سید محمد علوی

Sandwich and cake formats of interventionist Dynamic Assessment suffer from two problems: both are time-demanding, and the intervention presented to the learners varies from one learner to another.  To suggest a solution to the above problems in teaching and assessing reading strategies, the present researchers have introduced ‘sauce’-format mediation through which intervention is provided for the learners within ‘mediation boxes’ along the test. Thirty Iranian intermediate EFL learners participated in the study. They were first given a non-mediated reading pretest, and then they took the same test along with a ‘mediation box’ following each question to observe the probable effect of ‘sauce’-format mediation.  To measure the transcendence of the given mediation, the participants answered a non-mediated delayed posttest at the end.  Comparing the means of the mediated posttest and non-mediated pretest on the one hand and those of the non-mediated delayed posttest and the pretest on the other revealed that the learners benefitted significantly well from the ‘sauce’-format mediation and could transfer their learning to a novel context. Findings of this study are consistent with the previous research on DA that intervention supports learner development.

Measurement has been ubiquitous in all areas of education for at least a century. Various methods have been suggested to examine the fairness of education tests especially in high-stakes contexts. The present study has adopted the newly proposed ecological approach to differential item functioning (DIF) to investigate the fairness of the Iranian nationwide university entrance exam. To this end, the actual data from an administration of the test were obtained and analyzed through both traditional logistic regression and latent class analysis (LCA) techniques. The initial DIF analysis through logistic regression revealed that 19 items (out of 70) showed either uniform or non-uniform DIF. Further examination of the sample through LCA showed that the sample is not homogeneous. LCA class enumeration revealed that three classes can be identified in the sample. DIF analysis for separate latent classes showed that three serious differences in the number of DIF items identified in each latent class ranging from zero items in latent class 3 to 43 items in latent class 2. The inclusion of the covariates in the model also showed that latent class membership could be significantly predicted from high school GPA, field of study, and acceptance quota. It is argued that the fairness of the test might be under question. The implications of the findings for the validity of the test are discussed in detail.

Formative assessment is deemed the collaborative processes in which teachers and learners are engaged for the purpose of understanding the learners' learning and diagnosing their strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand, teachers' beliefs about formative assessment are paramount and might be influenced by a legion of variables such age, educational background, instructional experience, and gender. This study investigated the impacts of EFL teachers' age, educational background, instructional experience, and gender on their beliefs about formative assessment. To this aim, 100 male and 100 female EFL teachers from Ahvaz junior and senior high schools participated in the study. The participants were given the questionnaire of teachers' beliefs about formative assessment. The results regarding EFL teachers' age, educational background, and gender revealed no statistically significant influence on their beliefs about formative assessment. However, teachers' teaching experience had significant impacts on their beliefs about formative assessment. These findings can contribute to EFL authorities concerning assessment procedures in language learning and teaching.

Learning-oriented assessment (LOA) seeks to support instruction by providing information about students ’ current learning conditions and their ultimate performance. This study scrutinizes the application of LOA in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing classes within Iranian language institutes. In addition, the current study examined the participants’ writing traits using the researchers-developed writing traits questionnaire during the implementation of LOA. Sixty upper-intermediate students (male & female) in two intact classes at a language institute in Tabriz, Iran, were taken as the participants. One of these classes was randomly picked as the control and the other one as the experimental group. During the treatment, learners of the experimental group carried out the relevant writing tasks based on the principles of LOA. On the other hand, the control group adopted the teacher-centered approach. 120 IELTS writing task 2 samples were collected and scored by using a scoring rubric (Wang & Liao, 2008) before and after the LOA treatment. To realize the differences in the mean scores of students in the control group and the experimental group, an independent sample t-test was used. The findings showed that the students of the experimental group benefited vastly from multiple drafting, self, and peer-evaluation, sharing learning goals with teachers and each other, and using feedforward techniques instead of feedback. The results might provide both theory and pedagogy implications for syllabus designers and language teachers with valuable guidelines on improving writing assessment in IELTS writing courses.

This study is a longitudinal mixed method design investigating Iranian English learners' perception of native-speaker English teachers (NSETS) and non-native-speaker English teachers (NNSETS) in New Zealand and Iran within the conceptual framework of Kumaravadivelu (2003), Rudolf (2018), and Benson el al. (2013).  A semi-structured interview and a questionnaire (consisting of 21 Likert items and 3 open-ended questions) were used twice ten months apart in each context. An online narrative interview was employed in 2022 to supplement the data. Non-parametric data analyses were run on the Likert items. Several coding schemes were developed and a thematic analysis was employed. Findings revealed that NNSETS in New Zealand and NSETS in Iran were perceived by the learners as more effective in guiding their students toward developing a multilingual identity. This is interpreted as the "cross-actional influence of context in language learners' perception of teachers regarding L2 identity development in students" in this research. The findings also showed a shift in students' perception from NSETS to NNSETS in both contexts over time due to the better instructional strategies of NNSETS for teaching reading, listening, grammar, and their deeper understanding of the student's needs. This study informs language teachers, teacher educators, and education authorities on 1) the cross-actional influence of context on students' perception of teachers regarding L2 identity development as a normal procedure, 2) the pattern of a shift from NSETS to NNSETS due to the qualifications of NNSETS should be considered in teacher training programs to make the most proficient language teachers accordingly.

Although FLIP learning has been used as an effective face-to-face and online learning pedagogy, there is a scarcity of research on students' English speaking skill using FLIP learning in these two modalities. Therefore, this study set out to investigate the effect of face-to-face vs. online FLIP learning on the speaking skill of lower-intermediate Iranian university EFL learners. The study was quasi-experimental with 32 participants (18 female and 14 male) whose homogeneity in terms of language proficiency at lower-intermediate level was assured through the administration of Oxford Placement Test. Then, the participants were randomly assigned to two experimental groups, both of which took the pretest and posttest of speaking. One group participated in face-to-face FLIP classroom and the other one took part in online FLIP context using Adobe Connect. The findings revealed that using FLIP learning significantly improved the speaking skill of the two groups since the participants of both groups performed more successfully on the post-test as compered to the pre-test. The findings also indicated that the face-to-face FLIP learning participants outperformed the online FLIP learning participants. This means that using face-to-face FLIP learning in which the students had face-to-face interactions had a positive effect on their speaking skill more effectively.

The ability to assess the language learners’ progress has been known as one of the most important parts of EFL/ESL teachers’ literacy. Language assessment literacy (LAL). The notion of LAL has evolved over time, as a large number of researchers showed to be enthusiastic to study this research area. However, the number of studies on teachers’ Writing Assessment Literacy (WAL) is scanty. As writing skill is very necessary for language learners to communicate with native speakers of the English language, it is very important for writing teachers to develop assessment tasks to positively contribute to the rate of learners’ progress in writing skill. Therefore, it is of much significance to review the related studies on assessment literacy, language assessment literacy, and writing assessment literacy. In this review study, the relevant studies were reviewed and further directions for writing assessment literacy of EFL/ESL teachers are suggested to the researchers interested in the field.