کبری توسلی

Despite widespread studies on language assessment literacy (LAL), there are still many unexplored areas about LAL (Gan & Lam, 2022). One of these areas is identifying various aspects of LAL regarding different language skills and scrutinizing the English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ involvement with these aspects. Accordingly, this study attempted to (a) explore Iranian EFL teachers’ perceptions, preferences, and difficulties of oral/aural skills LAL and (b) develop a scale to measure these teachers’ oral/aural skills LAL. The study was carried out in two phases. First, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 Iranian EFL teachers to identify their perceptions, preferences, and difficulties of oral/aural skills LAL. Second, the researchers developed a questionnaire based on a review of the literature on assessing oral/aural skills and the results of interviews. The questionnaire was reviewed by experts, revised accordingly, and administered to 150 Iranian EFL teachers who were selected through convenience sampling. The reliability of the questionnaire and its construct validity were then checked. The results of both phases of the study were compatible. The outcomes showed that almost all teachers represented dissatisfaction about their oral/aural skills LAL and they were enthusiastic to participate in assessment training courses. Furthermore, it was found that due to their lack of knowledge about oral/aural skills assessment, traditional techniques of assessment were widely used by Iranian EFL teachers.

To explore the characteristics of the items of the Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) MA Admission Test (henceforth TMAAT) as a high-stakes test in Iran, the current research utilized a three-parameter logistic Item Response Theory (IRT) calibration of the test items. The three-parameter logistic IRT model is the most comprehensive among the three models of IRT for it takes into account all the three effective parameters of item difficulty, item discrimination, and guessing simultaneously. The data were a random selection of 1000 TMAAT candidates taking the test in 2020 collected from Iran’s National Organization of Educational Testing (NOET). The software used to analyze the data was jMetrik (Version 4.1.1), which is the newest version so far. As the results indicated, the TMAAT worked well in discriminating the higher and lower ability candidates and preventing the candidates from guessing the responses by chance, but it was not much acceptable regarding the difficulty level of the items as the items were far too difficult for the test-takers. The most important beneficiaries of the present investigation are test developers, testing experts, and policy-makers in Iran since they are responsible to improve the quality of the items in such a high-stakes test.

Listening comprehension is a challenging skill in EFL contexts and it is necessary to research various aspects of this skill. Therefore, this study tried to investigate EFL learners’ progress on two types of listening comprehension items, receptive-response and productive-response, through diagnostic assessment (DIA) and dynamic assessment (DA). To do this, a Nelson proficiency test was administered among 120 EFL students in six classes, out of which, 90 students whose scores were in the acceptable range were selected. The classes were then randomly divided into three groups of control, DIA, and DA. As the pretest, a KET listening test in two sections of receptive-response and productive-response items was used to check the learners’ initial performance. Next, as for the treatment, in the DIA group, the learners took four listening tests with receptive-response and productive-response items in the form of test-feedback; in the DA group, the learners took the same four tests in the form of test-mediation-retest, and in the control group, the learners practiced receptive-response and productive-response items after each listening activity. At the end of the study, another KET listening test in two sections of receptive-response and productive-response items was administered to the participants to investigate the three groups’ progress from pretest to posttest. Finally, two repeated-measures two-way ANOVAs and one MANOVA were run, and the results showed that both DIA and DA resulted in significant improvements in the learners’ performance on both receptive-response and productive-response listening items; however, the difference between the two types of assessment was not significant.

Quality of Classroom Life is considered as a serious issue in academia around the world, and it has recently received global inquiry in EFL and ESL contexts. However, no questionnaire has been developed to assess the Iranian students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards the quality of life in the classroom. After developing a conceptual framework, the final draft of the developed questionnaire with 71 items was administered to the main sample of participants (n=150). An Exploratory Factor Analysis was performed to identify the components of the instrument, followed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis to measure its construct validity. As a result, the final draft of the Quality of Classroom Life Questionnaire comprised 71 Likert-point items. In phase 2, a number of EFL students and teachers (50 teachers and 322 students) participated in the study which was intended to observe the impact of Modular Instruction on the Quality of Classroom Life. Findings of the study suggested that: (a) the Iranian students and teachers had highly positive attitude towards the Quality of Classroom Life, and believed that educational view, teaching quality, classroom environment, classroom management, quality of classroom interactions and puzzle content played a crucial role in exploratory practice; and (b) the modular instruction which was the descendant of Postmethod instruction had a positive impact on the Quality of Classroom Life. The findings promise implications for teachers and teacher educators as well as the materials developers as the knowledge of classroom quality and modular instruction can enhance their understanding of the nature and conditions of learning.

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.

Considering the fact that engagement with political economy is central to any fully rounded analysis of language and language-related issues in the neoliberal-stricken world today, and that applied linguistics has ignored the role of political economy (Block, Gray, & Holborow, 2012), for the first time, this study investigated the representations of neoliberal ideologies in the Interchange Third Edition Series. To this end, both quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted based on Du Gay, Hall, Janes, Mackay, and Negus’s (1997) model of ‘Cultural Circuit’, especially their concept of ‘Representational Repertoires’. Furthermore, Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (1996) ‘visual grammar’ was used for the analysis of the artwork. The results of the quantitative analysis revealed that more than 50% of the total number of units in each of the textbooks featured neoliberal-related content. Moreover, the results of the qualitative analysis confirmed Du Gay et al.’s (1997) argument that textbooks are not only curriculum artifacts but also cultural artifacts or communicative acts which serve to make English mean in particular ways - in this case the hegemonic culture of neoliberalism. As a result, it is necessary for EFL/ESL teachers and students to collaboratively develop counter-hegemonic discourses through critical thinking and dialogic interrogations of neoliberal discourses.

طی سالهای اخیر، معلمین به عنوان یکی از مهمترین عوامل در تعلیم و تربیت بیش از پیش مورد توجه محققین قرار گرفته­اند. در این راستا، تلاشهای زیادی جهت یافتن روابط بین متغیرهای مختلف معلمان (از جمله کارآمدی، تحلیل­رفتگی شغلی، سبک تدریس و هوش هیجانی) و ویژگیهای جمعیت شناختی آنان (نظیر جنسیت، میزان تحصیلات، و سابقه تدریس) در رشته­های وابسته به تعلیم و تربیت صورت گرفته است. با این وجود، فقدان چنین تحقیقاتی در رشته آموزش زبان انگلیسی محسوس می باشد. هدف از تحقیق حاضر، یافتن روابط میان برخی از این متغیرها در بین معلمان زبان انگلیسی ایرانی بود. بدین منظور، 264 معلم زبان انگلیسی به چهار پرسشنامه کارآمدی، تحلیل­رفتگی شغلی، سبک تدریس، و هوش هیجانی پاسخ دادند. نتایج تحلیل داده­های جمع­آوری شده حاکی از وجود همبستگی معنا دار در بین برخی از اجزا این چهار متغیر از یکسو و اختلاف معنا دار در بین بعضی از این اجزا بر اساس جنسیت، میزان تحصیلات، و سابقه تدریس افراد شرکت­کننده در تحقیق بود.