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The integration of AI in educational contexts has been a heated debate among scholars. Despite the important role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in foreign language education, exploring English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ voices regarding their motivation to use AI in foreign language education has received scant attention. Therefore, this study explores the motivational factors influencing the adoption of AI in foreign language teaching through the lens of self-determination theory (SDT). Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews from six EFL teachers in the context of Saudi Arabia. The study identified several key sub-themes within the broader motivational factors of relatedness, autonomy, and competence from the SDT framework. Regarding competence, participants emphasized the role of AI in enhancing their ability to deliver personalized instruction and manage their classrooms more efficiently. For relatedness, the sub-theme of mutual support and community building emerged as crucial, highlighting the importance of collaboration between teachers and students in AI adoption. In the context of autonomy, self-initiated professional development was prominent, reflecting teachers’ active efforts to stay updated on AI technologies. Teachers felt that mastering AI tools not only improved their competence but also enabled them to adapt AI-based solutions to meet students' individual needs. However, they also noted the challenge of ensuring that AI tools complement rather than replace critical pedagogical skills, highlighting the need to maintain a balance between using AI for efficiency and preserving essential human elements like creativity and critical thinking.

It is argued that in our current digital era, MALL (mobile-assisted language learning) is an indispensable mode either for independent self-learning or for integrating with the school curriculum. The present study explores the possibility of using gamification as a home assignment in English as a foreign language course for students of non-English majors at a university in Vietnam. Data was collected and analyzed using 69 questionnaire responses and 41 essays written by students in a class of General English. The questionnaire and essay topic prompt required students to provide an evaluation of their personal experience learning English with Duolingo outside the classroom, as part of the compulsory home assignments during a 15-week semester. The questionnaire items were in Vietnamese and the essays were either in Vietnamese or English for students’ convenience. The results showed detailed benefits and problems of learning English with Duolingo as perceived by the students. The key benefits include the fact that Duolingo is a valuable resource: rich and free; the limitation is mainly learners’ lack of experience with the application. It is suggested that with teachers’ guidance, Duolingo could be used as an effective and motivating tool for independent learning.  

As a national high-stakes test of English proficiency, MSRT needs further scrutiny of reliability. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate different sources of variation that may impact the MSRT test-takers’ reading comprehension. Accordingly, some factors including the reading topics, item types, and participants’ general proficiency were delved into based on the scores obtained from 60 MSRT prospective candidates. Upon administering a sample of the reading subtest taken from a recent version of MSRT, the collected data was dichotomously scored and then analyzed in terms of internal consistency, inter-correlations, and causal patterns. The yielded results showed an overall reliability of 0.86 for the reading module, while a moderate interrelationship was obtained amongst the passages (r = 0.47) as well as the item types (r = 0.44). Furthermore, the Mixed ANOVA results demonstrated that topic and item type significantly affected the reading performance, whereas the proficiency factor did not play a conspicuous role in distinguishing the participants’ reading accomplishment. Both theoretically and operationally, the results reported through this study may stress the need for reconsidering the influence of such test-method facets as topic and item type in the MSRT reading subtest to upgrade the test’s unidimensionality and fairness. 

In spite of numerous studies on the effect of AIAT on foreign language learning, few have examined its impact on university students’ academic writing proficiency over an extended period. This study, therefore, investigated the effect of Google Translate (GT) on the writing proficiency of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university students. It examined fluency, lexical density, accuracy, and syntactic complexity across four versions of students’ writings: the pretest, writing with the aid of GT, the posttest, and a retention test conducted two to four months after the treatment. The findings indicated that syntactic complexity, accuracy, and fluency improved when students used GT for writing; however, these measures showed a significant decline in the posttest and retention test without GT. This decrease was more pronounced in lexical density and less so in syntactic complexity. Despite this decline, all factors assessed in the retention test still showed improvement compared to the pretest, indicating the positive effect of GT on students’ foreign language writing performance.

English Language Teacher Education (ELTE) programs in Iran have been designed in a distinctive bilingual environment where private language institutes offer influential training foundations for most English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers. This study examines the structure and content of teacher preparation programs in four prominent Iranian language institutes to identify the core components of their training courses. To gather data, semi-structured and focus-group interviews were conducted with two novice teachers and two teacher educators from each institute, selected through purposive sampling. Thematic analysis of the data revealed that training programs emphasized seven key themes: Teaching Methods, Flexibility, Practical teaching, Reflection, Native language use, Culture, and Technology. These findings can offer English language teachers valuable insights into their future roles and provide policymakers with rich data to evaluate existing programs and make necessary modifications in areas that require improvement. Potentially bridging the gap between theoretical training and practical classroom demands.

The rapidly growing influence of artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to fundamentally transform the realm of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instruction. This research studied this emerging trend through a qualitative research synthesis of 24 peer-reviewed articles published between 2021 and 2024. It examined them to highlight the diverse applications, challenges, and teaching practices associated with AI in EFL education. Methodological rigor was ensured through established inclusion and exclusion criteria for selecting the articles. The qualitative synthesis and thematic analysis revealed five prominent themes that illuminate the current landscape of AI in EFL instruction: 1) conceptualizations of AI within EFL settings; 2) factors influencing its adoption; 3) challenges faced when integrating AI into EFL settings; 4) limitations of AI-based tools and methods; and 5) potential avenues for future investigation. Although integrating AI into EFL pedagogy is still in its early stages and presents various challenges, the findings provide valuable insights and practical recommendations for effectively using AI in EFL education, enhancing teaching methods, and improving student learning outcomes. Educators can make informed decisions regarding its implementation while navigating the evolving EFL instruction landscape by cultivating an understanding of AI's potential benefits and inherent limitations.

Teacher-researcher identity is commonly conceptualized as one of the central components of teachers’ professional identity. Such identity development is not only configured toward the past and present but also oriented toward the future. This retrospective duo-narrative inquiry aimed to portray such orientation by exploring the possible selves envisioned by two female Gen-Z EFL teachers upon the completion of their Master’s graduation theses in the Mekong Delta region. Informed by Possible Selves Theory, this study drew upon qualitative data collected from semi-structured interviews with two primary participants and two outsiders for data triangulation. Subsequently, data were analyzed utilizing thematic analysis for each case, followed by a cross-case analysis to identify convergences and divergences in their lived experiences. Findings revealed that participants reconstructed their teacher-researcher identity through three dimensions of possible selves, including the hoped-for, the ought-to-be, and the feared. They envisioned their identity as personally developed, institutionally grounded, yet potentially at risk of being contextually dissolved. The study was pedagogically significant for maintaining teachers’ motivation in the teaching profession through an envisioned sense of possible selves. Pedagogical implications were offered to inform Master’s students, teacher education programs, and tertiary institutions in Vietnamese contexts and beyond.

This study investigates the integration of post-humanist pedagogies in e-learning for English language teaching (ELT) through the perspectives of Indonesian doctoral students. Post-humanist principles, emphasizing interconnectedness and collaboration, are explored within digital language education contexts. Conducted at Universitas Negeri Malang, the study employed a sequential mixed-methods approach involving 28 participants. Data collection included closed-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, focusing on three key dimensions: relationality, agency and autonomy, and multiplicity and diversity. Findings underscored the preference for collaborative digital learning environments, highlighting peer interaction and the role of adaptive technology in fostering personalized instruction and learner autonomy. The participants also emphasized the importance of integrating sustainability-focused content in language courses to promote ecological awareness. This research advocates for the transformative potential of post-humanist pedagogies in enhancing inclusive, learner-centered language learning experiences that support linguistic diversity and intercultural understanding. Future studies should explore the scalability and socio-political implications of these pedagogical approaches across diverse educational settings to address broader societal challenges and promote equitable education practices.

The following paper was designed to focus on how learners’ process different communication inputs (Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing) and secondly, how gender differences play a significant role in this process. However, materials and instruction methods must also affect individual responses to given tasks. A study on these issues will necessitate the development of gender sensitive instructional materials with a special focus on improving individual comprehension strategies. First year graduate students with English as a compulsory subject of the two selected institutions were taken for our study. In this paper we have reported the differences between the male and female attitudes of the learners and their beliefs in acquiring LSRW skills for learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Survey questionnaires (through Google forms) and interview questions were designed. One sample T-test and paired sample test were taken whereas, interview question responses were analysed to validate the data. The findings revealed that average responses regarding the difficulty of listening skills are statistically significant and correlation between male students learning listening skills are better in the collaborative learning environment whereas the female students depict a positive and moderate correlation for the same. However, it is also found that there is no significant difference between the overall performance of female and male students and the implications have been discussed in the paper.

Speaking is a multifaceted skill that involves many different areas, such as discourse, grammar, and sociolinguistics. As a primary means of communication, speaking is essential in any instructional program for language learning. Besides, Photovoice is a participatory learning method that represents the viewpoints, issues, and experiences of individuals or communities through photography. Following a mixed-methods design, the present study tried to investigate employing Photovoice on Iranian intermediate language learners' skill in speaking English. It also looked at how the participants felt about using Photovoice to learn languages. Using a convenient sampling procedure, a total number of 60 participants were chosen. Once their homogeneity was confirmed based on the Preliminary English Test, they were randomly divided into two equal groups of thirty participants, one experimental group and one control group. While the control group received typical language teaching using conventional methods, the experimental group followed the PHOTO model, which emphasized participatory photography, as well as the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) model for generating innovative solutions. Triangulation was also accomplished through conducting pre/post tests, a questionnaire, and an interview. Then, the data were summarized, and descriptive and inferential statistics such as one-way ANCOVA and paired samples t-tests were used. The results showed that Photovoice integrated with CPS was an effective method for enhancing students' speaking skill and emotional engagement in language learning. The findings can be helpful through new insights into language pedagogy, suggestions for researchers and language teachers in the study of speaking skill, and visual methods such as Photovoice.

This study strived to specify and particularize Iranian medical field specialists and EFL teachers’ predominant and overriding textual interventions, which fall within the ambit of convenience editing. To this end, we required 20 field specialists and 20 EFL instructors to edit the unedited versions of 80 published medical research articles in a way that rendered them apt for publication in quality medical journals. We categorized the obtained data of the edited articles using an editing strategy framework that distinguished four editing micro-strategies and five macro-strategies. The findings revealed that medical specialists and EFL teachers’ micro-editing strategies outnumbered their macro-editing ones. Furthermore, there were significant differences between the editing micro-strategy uses of the above-mentioned groups of the participants. The results highlighted the need for a synergic collaboration between the medical field specialists and the EFL teachers to ameliorate medical articles’ formal, stylistic, and genre-related features and to expedite their publication process. 

Foreign language (FL) teacher agency, as a significant part of teachers’ professional development, encompasses self-organized efforts to augment professional growth. This study aimed to develop an ecological FL teacher agency model through a sequential exploratory mixed methods design based on which an assessment scale measuring FL teachers' agency value was developed. In the qualitative phase, developing and validating the FL teacher agency model, firstly, an interview guide was developed and piloted in a group of 10 TEFL teacher educators from Farhangian Teacher Education University in Tehran. Then, 30 in-service EFL teachers were interviewed. The data were analyzed through MAXQDA to find the components of the tentative conceptual model of teacher agency.  Based on the interview analysis, the preliminary draft of the EFL teacher agency scale was developed.  The refined EFL teacher agency questionnaire encompassing the three components of Autonomy, Freedom, and Choice was administered to 354 randomly selected EFL teachers. The scale's reliability was gained through Cronbach's alpha, and its construct validity through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). The study findings could be used by foreign language teachers, teacher educators, and TEFL teacher agency researchers.