شعبان نجفی کریمی

This study was an endeavor to explore the main sources of EFL learners' writing problems through dialogic interactions. It also investigated the effect of metaphor and metonymy on EFL learners' writing achievement. To achieve this end, the researcher adopted mixed-method research with a sample of intermediate language students from both genders. In the qualitative section, 20 EFL learners were selected through purposive sampling, and in the quantitative section, 120 language students were selected through convenience sampling from a university in Gorgan. Data were gathered through Quick Oxford Placement Test (OPT), writing tests, and a semi-structured interview. After recording and transcribing the interviews, the transcripts of the interviews were formatted using the software NVIVO 11 Pro®. With the help of this software, the textual data were reduced into some statements which could reflect the main ideas of the participants’ lived experiences without any intervention from the researcher. However, the data of the tests were inserted into SPSS software and the ANCOVA test was run to indicate differences between the three groups in terms of their writing improvement. The main results suggested that metaphor and metonymy through dialogic interactions had significant effects on the participations’ writing achievement. As well as that, findings from the analysis of data revealed the four main sources of writing problems as linguistic, personal, epistemological, and ecological.       

In today’s world of education, a successful teacher can be assumed to be the one who benefits from Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), which demands consideration of teachers’ beliefs about tasks. The present paper takes into account developing a questionnaire regarding teachers’ beliefs about tasks. To this end, 300 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers from Mazandaran province participated in the study. The raw items for the questionnaire were collected by randomly interviewing 15 participant teachers and the related literature on teacher cognition research on TBLT. Then the items were factor-analyzed to develop the final version of the Teachers’ Beliefs on Task Questionnaire (TBTQ). Employing Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) resulted in a six-factor structure including TBLT and teacher education, TBLT and the learners’ expectations, TBLT and challenges with Present-Practice-Produce (PPP) approach, TBLT and teachers' time limitations, TBLT and teachers’ characteristics, and the feasibility of TBLT resources. Findings revealed that although TBLT has been considered as an innovative approach due to its inspiration from Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), teachers’ attitudes towards TBLT implementation appear to have been taken for granted according to the components emerged from the factor analysis. It is suggested that TBTQ can be used in both foreign and second language contexts in order to identify different categories that can shape teachers’ beliefs about tasks and provide further pedagogical insights into designing and implementing tasks more effectively

Teacher autonomy and teacher personality, both affecting teaching and learning processes, were focused on in this gender-comparative study. The required data was gathered through convenience sampling by online distributing two sets of questionnaires, which were responded by 156 Iranian EFL teachers, including both males and females. Then, SPSS-26 was used to analyze the data in this quantitative correlational survey to answer the two research questions, and the results indicated that a) among the five sub-constructs of personality traits, the Extraversion construct stayed on the first place according to its correlation degree to teacher autonomy, which was assessed very strong; b) male teachers naturally felt more sense of autonomy than females did; also, they are more extraverted, open, and conscientious than female teachers. Finally, Self-Determination Theory (SDT) was applied to support the acquired results. This survey can be best suited for EFL teachers to become more sensitive about their personality constructs.

Delving into the sources of foreign language writing problems is usually neglected. This necessitates more scrutiny of finding out where these problems originate from. To this end, the present study sought to follow a two-fold aim: finding the roots of the Iranian EFL learners’ writing problems, and discovering how these roots are interconnected with each other and come up with a corresponding model. In the qualitative part of the study, a phenomenological research tradition was adopted and 20 EFL learners were selected through purposive sampling. In the quantitative part, through convenience sampling 120 language learners from an English language school in Gorgan, Iran, were selected to be the participants of the study. A semi-structured interview and a researcher-developed questionnaire were used as the instruments for data collection. The results obtained from the analysis of data revealed that writing problems originate from various sources, mainly linguistic, personal, epistemological and ecological, and enjoy a model in which epistemological, linguistic and ecological sources have direct effects and personal source has indirect effect on writing problems. Recognition of epistemological and ecological sources as a novel finding can make teachers revisit their view of these less-approached issues.  

This study has been carried out to develop a critical checklist for global/commercial textbooks which play a crucial role in language teaching/learning. For this aim, a number of items have been developed based on a comprehensive review of the related literature and experts’ opinions. The tentative checklist was administered to the targeted population, yet 326 checklists were deemed appropriate for the analysis. The statistical analyses utilized in this study were exploratory factor analysis and partial confirmatory factor analysis. Prior to the exploratory factor analysis, a correlation analysis reduced the items into 44. Next, the exploratory factor analysis identified ten components. Additionally, six items were excluded from the checklist due to simultaneous factor loading and the finalized checklist was truncated into 38 items.  To investigate the possibility for further validation studies, the result of partial confirmatory factor analysis was not statistically significant.  Results of this study have the potentials to shed some lights on the ideological aspects of textbook evaluation.