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Language assessment literacy (LAL), mainly defined as knowledge and skills of language assessment, in the last two decades, has started to receive the attention it deserves. As one of the significant findings, based on a plethora of research, many second language (L2) teachers have been indicated to be professionally incompetent in terms of LAL. To investigate the status of LAL among Iranian English teachers, the present study was conducted. Three hundred and nine English teachers participated in answering a questionnaire. Besides, 24 teachers were interviewed based on a semi-structured interview. Both qualitative and quantitative data analysis and interpretation techniques were employed to find answers to the research questions which sought to investigate the features of language assessment literacy in language teachers' perceptions. The findings indicated that, overall, LAL is of concern to Iranian L2 (English) teachers. However, they also agree that their current level of both knowledge and practice in terms of LAL is not ideal. Furthermore, it was found that, as the teachers perceive it, assessment promotes learning and teaching; the nature of teacher-learner relationships affects evaluation; and, testing and assessment are seen as challenging notions due to their mathematical concepts and statistics. The findings will contribute to a more profound perception of LAL and better planning and executing the programs for L2 teachers regarding the issue.

Psychological barriers have always had negative effects on English learning. This research was done to compare the efficiency of TBILT and TBLT on learners’ fear of negative evaluation. The statistical population included all 4200 Babol Azad University students of whom 320 were volunteers to participate in English language classes via public invitation. Then, 90 students were selected using available sampling model and were placed randomly in three groups (two experimental and one control). Before starting teaching, Leary’s fear of negative evaluation questionnaire with Cronbach’s alpha of .769 was administered, and then using three methods namely TBILT in the first experimental class, TBLT in the second one, and Traditional method (GTM) in control group, the teacher taught in 20 sessions, 90 minutes each. After the post test, the two-way single variable co-variance and the Post Hoc Tukey Test revealed that both experimental groups did much better than the control group (p <.001). On the other hand, the TBILT group acted much stronger than the TBLT one (p <.001).

This study explored both teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of teachers’ pedagogic strategies which may engender willingness to communicate (WTC) in an English as a foreign language class and the difference between their perceptions to detect how convergent or possibly how divergent these are. The project used a convenience sample of 300 students taking an intermediate English course and their teachers (N=60) in several English Language Institutes in Tabriz, Iran. The instruments included a Likert scale questionnaire on teachers’ pedagogic strategies and learners’ WTC completed by both teachers and learners. Based on the data collected from the questionnaires, it was revealed that the teachers and learners agreed on the role of teachers’ wait time in learners’ WTC but not on the other strategies such as motivating strategies, error correction strategies, and teachers’ congruence. The findings of the study have important implications for teachers in terms of reconsidering their pedagogic strategies to play their facilitating roles in engendering students’ WTC in the class. The results also have the implications for EFL teacher education in the new era of communication.

Teacher resilience, as a recent issue of concern, enables teachers to bounce back and thrive rather than just survived in the face of challenging circumstances. Although self-efficacy has been prompted to enhance resilience, there is little empirical research to investigate the relationship. To address this gap, the present study is an attempt to examine the connection between EFL teachers’ resilience and self-efficacy. In doing so, ninety-two EFL teachers completed Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (TSES) and resilience scale (RISC). The findings showed the positive impact of different dimensions of self-efficacy on resilience. The results of the correlational analysis indicated that all three self-efficacy subscales had a significant positive relationship with teachers’ resilience. The results of multiple regression also suggested that, save for classroom management, two other subscales of efficacy as efficacy for student engagement and efficacy for instructional strategies were the good predictors of teacher resilience. In line with these findings, some suggestions for further research are provided and pedagogical implications are proposed.

The unprecedented growth of English and arrival of English as an International Language (EIL) has generated a new fledged argument about English language teachers’ role and status around the world. To date, much of the debate on the native/non-native distinction in EIL settings and factors contributing to sharpen distinctions has remained unsettled. This gap motivated this study on the English teachers’ grasp of their role and their stance in the EIL setting of Iran. For this purpose, this study adopted both quantitative and qualitative approaches to explore the nature of the English teachers’ attitudes through an EIL scale and teachers’ narrative accounts through Telegram groups. The three-level positioning analysis (Bamberg, 1997) of English teachers’ narrative accounts contradicted their perceptive evaluations of their status, as non-native English teachers. The results proved that, despite highlights of blurred distinctions, English teachers in Iran still believe that English belongs to the native speakers and position native speaker teachers as better models for pedagogical practices. The results have implications for teachers’ beliefs and the role of teacher education programs

: The purpose of the current attitudinal study is to investigate the attitudes and opinions of language teachers toward the implemented ELT program resulted from the Fundamental Reform Document of Education in the Iranian Ministry of Education. Three items were investigated: Teacher’s Practice, Teacher Training Courses, and Materials. Following the rigorous and systematic procedure, the quantitative approach was applied and the 5-Likert scale with 30 items was used so as to determine the issues mentioned before. First the items were extracted based on the FRDOE and, thereafter, the primary questionnaire was developed and after ensuring of its validity and reliability the final version was obtained. Then, after ensuring its practicality, the questionnaire was distributed among 240 language teachers. The results showed that the ELT based on the new program had inconsistency in a number of respects with policies approved by the policy-makers. The findings showed that the lack of agency of the language teachers is the main reason for the failure of the new program and it is recommended that language teachers’ contribution should be taken into account before-, while- and after administrating and implementing the new program in ELT program in the future.

: This study investigated the impact of audio-visual input enhancement teaching techniques on improving English as Foreign Language (EFL) learnersˈ collocation learning as well as their accuracy concerning collocation use in narrative writing. In addition, it compared the impact and efficiency of audio-visual input enhancement in two learning contexts, namely traditional and mobile learning contexts. First, 120 homogenous intermediate EFL learners were randomly divided into four groups, two experimental and two comparison groups. Next, two pre-tests, a collocation and a paragraph writing test, were administered. The experimental groups received enhanced target collocations through input enhancement teaching techniques while in the comparison groups the “unenhanced” collocations were taught through conventional simple vocabulary teaching method. After the treatment sessions, the researcher administered two post-tests including a collocation and a paragraph writing. As the data analysis suggested, with regards to the first research purpose, audio-visual input enhancement positively affected EFL learners' collocation learning and enhanced their accuracy concerning collocation use in narrative writing. Regarding the second purpose of the study, the results revealed that, in comparison to traditional learning context, audio-visual input enhancement teaching techniques were significantly effective in mobile learning context in terms of collocation learning. The efficiency of audio-visual input enhancement teaching techniques was not significantly different between the experimental groups in the two learning contexts in terms of enhancing EFL learners’ accuracy concerning collocation use. The findings of this study can create awareness for second language teachers and learners about the critical and beneficial role of input enhancement and mobile assisted language learning in successful language acquisition and learning.

The current paper primarily provides an account of how apology speech acts are internally intensified in Persian. Moreover, the study checks to what extent contextual variables, namely social distance and severity of offense, may motivate the internal intensification of apology speech acts. To these ends, the study collected the required speech acts through a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) from among Persian male native speakers. The data was analyzed based on the coding scheme developed by Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989). The results revealed that apology speech acts are intensified in Persian in most cases through universal strategies of internal intensification. Moreover, the Persian speakers are sensitive to severity of the offense, as a context-internal variable, which motivates more internal intensifications of apologies. The findings, however, revealed that social distance as a context-external variable does not prompt the use of internal intensifications differently in situations where there is social distance between interlocutors compared to situations where there is no social distance between interlocutors.

This study aimed to investigate the effects of Systemic Theoretical Instruction (STI), grounded in Socio-cultural Theory and proposed by Gal’perin, on developing Iranian EFL learners’ knowledge of English tense-aspect system. To this end, two low-intermediate classes, including 24 and 21 language learners aged between 12-19, were taught the distinction between simple past and present perfect tense through STI and traditional method of grammar instruction. The learners sat for a pretest one week before the treatment and an immediate and delayed posttest, one and three weeks after the instruction, respectively. The tests included binary-choice and gap-filling items to evaluate the learners’ explicit knowledge of the target tense-aspect pairings and elicited imitation test items to check their implicit knowledge. The results obtained from a series of independent and paired-sample t-tests revealed a significant improvement for both groups in the immediate posttest both in terms of the entire test and its subcomponents suggesting that both types of instruction were effective in improving the learners’ implicit and explicit knowledge of the target forms in the short term. However, the significant outperformance of the STI group compared to the traditional group implied the superiority of this method. Moreover, the STI group generally outperformed the traditional group in the delayed posttest indicating the possibility of having a more lasting effect on developing learners’ knowledge when compared to the traditional method. These findings can have significant implications for teachers and materials developers in practicing the assumptions of more innovative approaches such as STI.

This study intended to determine the way validity and reliability i.e., psychometric properties were reported in the Applied Linguistics research articles. The study also focused on the measurement methods applied to determine the validity and reliability of the scores derived from the tests and questionnaires in the empirical studies. The corpus of the study included 331 empirical studies derived from 733 research articles (RAs) published between 2005 and 2018 in three prominent Applied Linguistics journals – Applied Linguistics, Modern Language Journal, and TESOL Quarterly, The selected papers used test and/or questionnaire for data collection. Our analysis indicated that 77(20.98%) of the studies did not report validity and reliability measures, 82(22.35%) reported only reliability measures, 26(7.08%) reported only validity measures, and 182(49.59%) reported both the validity and reliability measures for the instruments. It was also found that content validity assessed through the pilot study had the highest frequency among validity evidences while internal consistency, mostly identified by Cronbach's alpha, was the most frequent reliability evidence.

The research objective of this study was to explore the cultural differences and challenges encountered by the Chinese Immersion Teacher (CIT) and how the CIT deal with the cultural differences in the immersion classroom. A qualitative case study approach was chosen for this research. The participant was a novice kindergarten immersion teacher who was born and educated in a Chinese-speaking country. There were 13 children with diverse ethnic backgrounds in the teacher’s classroom. Interviews and observations were the primary sources of data. The data collection and analysis stages were undertaken concurrently. The researcher used thematic analysis to analyze the data. The findings of this study show that a novice CIT typically faces several challenges owing to the differences between Chinese culture and American culture, including the differences in the expectations regarding learning, teacher status, teacher authority, teaching methods, and learning styles. Moreover, the study found that the CIT struggled with these differences and did not know how to do her job without considerable support and training. The research led to suggestions to improve cultural awareness, management of cultural differences, and CIT training.

The present study sought to explore the relationship between Iranian EFL teachers' brain dominance, teaching experience and their teaching style. The study population consisted of all EFL teachers of high schools in Shiraz holding a B.A degree, with the sample consisting of 100 participants recruited through convenience sampling. The study employed a descriptive correlational design. To collect data, a 40 Item-Teaching Style Survey, a 15 Item- Brain Dominance Questionnaire, and a 14 Item-Teaching Experience Scale were used. The data was presented in mean, standard deviation, graphs, and tables. Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression were used to test the research hypotheses. The results showed that there was a significant relationship between EFL teachers’ brain dominance, teaching experience and their teaching style. It was also found that EFL teachers’ brain dominance was a grater predictor of their teaching style than their teaching experience was. The results have several practical implications. The recommendations made include whole brain teaching and addressing the cognitive needs of EFL teachers.

Learners can collaborate with each other to achieve a lesson objective. In the collaboration, they can provide each other with guidance in order to identify mistakes and improve their achievements. With the rise of online instructions, this small-scale exploratory study aimed to see how proficient learners guided their less proficient classmates in correcting the grammatical accuracy of sentences. Twenty three learners who were taking a blended-learning grammar class were assigned to post brief essays on Edmodo and the more able learners were instructed to help their weaker classmates find and correct the errors in their essays. A total of 18 essays and 15 lines of comments were generated in their online interactions. A coding was done to identify the moves of the learners as they gave and received peer corrections. The results indicated that the more able learners made seven types of moves for guiding their classmates, with only three sequences incorporating a relatively complete scaffolding moves. The weak learners, however, hardly responded to their more proficient classmates. Reluctance to prolong the discussion in online setting and the difficulties in dealing with detailed grammatical items in such setting may have been responsible for this low rate of responses.

This study aimed at investigating the comparative effect of using self-assessment vs. peer-assessment on young EFL learners’ performance on selective and productive reading tasks. To do so, 56 young learners from among 70 students in four intact classes were selected based on their performance on the A1 Movers Test. Then, the participants were randomly divided into two groups, self-assessment and peer-assessment. The reading section of a second A1 Movers Test was adapted into a reading test containing 20 selective and 20 productive items, and it was used as the pretest and posttest. This adapted test was piloted and its psychometric characteristics were checked. In the self-assessment group, the learners assessed their own performance after each reading task while in the peer-assessment group, the participants checked their friends’ performance in pairs. The data were analyzed through repeated-measures two-way ANOVA and MANOVA. The findings indicated that self-assessment and peer-assessment are effective in improving young EFL learners’ performance on both selective and productive reading tasks. Further, neither assessment method outdid the other in improving students’ performance on either task. These findings have practical implications for EFL teachers and materials developers to use both assessment methods to encourage learners to have better performance on reading tasks.