درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The focus of prior studies has been on introducing different cultulings in Iranian culture; as a result, little attention has been given to their relationship with individual differences and language-related variables. Therefore, to address this gap, the researchers first devised a cultuling competency test to measure individuals’ ability to identify 14 culturally different contexts. They then substantiated the construct validity of the cultuling competency test through CFA, and its reliability was measured using Cronbach’s alpha, suggesting high reliability. Next, the researchers aimed to assess the role of cultuling in individuals’ language aptitude, verbal intelligence, cultural intelligence, and second language (L2) willingness to communicate (WTC). The results indicated that cultuling is a significant predictor of verbal intelligence. It was also found that L2 WTC and cultural intelligence are positively correlated. Finally, the findings revealed that language aptitude has a significant relationship with both cultural and verbal intelligence.

This research explores translation dynamics through the innovative lens of chaos theory, focusing on how the butterfly effect manifests in linguistic transfer. By challenging traditional linear translation models, the study demonstrates how seemingly minor initial conditions can generate profound, cascading interpretive consequences across textual landscapes. Adopting a complexity science perspective, among others, the research examines translations of Rumi’s Masnavi and Camus’s L’Étranger to highlight translation’s inherently nonlinear and adaptive nature. The theoretical framework integrates insights from complexity science, poststructuralist theory, and translation studies, offering a sophisticated analytical approach that moves beyond reductive binary conceptualizations. Using purposive theoretical sampling, the study traces how subtle translation choices recursively shape semantic and cultural interpretations. By emphasizing translation’s sensitivity to initial conditions, the research contributes to emerging scholarship that views translation as a complex, dynamic system characterized by intricate interactive processes. Methodologically, the study employs qualitative case analyses to reveal the profound complexity of translation.

Based on Shulman's (1986) concept of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK), Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) emerged and became a helpful framework for comprehending the objectives of using technology in pre-service teacher training programs. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate Iranian pre-service EFL teachers’ (PSEFLTs) perceptions towards their TPACK regarding their gender and academic year of study. To this aim, 254 Iranian PSEFLTs across various academic years of study filled out a 39-item EFL TPACK questionnaire developed by Baser et al. (2016). The questionnaire included seven categories: Content Knowledge (CK), Pedagogical Knowledge (PK), Technology Knowledge (TK), PCK, Technological Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK), Technological Content Knowledge (TCK), and Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK). Based on the collected data, which were subjected to the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, descriptive statistics, t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and post-hoc analysis, it was found that PSEFLTs generally held mildly favorable perceptions towards their TPACK. Notably, the lowest mean score was observed for the TK component, while the component with the highest mean score was the CK component. In terms of the gender effect, statistically significant differences were found in the TK and TPCK dimensions, where males outscored females in both TK and TPCK and females outscored males in CK. Furthermore, an examination of the relationship between participants' TPACK and their academic years of study manifested a statistically significant difference primarily between freshmen and seniors. The results are expected to encourage curriculum planners to develop PSEFLTs’ training programs by integrating technology courses into the ELT curriculum.

The use of portfolios as a tool for assessment in educational settings has attracted significant attention in recent years due to its potential to capture multifaceted aspects of student learning. This study investigates students' perceptions of portfolios as an assessment tool, examining their experiences, attitudes, and beliefs towards its effectiveness in assessing their learning progress and achievements. Additionally, the study explores the influence of factors such as prior exposure to portfolio assessment, instructional support, and personal learning styles on students' perceptions. The research examined students’ responses to portfolio-based assessments over three academic years, from 2020 to 2023. The respondents were third-year elementary education students enrolled in the Faculty of Education at the public University of Gjakova, Kosovo, where the research was conducted. Additionally, the study incorporated a focus group consisting of five English language teachers to examine both the advantages and disadvantages of portfolio assessment, as well as the challenges associated with evaluating students through this method. A qualitative research approach was employed, utilizing qualitative analysis for the questionnaire responses and a descriptive approach for the data collected from teachers. The analysis of student outcomes yields several insights into portfolio-based assessment. The findings suggest that this assessment method enables a more convenient preparation process, as students have ample time, a supportive environment—such as their homes—and the flexibility to engage in learning according to their unique preferences and styles. According to teachers, the portfolio is perceived as straightforward in its appearance, yet it presents significant complexities in terms of implementation and assessment. The integration of portfolio assessment in curriculum design and the provision of structured guidelines and support could be underlined as practical implications and recommendations to enhance the effectiveness of assessment-based portfolios in educational settings.

Being rooted in imagery and metaphor, Jungian psychology suggests that metaphors are expressions of archetypal imagery. While extensive research has examined how archetypal theory informs literal metaphors across various languages, less attention has been paid to whether metaphorical conceptualizations can serve as a modality—similar to dreams or active imagination—for representing archetypes and the collective unconscious. Linguistic data from intercultural interactions are crucial for uncovering shared conceptual structures across diverse communities. This study explored the "Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together" signed by Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar as a pivotal text in contemporary interfaith dialogue. We analyzed how the processes of metaphorizing archetypes were woven into this discourse. Specifically, we investigated whether archetypes are represented within the conceptual blending processes of metaphors, how the collective unconscious is reflected in the conceptual metaphors employed in interreligious dialogue, and how these metaphors may foster shared understanding among religious leaders. Using Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT), we identified metaphorical expressions that projected archetypal content, revealing the presence of key Jungian archetypes, such as the Mother, Rebirth, Shadow, Innocent, and God-Image. Our findings indicated that significant shared conceptualizations existed between Islamic and Christian leaders, which were grounded in the collective unconscious and articulated through archetype-based conceptual metaphors.

Lexical bundles, starting with the anticipatory it, mostly serve as stance expressions (e.g., it is necessary to ). While most research centers on anticipatory, it-bundles in one single discipline, not much has been done across different disciplinary areas. Therefore, based on an adaptation of the functional taxonomy proposed by Hewings and Hewings (2002), this research attempted to detect it-bundles using a corpus of 400 research papers in L1-English and L1-Persian in applied linguistics (AL) and information technology (IT) to probe the possible significant resemblances and disparities. According to the results, IT writers employed fewer bundles than their AL counterparts, and their overuse was more impressive than that of their L1-English peers in AL. However, AL and IT writers showed similarity in their use of functional categories; AL writers also made heavier use of two functional categories: emphatic and epistemic. As for practice, writing instructors can exploit the findings of this study to facilitate academic writing instruction. They can also help students to achieve a better comprehension of anticipatory it-bundles .

This study aimed to examine the cross-lingual recognition of French and English words and their pseudo-homophones to verify the presence of Grapheme-Phoneme Conversion (GPC) for the word recognition of foreign language learners. Considering the study's purposes, 100 Iranian advanced English and French learners were chosen and recruited for the study through the convenience sampling procedure. The participants' homogeneity and proficiency level were checked with the aid of an English proficiency test (McMillan Placement Test (MPT)) and a French proficiency test (Test d'Évaluation de Français (TEF)) before the examination phase. To investigate the participants' reaction times for recognizing the real words, illegal nonwords, and legal nonwords (pseudo-homophones), a computerized test was designed that sought the participants' judgments about the presented linguistic construct on the screen. The employed words were chosen according to their morphological complexity, frequency, and length from the learners' course books. Data analysis revealed that pseudo-homophones were more challenging for both English and French learners to recognize; this was shown by their higher reaction time needed for recognizing pseudo-homophones compared with the real words and the illegal nonwords. Although the occurrence of GPC for both groups was attested, it was significantly stronger for the French learners. These findings suggest that word recognition is inherently a phonological process (not an orthographic one) among foreign language learners. 

Education has evolved significantly over the centuries, ranging from the ancient and classical era to the Industrial Revolution, inclusive education, and technology integration. In the latter part of the 20 th century, technology was incorporated into education, starting with audiovisual aids and computer-based learning through to distance learning, online learning platforms, virtual classrooms, and collaborative tools, transforming education into a more flexible and accessible experience (Chiu et al., 2023; Ghahari & Nejadgholamali, 2019; Ng et al., 2023). Having emerged in the 2000s, personalized learning platforms and massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered free or low-cost online courses to a global audience and catered to individual student needs and learning styles. Finally and most recently, artificial intelligence (AI) has provided personalized recommendations, automated grading, and data-driven insights to optimize learning through such tools as Jasper, Sudowrite, Quillbot, and ChatGPT (Bates et al., 2020; Rahiman & Kodikal, 2024; Rospigliosi, 2023). The present handbook is a must-read for any aspiring teacher and researcher, providing a clear and concise guide on how to use ChatGPT in classrooms. It introduces ChatGPT as a cutting-edge tool that can revolutionize teaching and learning and spotlight the process rather than only the product. ChatGPT was created and offered by OpenAI as a pre-trained language model in 2022 and is an extension to a line of writing tools that build on Grammarly, the Hemingway app, Google Docs, Microsoft Word, etc. It is a variant of the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) model and is trained on a large dataset of conversational text. It is already reforming businesses and industries like higher education, similar to the printing press and the internet. At its core, ChatGPT uses AI to compose responses to queries spanning numerous topics. It can help educators optimize their classroom practices, particularly assignments, and evaluation, throughout the course rather than only addressing educational outcomes. Naturally, in education, the camps are divided between those opposing the use of ChatGPT as a result of concerns about academic integrity and potential cheating and those who believe it can be a valuable supplement to traditional instruction for supporting instructors and students. As an instructional technologist, Skrabut takes the latter stance and recognizes the potential benefits of ChatGPT in enhancing the learning experience. He maintains that ChatGPT for education is similar to calculators in math, which can be fine-tuned for a variety of natural language processing tasks such as language translation, question answering, and test construction.  "80 Ways to Use Chat GPT in the Classroom" offers a number of examples of using ChatGPT to enhance the classroom experience in teaching and learning. However, students need to be trained in information literacy, which is critical for developing critical thinking and lifelong learning skills. Simply rehearsing information from ChatGPT without verification does not contribute to meaningful conversation. Right at the beginning, the author provides the basic instructions to work with ChatGPT and then outlines a set of keys to using it more effectively. Surprisingly enough, the reader will find these instructions and hints highly comprehensive and informative. The keys to obtaining successful responses include (a) Be as specific as possible when making a request; (b) Use an iterative approach (asking the same question in different general or specific ways); (c) Ask ChatGPT to improve its responses to meet your expectations; (d) Assign ChatGPT a role/act to serve (e.g., act as Linux, interviewer, plagiarism checker); (e) Always validate its responses by applying critical thinking skills. Most favorably, the author has supplied multiple examples for each task that ChatGPT can do. Each example has two parts, including the prompt to provide to ChatGPT (bold-typed) and the response from ChatGPT (italicized). According to the author,  if ChatGPT is used appropriately and strategically, the possibilities are extremely helpful and time-saving. Chapter 2 indicates how ChatGPT can assist in the course preparation procedure, starting with the course description to developing classroom activities. In the first step, the user may ask ChatGPT to describe a course by clearly introducing what it is about. Next, ChatGPT can help in creating actual goals and objectives for the course. Here, the author suggests that users guide ChatGPT to create valuable results by citing Bloom's Taxonomy, for instance, in their prompts. An example of a good prompt suggested by the author follows: "Write learning objectives for a sports management course at the remembering level of Bloom's Taxonomy using verbs like Cite, Define, Describe, Draw, Enumerate, Identify, Index, Indicate, Label, List, Match, Meet, Name, Outline, Point, Quote, Read, Recall, Recite, Recognize, Record, Repeat, Reproduce, Review, Select, State, Study, Tabulate, Trace, Write" (p. 21). ChatGPT can also assist teaching practitioners in crafting lesson plans, classroom activities, warm-up questions and activities (i.e., icebreakers), community-building activities (e.g., teamwork and class discussions), lecture notes and outlines, and assignment prompts. What is highly important in persuading ChatGPT to prepare these tasks is to give it as specific prompts as the user can. Chapter 3 concerns using ChatGPT as a teacher assistant in personalizing instruction (i.e., personalized education). Some of its contributions include: (a) grading written assignments and essays (given either generic or specific guidelines), (b) facilitating reading comprehension by generating text summaries, (c) creating fill-in-the-blanks stories (i.e., Madlibs) usually in enjoyable and funny way, (d) crafting writing samples for any given prompt or topic, (e) creating personalized study plans attuned to each student's learning abilities, and (f) generating dummy data such as exemplars. What is highly important at this stage is to provide detailed and clear guidelines, precisely indicating the length, word size, and scope, before ChatGPT gets started. Here are some effective prompts as models: Generate questions about with corresponding answers at a college level; Provide ten creative writing prompts for an essay writing class at the high school level; What are some interesting or novel ways to begin a math class with children; What are some icebreaker activities one could use for a college-level course. In Chapter 4, ChatGPT is introduced as an effective tool for assessment by quickly and easily creating a variety of test tasks and questions. Among the ways in which it can serve as an assessment aid are creating assessment rubrics for subjective tasks and designing test items of a variety of formats, including multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blanks, dichotomous or true-false, matching, and ordering forms. After deciding on and determining the target article or text as a prompt, one may ask ChatGPT in the following exemplary way: "Create one (or more) fill-in-the-blank exercise on " (p. 65). Chapters 5 and 6 illustrate how ChatGPT can assist teachers and students in developing study aids and classroom activities. Using ChatGPT in building study aids such as summaries, notes, outlines, flashcards, and vocabulary lists can make learning procedures more convenient, enjoyable, and effective. Teachers may ask ChatGPT to generate example sentences using a certain word, write a list of words and definitions for an article, and create a list of flashcards for the given words. ChatGPT can also aid in checking the authenticity of students' essays and in generating arguments and counterarguments on a given topic for classroom debates. The last two agendas, for instance, can be accomplished by giving the following prompts, respectively: "Did AI write this essay? " and "Debate me on the use of AI in higher education. I believe it should be used. You are to take the opposing side" (p. 77). Even more interestingly, ChatGPT can be assumed as a classroom member interacting with teachers and/or students. After raising a question or topic in the class, the teacher can ask the students to predict ChatGPT's responses and then compare the students' responses to those of ChatGPT. Given enough rubrics and guidelines, the students can also be invited to grade ChatGPT's responses and essays and realize the strengths and weaknesses of AI by themselves. Taking the students' side, Chapter 7 indicates how students can improve their writing and communicative skills by using ChatGPT as a digital tutor and partner. ChatGPT can help students in crafting essays, paper summaries, research papers, lectures, and presentations by improving both form (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, coherence) and content (e.g., themes, main ideas, ordering, and organization). In addition, it can provide feedback on their writing assignments before submission and help them revise their drafts after getting reviewed. ChatGPT can also serve as an assistant translator and conversation partner, thereby contributing to the student's language skills development. It is also a digital tutor, being accessible anytime not only to reply to the students' questions but also to personalize learning materials by adjusting the responses to their needs, age, and level of ability. For this purpose, the user may only need to guide ChatGPT in the following exemplary way: "Answer this question or explain this topic to a 15-year-old or beginning student". Further, ChatGPT can serve as an exceptional research assistant by helping students discover trending research topics, formulate research questions, develop annotated bibliographies, paraphrase and summarize content, find credible sources, and draft and edit sections of a document. Chapter 8 showcases how ChatGPT can be used in computer programming and application development. Given a specific and accurate script, ChatGPT can quickly and easily write codes, explain what a certain code does, troubleshoot the codes, clean up unnecessary codes, write scripts for Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Linux products, and enhance programs like spreadsheets or word-processing. Chapter 9 extends to other applications of ChatGPT, such as developing blog posts, writing book reviews, drafting grant proposals, writing play/video scripts, and role-playing scenarios. It also effectively assists in drafting email messages, letters of recommendation, job interview questions, press releases for projects, and award packages suitable for nominees and accomplishments. It can be further used for converting references to different formatting styles (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago), converting grammatical structures (e.g., number, gender, tenses), analyzing data sets, and summarizing large amounts of content before a meeting or classroom session. Chapter 10 illustrates how practitioners can suppress their inhibition and/or fear of using AI as an education and assessment tool. It offers fundamental guidelines and strategies that help teachers and students find ChatGPT an asset rather than a threat. There are times when AI is appropriate and others when it is not. Teachers may ask the students to detect its flaws and limitations; they should be explicit on what is allowed and what is not. For example, if they are not allowing tools like ChatGPT, explain why it is essential to refrain from using it and the educational benefit of the assignment. ChatGPT would not have access to proprietary academic databases. Additionally, it does not have access to current events. Another point to consider is that "ChatGPT is a textual interface. It cannot see images or hear audio files. The more friction you introduce into the assignment, the less appealing it will be to use AI" (p. 159). Although organizations and instructors can enhance their productivity and save time through ChatGPT, there is a caveat regarding the accuracy of the information it offers, requiring the users to check the information from multiple other sources. Skrabut explains his point very clearly by stating that AI will inevitably impact teaching and learning, just as previous technologies have, but educators are required to prepare students for this future. While ChatGPT is an intriguing emerging technology, it is not yet a perfect tool and it is essential to weigh the potential drawbacks. While the book provides comprehensive instructions with practical examples, it lacks depth in addressing ethical concerns and academic integrity. For instance, it does not sufficiently explore ChatGPT's potential drawbacks, such as the risk of over-reliance on AI tools or diminishing critical thinking skills among students. Furthermore, the discussion on academic integrity could benefit from providing instructors with a list of hands-on techniques on how to minimize the possibilities of AI-assisted cheating. Although the book is highly practical and advisable, these limitations may explain the need for further research and instructional guidance on how to mitigate the potential threats associated with ChatGPT use in educational milieus. 

Jam (2020) attempts to provide an Optimality-Theoretic analysis of Persian vowel harmony. As to cases where backness harmony does not appear to occur, his explanation appeals to Lexically Specific Constraint Theory, treating these instances as exceptional rather than systematic. In this reply, I argue that such an appeal to exceptionality is unnecessary, and I propose an alternative analysis in which regressive vowel harmony in Persian can be accounted for in a principled, unified manner without recourse to lexically indexed constraints. By introducing an appropriately formulated markedness constraint, it becomes possible to capture the full range of observed patterns while maintaining the parsimony and explanatory elegance expected of an Optimality-Theoretic framework. In addition to this central point, I identify several further weaknesses in Jam’s analysis. These include a conflation of rule ordering with constraint ranking, which obscures the theoretical distinction between derivational and constraint-based approaches, the problematic assumption that the phonological representation of loanwords should mirror their source-language forms, and the omission of critical information in both the representations and tableaux.

Mind mapping has increasingly been acknowledged for its ability to improve learning outcomes, especially within language education. This research compared virtual and traditional mind mapping techniques for improving writing performance and motivation in Iranian EFL learners. The initial pool comprised 120 Iranian EFL students at the pre-intermediate level, selected based on their KET exam results. From this group, 90 participants were randomly divided into three cohorts: two experimental groups and one control group. Before the intervention, all groups completed a writing assessment designed by the instructor, along with a motivation survey. The first experimental group was taught using virtual mind mapping tools, while the second experimental group utilized conventional, paper-based mind maps. The control group received standard writing instruction without the use of mind mapping. After the instructional period, the motivation questionnaire and writing tests were re-administered to all participants. Statistical analysis demonstrated that both mind mapping groups achieved significantly higher scores in writing and motivation compared to the control group. Furthermore, an independent samples t-test comparing the two experimental groups revealed that the virtual mind mapping cohort outperformed the non-virtual group slightly in both writing achievement and motivational measures. Insights from semi-structured interviews showed that most learners held favorable views toward the use of virtual mind mapping in their English writing classes. These results highlight the benefits of incorporating virtual mind mapping into EFL teaching practices to boost writing skills and learner motivation.

This study examined the personal, professional, and contextual barriers to teacher identity (TI) within English language institutes and their strategies to navigate them. The study used a multiple case study approach with semi-structured interviews for data collection. It involved four Iranian English institute teachers aged 22 to 30, with varying degrees of education: two holding a B.A., one an M.A., and one a Ph.D. Data analysis utilizing thematic analysis revealed that insecurity, self-doubt, perfectionism, and challenges in balancing personal and professional lives were personal barriers to TI. Moreover, professional barriers such as excessive workloads, strict adherence to academic norms, and stress from peers and superiors could hinder TI development. Furthermore, contextual barriers, including hierarchical cultures, top-down decision-making, and rigid institutional policies, could restrict TI development. The findings also revealed some patterns among these barriers. The results showed that contextual barriers exacerbate professional barriers. Moreover, professional barriers exacerbate personal barriers. Teachers often try to navigate barriers by seeking feedback, engaging in professional development, advocating for their needs, holding meetings, using dead times, focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses, accepting faults and shortcomings, promoting shared leadership, prioritizing self-care and work-life balance, expanding knowledge through reading more, setting realistic goals, recommending solutions, being more flexible, involving and engaging students, motivating students, taking assessment as learning perspective, etc. The study's findings have implications for teachers, teacher training programs, and educational policy.

This research is aimed to capture EFL teachers’ use of technology in Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) by focusing on the variety and intensity of tasks in teaching reading. Driven by the survey research, the data were collected from 71 teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Indonesia and analyzed descriptively. The findings show that the EFL teachers perceived that the use of technology in TBLT in teaching reading is important and it can enhance students' language learning experiences. Technology offers engaging materials and activities that aid reading comprehension. Furthermore, EFL teachers' use of various tasks and resources may indicate a need for continuing professional development to improve digital literacy skills and pedagogical strategies of English teachers in EFL context. Although the findings of this survey give an insight into the data of English teachers’ use of technology in TBLT in terms of variety and intensity in teaching reading, this survey has its limitations with regard to the numbers of participants. This research highlights the dynamic relationship among technology, TBLT, and reading instruction in the EFL context, and suggests the need for continued research and exploration of best practices in this area. The current study succeeded in adding new empirical studies related to the variety and intensity in pre-reading, whilst-reading and post-reading activities of EFL teachers enacting teaching reading with the use of TBLT.

Learners’ classroom involvement is thought to be highly influential in their academic success in that highly involved learners typically invest more time and energy in acquiring course content. For this reason, the predictors and determinants of learners’ classroom involvement have been highly attended to by educational researchers. Nonetheless, the predicting role of teachers’ emotional competencies like compassion and empathy has rarely been researched. Furthermore, to the best of the researcher’s knowledge, no theoretical review has looked into the concurrent impacts of teachers’ compassion and empathy on EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ classroom involvement. To address this lacuna, the current theoretical review aimed to explicate the effects of these two emotional competencies on EFL learners’ classroom involvement. The desirable effects of teachers’ compassion and empathy on EFL learners’ involvement were demonstrated using theoretical and empirical evidence. The implications of the present review’s findings are thoroughly discussed.

This study investigated the discourse features of requestive speech acts in 10 textbooks from the Top Notch and Summit series to assess their potential for developing learners' pragmatic competence. Requests were analyzed in terms of directness strategies, head acts, and supportive discourse moves, drawing on the frameworks of Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) and Farch and Kasper (1989). The findings revealed a bias towards direct request strategies in both series, likely influenced by their utilitarian discourse structure. While Top Notch provided a wider range of directness levels, Summit, designed for advanced learners, offered limited exposure to diverse request strategies. Internal supportive moves, particularly the use of questions, were more prevalent than external moves in both series. These findings suggest that while the series contribute to language learning, they may not fully equip learners with the pragmatic competence necessary for effective intercultural communication. Further research is needed to explore the impact of explicit instruction and implicit learning on the acquisition of request strategies.

Given the cognitive demands of consecutive interpreting and the psychological pressures faced by novice interpreters, the present quantitative study aims to identify the most frequently occurring disfluencies in the output of English-Persian interpreter trainees and to explore how interpreting anxiety influences different types of disfluencies. A total of 23 translation trainee students were selected based on convenience sampling. Data were gathered through the Interpreting Classroom Anxiety Scale and a CI exam. After classifying the disfluencies =, it was revealed that hesitation, silent pauses, and prolongation are the predominant disfluency features. These types of disfluencies indicate cognitive overload and failures in language planning. Statistical analyses showed a significant correlation between high levels of anxiety and an increased frequency of these disfluencies; however, no meaningful relationship was found between interpreting anxiety and disfluency in general. This suggests that anxiety adversely affects fluency and overall interpreting performance. This study highlights the critical role of psychological factors, particularly anxiety, in interpreter performance and training. The findings call for the inclusion of anxiety-reduction techniques in interpreter education and suggest future research on experience-based disfluency patterns and Persian-specific disfluency classification.

Although Sociocultural Theory (SCT) was introduced to English Language Teaching (ELT) almost three decades ago, it has not yet started to find its way into the epistemological and practical aspects of English Language Teacher Education (LTE) programs in Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) language institutions context. Not having met the needs of English teachers, teacher educators, and academic and non-academic teaching programs and feeling a pressing need for innovative approaches in language teacher education, the time is ripe for LTE programs to present a curriculum that is globally driven and locally appropriate. To this end, this paper aimed to develop a sociocultural language teacher education (SLTE) curriculum model as an alternative to the LTE programs in the Iranian EFL context. The researchers applied Vygotskian principles and extensions of SCT pedagogy to construct a curriculum model that draws on Graves’ framework of LTE curriculum design and Richards’ model of teacher education that collectively incorporate different aspects, namely context analysis, needs analysis, approach, content, process, teacher educator’s roles, student teachers’ roles, and program evaluation. To present an  innovative LTE program, the researchers extracted and put together the tenets, extensions, and categories of SCT comprehensively and presented them through a complementary curriculum model that is a combination of Graves’ framework and Richards’ model of teacher education. This tentative but dynamic curriculum model might help teachers, teacher educators, policymakers, and other stakeholders to reconceptualize and restructure their mentalities and use the findings when designing small-scale and large-scale LTE programs.

A vital aspect of educational reform involves the careful evaluation of English Language Teaching (ELT) materials to confirm that coursebooks align with learner requirements. This article presents the results of a comprehensive investigation into the Vision series, the state-issued English textbooks used in high schools in Iran. The study examines the correspondence between the textbook content and the language learning priorities identified by students and teachers. Using a survey-based method, needs analysis questionnaires were administered to 200 high school students (100 males and 100 females) and 50 English teachers (25 males and 25 females). The findings indicate a considerable gap between the pedagogical content of the Vision series and the expressed needs of learners, especially in the area of communicative abilities. These results imply that educators and curriculum planners should re-evaluate the appropriateness of the current textbooks and consider using supplementary or different materials that better align with the functional language skills students require. This work highlights the need for ongoing, context-specific assessment and modification of ELT materials to maintain their relevance and effectiveness.

Writing assessments in the EFL context today have put a great concern on language acquisition and proficiency testing. However, diverse techniques and practices require a comprehensive synthesis to better understand trends, gaps, and best practices. This study reviews and synthesizes prior research on writing assessments in EFL contexts. It examines the dominant assessment approaches, their effectiveness, and their impact on EFL learners' writing skills holistically. The study employs a meta-synthesis approach. Fifty journal articles indexed by Scopus, ERIC, Crossref, Google Scholar, DOAJ, Copernicus, and other indexing databases between 2018 and 2024 were selected as the data to review in this study. The data selection was conducted to ensure the relevance and quality of the literature reviewed. The results include a variety of assessment practices such as teacher feedback, self-assessment, peer-assessment, blended or collaborative assessment, automated writing evaluation (AWE), and artificial intelligence in EFL writing settings. The study also concludes that, despite the diversity and complexity of writing assessments in EFL contexts, there is a strong need for more standardized and contextually valid assessment practices. Effective assessments align with instructional goals and offer meaningful feedback that supports student learning. The study recommends developing comprehensive assessment frameworks tailored to specific EFL contexts, providing more training for educators in assessment literacy, and conducting further research into the long-term impact of various assessment practices on the writing development of EFL learners.