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Teacher education philosophy plays an important role in enhancing the teachers’ awareness of the practices particularly in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). This study meant to observe the possible effect of the awareness of teacher education philosophy on EFL teachers’ professional skill in the light of Kumaravadivelu’s postmethod parameters, tapping teachers’ gender, academic qualification, teaching experience, and age. Through a mixed-method approach employing the posttest-only equivalent-groups design, 60 EFL teachers from four language institutes in Isfahan, Iran, were randomly appointed to experimental and control groups. The philosophy of adult education inventory for treatment of experimental group and a book for placebo of control group were used. A questionnaire, an interview, and classroom observation checklist were tools for data collection. T-test, ANOVA, and Mann-Whitney tests exposed a significant difference between EFL teachers’ awareness of teacher education philosophy and their professional skill. Female teachers, bachelor holders, the most experienced teachers, and teachers in the third age range showed better perception of the teacher education philosophy. The implications derive education policy-makers to demarcate quality resources, teacher educators to modify training approaches, and EFL teachers to develop their professional related presentations.

Volunteerism is widespread in the translation sector, but the practices associated with it and its ethical import have so far received very little critical attention. This article critiques one of the most high profile beneficiaries of volunteer translation, Translators without Borders, which presents itself as a charity but operates as a corporate concern, with a leadership composed primarily of major industry players. TWB adopts an asset-centred, platform-based, top-down model that offers massive scaling possibilities and reflects a corporate vision of the translation community. It provides a clear example of the wider shift from artisanal to industrial to platform economy as it plays out in the translation field. To demonstrate the potential for volunteer translation to be situated within a more solidary and equitable context and provide an example of one possible alternative to the platform-based paradigm, we discuss the practices of another humanitarian NGO, Solidarités International, which runs a paid internship programme and adopts a small-scale, peer-based, horizontal model with a strong focus on early-career translators. We ask who ultimately benefits from the exploitation of free labour and focus on identifying practices that enhance or jeopardize the professionalization and stature of the translators involved. We further discuss how the linguistic assets produced by volunteer translators can generate saleable intellectual property and how this can lead to conflicts of interest and support patterns of inequality in the wider social context.

This study sought to promote EFL learners' speaking ability drawing on Bakhtin’s notion of dialogic discourse pattern (DDP) and to explore their perceptions towards implementing dialogic teaching (DT) in a speaking classroom. To this end, from the population of students in different language institutes, 47 students were selected based on a purposive sampling method. The data were collected at two step-wise processes adopting a mixed-method approach. First, the researcher directed two EFL teachers to apply the DDP principles in a dialogic (DG) and non-dialogic group (NDG). The intervention lasted for 12 weeks. Then, a posttest of speaking was conducted to track the possible improvement. The findings attested that the dialogic talk could promote EFL learners’ speaking ability. Next, DG group was required to complete a written discourse completion task to determine the extent to which incorporating DT could promote learners’ speaking ability. To analyze the data, Thomas's (2006) inductive approach was adopted comprising the dominant themes. The results revealed different themes and sub-themes such as developing self-directed learning skills, disseminating critical literacy practice, fostering language learning, promoting motivation and affective factors, to name but a few. The findings propose some implications for classroom management, materials preparation, and language policy program.

Context is a vague notion with numerous building blocks making language test scores inferences quite convoluted. This study has made use of a model of item responding that has striven to theorize the contextual infrastructure of differential item functioning (DIF) research and help specify the sources of DIF. Two steps were taken in this research: first, to identify DIF by gender grouping via logistic regression modeling, an inventory of mostly cited DIF sources was prepared, based on which a list of demographic items was appended to the TOEFL reading paper only to be administered to the intermediate Iranian undergraduates; second, using multiple-variable matching regression (Wu & Ercikan, 2006), a built-in sequence was followed to let every potential DIF source be considered as a covariate, over and above the conditioning variable, and specify whether a particular ecological variable could reduce DIF value/status. Then, all significant variables were analyzed together to show the final DIF predictors. The same procedures, i.e., individual/collective analyses, were employed after the purification of the test. The results indicated three ecological predictors affecting DIF before and after purification: income, administration convenience, and SES. The ultimate predictors helped create an EFL configuration of the ecological model of item responding. The implications for validity arguments are also discussed.

The present study investigated the educational objectives of the English literature curricula at the undergraduate and graduate levels at Iranian universities based on Bloom’s revised taxonomy. Using a detailed checklist based on Bloom’s revised taxonomy and the respective classifications, the educational objectives associated with knowledge ( factual, conceptual, procedural , and metacognitive ) and cognitive ( remember , understand , apply , analyze , evaluate , and create) dimensions were analyzed. The results of the content analysis revealed the dominance of the lower-order thinking skills in the undergraduate curriculum and the prevalence of the higher-order thinking skills in the graduate curriculum. The results showed that the most frequent objective in terms of the knowledge domain was understand in both curricula. Regarding the knowledge dimension, conceptual and procedural knowledge occurred most often at both curricula, confirming that acquiring the knowledge of concepts and the processes safeguards the commended quality for the curriculum designers. Moreover, it was found that the metacognitive-related categories were almost missing from the categories. The results of the cross-tabulation revealed the superiority understand / conceptual in BA and the supremacy of understand/procedural in MA objectives. The findings entail the revisions of the educational objectives to accommodate critical thinking. The findings have pedagogical implications for EFL teachers, the curriculum developers, and policy makers.

For decades, task-based language teaching has become a commodity in ELT profession and has been the subject of many studies. Yet, there seems to be a paucity of research on the impact of TBLT on enhancing learners’ motivation in learning writing. In this regard, this article presents the results of student’s perceptions of the intervention of TBLT in teaching writing in two English classes for one academic term at one institution in Phnom Penh. The study examined the students’ perceptions regarding the impact of TBLT on their writing behaviors and motivation in learning writing before and after the intervention, as well as the constraints that they encountered during the implementation of TBLT. The results indicate positive-but-varying views regarding this intervention. Some challenges are also detected and suggestions are offered for future research in this area accordingly. The study has implications for EFL writing classrooms.

Burgeoning research in applied linguistics has underscored the interplay among individual, cognitive, and social variables that can delineate the ultimate attainment in various areas including vocabulary learning and the need to explore how innovative conflation of these dimensions may promote learning outcomes. The present quasi-experimental study examined the impact of Thematic Vocabulary Instruction (TVI) with and without Multiple Intelligence-oriented tasks on advanced EFL learners’ vocabulary learning and scrutinized probable differences among individual learners with varying intellectual propensities. Thus, a stratified homogeneous sample of 80 advanced EFL learners was selected and randomly assigned to four groups; the first and the second experimental groups (EG1 and EG2) received TVI with tasks compatible and incompatible with their dominant intelligence, respectively. The third experimental group (EG3) received TVI focused on coursebook exercises and the control group (CG) received non-thematic instruction based on textbook exercises. A parallel vocabulary test was administered to measure the participants’ vocabulary learning. The research data were analyzed via the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney tests and revealed that the EG1 significantly outperformed the other groups and intrapersonally-intelligent learners significantly underperformed their peers in the EG1. The findings underscore the significance of taking individual differences into account and offer a number of pedagogical implications.