درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Writing is a crucial means of communication. Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners face a difficult problem in becoming proficient writers. Employing various methodologies and incorporating diverse exercises yield distinct effects on writing proficiency. The objective of this study was to examine the influence of cloze-elide and grammaticality judgment tasks on the paragraph writing proficiency of Iranian intermediate EFL learners. In order to achieve this objective, a total of 90 intermediate EFL learners who were enrolled in a private language institute in Guilan province were chosen using the availability sampling method. These learners were then divided into three groups. Initially, OPT served as the placement test. Subsequently, a preliminary assessment of writing skills was conducted among all research groups. Subsequently, experimental group 1 underwent 10 sessions of English paragraph writing using cloze-elide tasks, experimental group 2 underwent 10 sessions of English paragraph writing using grammaticality judgment tasks, and the control group received a placebo in the form of English paragraph writing using the existing method. Finally, a posttest of writing was given to the three groups in the study. The findings of a repeated-measures two-way ANOVA indicate that introducing a new task, either cloze-elide or grammaticality judgment, can enhance the performance of EFL learners in paragraph writing abilities.

Listening anxiety is the feeling of apprehension that learners might experience when trying to comprehend information from others. This anxiety associated with listening comprehension has been a significant focus of academic research for the past few decades. Foreign language listening anxiety (FLLA) can be triggered by different factors, including affective pressure, cognitive load, or communication disorders. However, there is a lack of appropriate conceptual models to accurately pinpoint the sources of anxiety related to listening. This research introduces a novel model in a non-experimental correlation research design to scrutinize the efficacy of cultural intelligence (CQ) and reflective thinking (RT) in predicting the source of FLLA among EFL learners. To accomplish this, a sample of 250 EFL students was administered the three scales for the constructs under study. In terms of the statistical analysis, structural equation modeling (SEM) was run to examine the fit of the conceptual model. The findings showed that both CQ and RT affect FLLA. However, RT was a stronger predictor of FLLA than CQ. Notably, critical reflection was found to be the strongest predictor of FLLA in the RT. Besides, both cognitive and behavioral dimensions equally influenced FLLA for CQ. Lastly, the results and implications for reducing FLLA are discussed.

Teacher assessment identity (TAI) is an integral element of quality assessment practice and professionalism, which has been widely overlooked in teacher education research. To bridge this gap, the present study explored the dynamism of TAI through an explicit training course. To do so, 22 novice and experienced Iranian EFL teachers completed a questionnaire on TAI before and after the course. Then both novice and experienced teachers attended a 16-hour treatment in which various assessment dimensions were taught. The participants also completed tasks reflecting TAI components. Moreover, five novice and five experienced EFL teachers were interviewed. The results of the independent samples t-test indicated that novice and experienced Iranian EFL teachers did not significantly differ regarding their assessment identity before and after the treatment despite improvements in their mean scores. However, the results of paired samples t-test revealed that the formal intervention has developed the TAI of both novice and experienced groups. This was substantiated by qualitative findings which demonstrated that, owing to the training, novice teachers manifested TAI in 16 domains while experienced teachers showed their identity as assessors in five domains. The study offers promising implications for EFL teachers and trainers, who can realize the dynamism of TAI and its core dimensions in light of instruction.

Motivated by the growing significance of research on language teacher emotion regulation, the present study investigated the contributions of an online asynchronous teacher education initiative to L2 teachers’ emotion regulation. Drawing on Gross’ (1998, 2015) model of emotion regulation, the data gathered from interviews with four teachers prior to and after the course, their reflective narratives, online discussions, and class observations were qualitatively analyzed. The analyses pointed to the microgenetic development of teachers in terms of the incremental learning and application of the course content (i.e., emotion regulation) to their instructional practice. In other words, the participants incrementally drew on the learned strategies to up/down-regulate their emotions as English teachers. Additionally, the participant teachers tended to articulate their thoughts via reflective narratives by adopting the professional discourse, further implying the participant teachers’ access to their cognitions.

The present study aimed to investigate vowel hiatus resolution and its relation to vowel shortening in Persian and Central Kurdish within an Optimality-Theoretic framework. The results showed that both Persian and Central Kurdish ​​use glide formation through vowel shortening to resolve hiatus in certain environments. Persian has its own way to resolve vowel hiatus. The two high vowels /i/ and /u/, as a result of glide formation through vowel shortening, are changed into a short vowel and the glides /j/ and /w/, respectively. In Central Kurdish, glide formation occurs in high vowels /iː, uː/ and mid-high vowels /ēː, ōː/. In Persian, glide formation involves a quantitative reduction in the long vowel /iː/ and a quantitative and qualitative alteration in the long vowel /uː/. On the other hand, glide formation in Central Kurdish involves only a quantitative reduction in long vowels. Based on an OT analysis, the main factor in resolving vowel hiatus in both Persian and Central Kurdish is the obligatory presence of onset in the syllable structure. In contexts in which glide formation occurs through vowel shortening, the ranking of the active constraints in Persian and Central Kurdish is: ONSET, AGREE(place) >> MAX, DEP >> IDENT(µ).  

This is a systematic review of Translator Translation Styles from 2013 to 2023, based on 16 highly relevant articles, which are included after searching a total of 193 articles in three databases using specific keywords. This review aims to investigate the current trends and development of the four core research elements, namely, the research topics, research approaches/tools, research objects, and research trends of Translator Translation Styles. Corpus-based research and computing technology have become the core research trends in this field. By taking the translated texts as the research objects and using a variety of research approaches to analyze and compile statistics on a large number of texts, researchers can accurately identify and compare the different emphases of their respective studies on Translator Translation Styles. At present, it seems that the research on Translator Translation Styles has established a system framework. However, it still needs to be optimized and improved in some aspects (e.g., the research objects are too limited and lack innovation in types), and future research can further explore those aspects. The present paper ends with some suggestions and recommendations for future researchers in academic contexts.

In the context of language socialization, second/foreign language (L2) instruction is a crucial context for secondary socialization, especially when it takes place outside the learners’ culture of origin. This study explored how Iranian EFL learners socialize through the rules of EFL classes and how gender, parents, and native language affect their language socialization during the COVID-19 pandemic. We focused on two fundamental principles of language socialization (Lee & Bucholtz, 2015): agency and identity. In this ethnographic study, we collected the data by observing two classes in a WhatsApp group, interviewing the learners four times through Skype, asking them to write down their reflections about their class procedure, and writing our reflections about teachers-students interactions. We used Direct Qualitative Content Analysis method to analyze the data. To simplify data classification and interpretation, we utilized the MAXQDA-2020 software. The findings revealed two sub-categories for learners’ agency (talent and experience) and three sub-categories for learners’ identity (gender, parents, and native language). The results also showed that language socialization is bidirectional, and learners face forms of negotiating, accepting, or rejecting their agency and identity across this socialization process. The learners’ L1 and culture influence their opinion about the English language and culture. Whether this effect is negative or positive depends on proficiency level, gender, and social context. Finally, cyberspace provided a suitable context for language socialization, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Findings showed several pedagogical implications for EFL teachers and learners.تجزیه و تحلیل داده ها دو زیرمقوله برای عاملیت زبان آموزان (استعداد و تجربه) و سه زیرمقوله برای هویت زبان آموزان (جنسیت، والدین و زبان بومی) را مشخص می سازد. نتایج این پژوهش همچنین نشان می دهد که جامعه پذیری زبان دوسویه است و زبان آموزان در طی فرآیند جامعه پذیری با اشکال مذاکره، پذیرش یا عدم پذیرش عاملیت و هویت خود مواجه می شوند. فرهنگ و زبان اول زبان آموز بر نظر او راجع به زبان و فرهنگ انگلیسی تأثیر می گذارد. چه این تأثیر منفی باشد چه مثبت بستگی به سطح بسندگی، جنسیت و بافت اجتماعی دارد. یافته ها به چندین پیامد آموزشی برای معلمان و فراگیران زبان انگلیسی دلالت دارند.

English proficiency as the content knowledge for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers determines their instructional quality. However, previous studies have not focused on the significance of this knowledge in support of Teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) on technology adoption in teaching. Therefore, this study aims at finding out the correlation between TPACK and technology applications, and how technology applications link to teachers’ English proficiency levels. The study adopted a quantitative method, and the data were collected using two questionnaires in Likert scale, one for TPACK and another for technology application. Teachers’ English proficiency levels are determined using the content knowledge dimension of TPACK. The questionnaires were completed online by 74 English pre-service teacher graduates who had participated in a national teacher certification program involving real teaching practice. The data were analyzed using the Spearman correlation coefficient to determine the correlation between TPACK dimensions and technology adoption and ordinal logistic regression analysis to find out the effect of teachers’ English proficiency levels on technology applications. The results show that most TPACK dimensions correlate to technology applications with the level of correlations between 0.26 (weak) and 0.47 (moderate). English proficiency has been found to affect technology applications only among teachers who regularly used technology in teaching. Teachers with high English proficiency used technology in teaching 3.06 times more frequently than those whose English proficiency was low. Therefore, it is recommended that English proficiency development be inscluded in teacher professional development to ensure that teachers use technology in teaching 

Adverse Conditions in the Professional Lives of English Instructors: Recommendations to Ameliorate Teacher Resilience Abstract The present qualitative study strived to examine Iranian English instructors’ experiences of adverse conditions in their teaching environments. To yield this purpose, 30 novice language institute English instructors in Tabriz (Iran) were selected as the participants. To triangulate the data, we utilized interview and narrative data collection techniques. Adapting inductive, bottom-up approach to analyzing the themes, three main themes were generated: teacher factors, contextual factors, and student factors. The findings of the study were ascribed to the participants’ resilience in their academic settings. The findings can provide the teacher educators and educational psychologists with certain guiding principles regarding teacher resilience. The results of the study has a number of implications for pedagogy and teaching practice as well as the educational psychology and teacher education . Keywords: adverse conditions, emotional regulation, psychological wellbeing, teacher education, teacher resilience

Construct-irrelevant variance is considered as a major threat to validity which indicates the existence of additional unrelated variables that distort the meaning of test scores and cause the test to be biased. Differential item functioning (DIF) analysis is an important technique in examining the validity and fairness of educational tests. Concerning the importance of test fairness in large-scale exams, this study aimed to (1) detect gender DIF in the reading comprehension section of the B2 First exam using the Rasch model and Mantel-Haenszel method, and (2) investigate the comparability of results from the two DIF detection techniques. To this end, the reading section of the B2 First exam was administered to 207 undergraduate students of English as a foreign language (EFL). After checking the fit of the data to the Rasch model, the results of the Rasch model-based DIF analysis showed the presence of two items indicating DIF, whereas the results of Mantel-Haenszel showed that there were three gender-DIF items.

The present study investigated whether individual or collective reflective journals could lead to teachers’ professional development and professional identity (re)construction. To this end, 30 Iranian EFL teachers were selected through convenience sampling. The participants wrote pre-workshop reflective journals individually and collectively and attended a reflective consciousness-raising workshop for eight sessions. The participants were informed about the major tenets of reflection, professional development, and professional identity (re)construction in the workshop. Afterward, they wrote post-workshop reflective journals again individually and collectively. The participants sat follow-up interviews for the researchers to find out which kinds of journals better helped them develop professionally and (re)construct their professional identity. The findings showed that individual reflective journals and collective reflective journals contributed to teachers’ professional development and professional identity (re)construction respectively. The findings might imply that stakeholders involved that is EFL education policymakers, curriculum developers, and syllabus designers hold interactive workshops for pre-service and in-service teachers on reflective journal writing which might lead to both EFL teachers’ professional development and identity (re)construction. Moreover, it is recommended that the decision-makers and senior managers develop systematic checklists addressing those influential factors found in the present study to contribute to teachers’ professional development and professional identity construction.

The main purpose of this study is to present and evaluate a model to execute successful On the Job Training Course for Iranian EFL teachers. In order to achieve the goal of the study, 441 teachers of different language institutes in several cities of Iran were asked to complete a self-made questionnaire which was designed based on some face-to-face interviews and observation documents of 26 teachers. As factor analysis was the most crucial concern of this study, the 43 items of the questionnaire were piloted on a sample of 147 EFL teachers. Regarding this matter, the scale in this study enjoyed having a sufficient communality value greater than 0.5 for 25 questions in the questionnaire out of 43 questions. Pearson’s correlation coefficient and structural equation modeling (SEM) were run to analyze the relationships among the components. The result revealed that the research model was in the domain of acceptance. The findings of this study can provide fruitful information for English teaching and learning stakeholders, educational policy makers, supervisors, and those involved in second language teacher education as well as English language teachers in EFL contexts.