محمدحسین عارفیان

Reflective practice and noticing can be regarded as two essential concerns for novice teachers’ survival and development in their first practices. Therefore, this study was an attempt to explore how reflective practices activate novice English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ noticing. To that end, we conducted an instrumental case study to explore the role of reflective practice among Iranian novice EFL teachers in activating their noticing. An inductive-deductive thematic analysis of the data collected through teachers’ portfolios and semi-structured interviews indicated that novice teachers’ noticing could be activated and sharpened through teachers’ personal, cognitive, and professional developments addressed by reflective practice. Furthermore, the findings showed that there are relationships among novice teachers’ personal, cognitive, and professional developments and the components of teacher noticing, including framing, perceptual activities and exploration, and interaction, leading to sharpening novice EFL teachers’ noticing. Hence, it can be concluded reflective practice can activate novice EFL teachers' noticing, impacting their professional development through framing, interaction, perceptual activities, and exploration. The study has implications for EFL teacher education programs, where teacher educators can help teachers develop critical reflection skills to address problems in their classrooms.

The current study attempted to investigate and compare the perceptions of Iranian in-service hard disciplines, soft disciplines, and English teachers of their prognostic, formative, and summative assessment literacy. To this end, a total number of 282 high school teachers (94 teachers from each disciplinary groups) were asked to complete the modified and validated version of Rahimi and Rastgoo’s (2017) questionnaire. To enrich the quantitative phase, 90 teachers (30 ones in each group of disciplines) were also interviewed. The results of one-way ANOVA and multiple comparisons revealed a significant difference between hard disciplines and English teachers in terms of their prognostic and summative assessment literacy. However, no significant difference was found among the three groups in terms of their formative assessment literacy. The content analysis of the interviews cast light on the commonalities and discrepancies of assessment perceptions and practices depending on the teachers’ disciplines. The findings can be transferred to teacher education programs to enhance the teachers’ subject-specific assessment competencies.