درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

While teachers’ confidence in their abilities is a crucial asset in teachers’ professionalism and their identity development, their efficacy doubts are also considered useful. Given the diversity of English Language Teaching (ELT) contexts, this paper probes the dynamic nature of efficacy doubts the teachers face and are expected to resolve in English for General Purposes (EGP) and English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) instruction. To this end, based on the existing theoretical frameworks in EGP and ESAP methodology and interviews with 25 university English teachers, two questionnaires were developed and administered to 170 Iranian EGP and ESAP university instructors. The results of factor analysis confirmed five factors underlying ESAP teachers’ teaching efficacy doubts and four factors for EGP teachers’ teaching efficacy doubts. The results may promise implications for ESAP and EGP teacher education programs; teacher educators may address the common efficacy doubts identified in this study and expose the current in-service and future ESAP and EGP teachers to the typical factors which may potentially hamper their efficacy and help them resolve their efficacy doubts as a means towards professional development

Motivation can be conceptualized as a dynamic process which is a key contributor to mastering a second language. This study used the L2-Motivational Self System as the basis for a conceptual framework for studying the effects of external factors on learners' motivation. In particular, the role of teachers and parents was studied as the external facets of predicting learners' motivation. One hundred and twenty EFL teachers along with 1,270 of their students participated in the study. To measure motivation, the Persian version of Dörnyei's L2 Motivation Self-System Scale was utilized. Three key components of the scale, namely, criterion measure, attitudes to L2 learning, and instrumentality promotion were employed in measuring motivation. To assess the role of family in motivating learners, another subscale of Dörnyei's questionnaire, i.e., family influence was used. To gauge teacher burnout, the educator version of the Maslach burnout inventory (MBI-ES) was used. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was run to analyze the causal relationships among the variables. The results revealed that teacher burnout negatively influenced learners' criterion measure and their attitudes to learning English. However, the path leading from teacher burnout to instrumentality promotion was not significant. Furthermore, three direct, positive, and significant paths leading from family influence to learners' criterion measure, instrumentality promotion, and attitudes to learning English were detected. Finally, findings are discussed with reference to the context of Iran

Despite the importance of interlanguage pragmatic rating (ILP) in the second language teaching and learning context, scant attention has been devoted to it. This study aims to investigate native EFL teachers’ major criteria in assessing the speech act of complaint produced by Iranian EFL learners. To fulfill this end, two groups of experienced native raters, including American (n=47) and British (n=30) EFL/ESL teachers, were elected for evaluating the complaint discourse completion tests (DCTs) made from video-prompts which were answered by EFL learners before. The content analysis of raters’ comments on the EFL learners’ productions revealed eleven different criteria including logical reasoning and comments, politeness, linguistic appropriacy, semantic formula, interlocutors’ relationship, register choice, formality, degree of intensity, cultural accommodations, degree of directness, and finally fluency and naturalness respectively from the most to the least frequent ones. The result of the t-test and chi-square analysis proved that British and American raters differed significantly in their degree of variations and preferences of these criteria. The results further showed that EFL learners’ responses seemed unreasonable and impolite to native raters which might be due to the different cultural norms between L1 and L2 societies and consequently encourage us to be aware of the importance of teaching sociopragmatic knowledge to the EFL learners.

Three decades ago, the theory of education took a critical turn. From this perspective, classroom is no longer a public sphere of cultural assimilation but a site for identity struggle. The basic argument underlying such an approach is that education cannot be studied in isolation from an analysis of wider social and cultural influences. In such a context, this study investigated Iranian EFL teachers’ perceptions of the basic tenets of critical pedagogy. To this end, a mixed method approach was adopted and the data were gathered through in–depth interviews and questionnaires developed by the researchers. The participants of this study included 21 Iranian EFL teachers at the qualitative phase and 127 teachers at the quantitative phase. Qualitative data analysis included in-depth content analysis of oral data obtained from semi-structured interviews. Quantitative data analysis involved descriptive statistics and independent sample t-tests. The results indicated that Iranian EFL teachers were supportive of the basic tenets of critical pedagogy altogether. Also, mixed findings were obtained concerning their views according to their level of education and field of expertise. Based on the findings, several suggestions are made for classroom management, materials development, and teacher training programs.

تعلیم و تربیت انتقادی در انگلیسی به عنوان زبان خارجی: اصول، برنامه ریزی، عملکرد لیلا اکبرپور دانشگاه شیراز رحمان صحراگرد دانشگاه شیراز پژوهش حاضر که بخشی از رساله دکتری نویسنده اول می باشد شرح تدوین یک کورس خواندن و درک مفاهیم بر اساس اصول تعلیم و تربیت انتفادی و تاثیر آن کورس بر دانش خواندن فراگیران زبان انگلیسی، انگیزش آن ها برای خواندن متون انگلیسی، چگونگی نگرش دموکراتیک آن ها به کلاس های درس انگلیسی و نیز نگرش آن ها نسبت به کورس پیشنهادی می باشد. در واقع، تحقیق حاضر گامی به سوی بررسی نتایج بر گرفته از مراحل نخستین رساله دکتری ذکر شده است که هدفش تدوین الگویی برای آموزش زبان انگلیسی در ایران بر اساس تعلیم و تربیت انتقادی می باشد. شرکت کنندگان در این پژوهش 61 تن از دانشجویان دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی واحد شیراز (در دو گروه) بودند. 31 نفر از شرکت کنندگان که گروه گواه را تشکیل می دادند بر اساس روش های معمول که در ایران برای آموزش خواندن به کار گرفته می شود و 30 تن دیگر که گروه آزمایشی را تشکیل می دادند بر اساس کورس انتقادی آموزش دیدند. نتایج تجزیه و تحلیل داده ها بر اساس پیش آزمون و پس آزمون خواندن و درک مفاهیم، پرسشنامه انگیزش، پرسشنامه نگرش دموکراتیک و نیزنتایج تحلیل کیفی مصاحبه ها نشان داد که علی رغم مشکلاتی که حین انجام پژوهش در گروه آزمایشی وجود داشت، کورس پیشنهادی بر دانش خواندن شرکت کنندگان، نگرش دموکراتیک آن ها به دروس زبان انگلیسی و ایجاد انگیزه درآنان برای خواندن متون انگلیسی تاثیری مثبت نشان داد. نگرش شرکت کنندگان نسبت به کورس پیشنهادی نیز در قالب چهار تم که از نتایج تحلیل داده های کیفی پدید آمد بررسی شده و گزارش گردید. پیام اصلی این پژوهش کار آمدی اصول تعلیم و تربیت انتقادی در ایران است که برخی پژوهشگران آن ها را در شرایط فعلی غیر کارآمد دانسته اند.

This study was intended to compare collaborative and individual task planning effects on Iranian EFL learners’ writing performance. Therefore, a group of 90 upper intermediate EFL learners were placed in three groups of Collaborative Task planning, Individual Task planning, and Control. In the experimental groups, participants were asked to do task planning collaboratively and individually. The first writing assignment was the pretest and the eighth one was the posttest. A rating scale which includes five equally weighted criteria for rating; namely, Organization, Content, Grammar, Mechanics, and Style as well as the Total score was used. After making sure about the inter-rater consistency, data were analyzed using one-way ANOVAs to examine the effects of task planning on EFL writing performance. Results indicated that task planning produced better writing performances in the experimental groups, when considering Total scores. Furthermore, the treatment was effective in Organization and Style. Nevertheless, it had no significant effects on Content, Grammar, and Mechanics. Results are in line with previous research on collaborative writing and task planning. However, the study was different because it made a distinction between collaborative and individual task planning. This study has practical implications for classroom practices and language teachers, and theoretical implications for a better understanding of sociocultural theories of second language learning.

The changing culture toward multimodality enforces acquiring visual literacy in every aspect of today’s modern life. One of the fields intermingled with using various modes in different variations is language teaching and learning, especially for and by young learners. Young language learners’ (5-12 years old) lack of world experience forces them to make the most use of non-verbal modes of communication to receive and send the intended message, enhanced in foreign language learning environment. As a result, the language teacher him/herself will be supposed to be armed with visual literacy of this new language and to have the ability to successfully transmit this knowledge to the students. The present study aims to investigate whether the three focused factors in educational semiotics; namely, Process of abduction, Principle of kinesics, and Proxemics- proposed by Sert (2006) exist in the curriculum of Iranian pre-service language teachers in one of the educational districts in Isfahan. By distributing two questionnaires among TTC course instructors and pre-service teachers, and obtaining the percentage of the analyzed data, the findings showed that the number of institutes which focus on the matter are rare. Also, it was revealed that the pre-service teachers, majoring in English Language, performed better in terms of realizing the meaning of body language units and comparing and contrasting them (principle of abduction). The results will be useful for future teachers and their educational curriculum in favor of enhancing the fifth language skill, foreign language visual literacy.