounded theory design was used using a semi-structured interview to collect the data. The participants consisted of 25 Iranian female intermediate EFL learners who were voluntarily selected from a language institute. Data analysis was conducted through thematic analysis of the interview data. According to the results, the following themes were extracted for the effect of context scaffolding: Reducing Listening Anxiety, Increasing Willingness to Learn Listening, and Enhancing Listening Skill. Moreover, Making Listening Learning Quicker, Increasing Control over Listening, and Increasing Attention were extracted for the effect of cognitive scaffolding. Further, for the effect of metacognitive scaffolding, the following themes were extracted: Increasing Self-Confidence, Increasing Autonomy, and Increasing Enjoyment. Additionally, the themes related to the effect of procedural scaffolding were Enhancing Teacher-Students Relations, Enhancing Problem-Solving Ability, and Enhancing Reflective Behavior. Finally, Increasing Motivation, Increasing Learner Interest, and Increasing Learner Engagement were extracted for the effect of motivational scaffolding. The results have some implications for EFL teachers, learners and curriculum planners.

This review article examines the underpinning of the little-researched, influential elements that create linguistic injustice in the specific contexts of linguistic imperialism through standardization. To this end, with a review of critical views that includes argumentation and discussion of theoretical and empirical studies, we further aim to highlight linguistic injustice in writing for publishing. The domination of the English language as a lingua academia has not happened neutrally and can create unjust and unequal situations. In knowledge construction, the prosperity of researchers and academics is tied to international publication, and this action supports globalization, individualism, and standardization in favor of native English users. The domination of the English language in academic settings may be a hegemonic practice of native Anglophones to maintain power.  In this review, we underline the possibilities for privileged communities to pinpoint linguistic inequality and injustice.  The nature of academia should be liberal and liberating; however, in reality, academic settings are politically partisan and at the service of the powerful and wealthy. Still, there is slim hope that the system can change, and one of such profound changes may happen with equal access to resources and mentors for marginalized communities. In this case, the minorities’ voices may also be heard and respected globally.

The advent of postmethod pedagogy has completely changed today's conceptualization of language teachers, and the importance of powerful teaching has increasingly gained momentum in the field of TESOL. However, contemporary English language teaching contexts suffer a dearth of a workable package to educate the much-needed autonomous postmethod language teachers who are able to have their own contextualized praxis. As such, the present research aims to nurture the required self-growth and self-development in language teachers through forming collaborative professional and critical discussion circles. Enjoying a mixed method research design whose quantitative section included a quasi-experimental design consisting of three phases--a pretest, an educational 12-week long treatment phase, and a posttest--the results of the study gained by two instruments, namely, the reflective teaching questionnaire developed by Akbari et al. (2010) and two similar language teaching episodes, bore witness to the significant changes in the level of reflectiveness of all 13 language teachers who partook in these discussion circles. Developmentally speaking, participating language teachers were found to initiate the whole process, direct it, and finally evaluate the new experiences further along the road. Hence the ideals of teacher development, self-growth and personal development, were accomplished through the study.