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With the advent of globalization, especially in its third phase (see Robertson, 2003), global relations of domination have undermined abuse of power at national and local levels (Fairclough, 2001). Global ELT textbooks, as corollaries of the globalization process, are not immune to the embedment of discriminatory discourses, as various studies have shown (see for example, Gray, 2010, 2012; Babaii and Sheikhi, 2017). On the other hand, a social actor analysis of verbal and visual discourse will contribute significantly to the disclosure of discriminatory discourses (see van Leeuwen, 2008; Hart, 2014). The current study, therefore, reduces the gap in research on ideology of ELT materials by probing into the nursery rhymes in children and young-adult ELT textbooks. Visual representation of social actors in the images accompanying nursery rhymes in Magic Time, English Time, Let's Go and Family and Friends were, thus, examined, using van Leeuwen's (2008) framework. Regarding results, the most frequent exclusionary discourses in the corpus included religion, nationality, race, and gender respectively. Significantly, it was found that monochromatic depiction of social actors constituted a strategy for the discursive construction of otherness in Family and Friends. Additionally, a process, called whitenization of blacks in the terminology of the current study, was found to be at work in which blacks were depicted as having the facial features of whites.

Applying both teacher- and computer-generated feedback to foster EFL learners’ writing remains a less explored issue. The purpose of this study was two-fold. Firstly, it examined whether blending both online automated feedback (OAF) and teacher feedback had a significant effect on EFL learners’ writing ability or not. Secondly, it explored their perceptions on the use of the blended OAF and teacher feedback. To this end, this study employed a mixed-method design using essay writing, questionnaire, and interview to investigate the impact of blended OAF and teacher feedback on EFL learners’ writing ability in an essay writing course. Thirty intermediate EFL learners participated in the study; they were given the first writing pre-test, and then were assigned into experimental and control groups randomly. The experimental group was given access to the integrated OAF and teacher feedback on their two-paragraph problem-solution essay writing during the treatment phase while the control group received teacher-only feedback. The results of the independent samples t-test and RM ANOVA showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in terms of the overall score for the two final essay writings, and also demonstrated a significant improvement in writing scores across four essays during the treatment. The qualitative data also revealed the participants’ positive perception towards the effectiveness of the blended OAF and teacher feedback on their writing. Overall, the findings of this study can contribute to a better understanding of the impact of the blended feedback in enhancing EFL learners’ writing ability.

There is little research on the task-based teaching approach in senior secondary L2 English writing classrooms. This study carried out an exploratory sequential mixed methods study to explore the suitability and adaptations of task-based language teaching in the domain of secondary schools in small cities. First, the researcher surveyed six EFL senior secondary teachers of different teaching experiences in China by convenient and purposive sampling to get background information, then had semi-structured interviews with them individually. To followed the interviews, the researcher surveyed 148 students via an online questionnaire also by convenient and purposive sampling. Findings indicated that, although most teachers acknowledged the usefulness of TBLT, they regarded it unsuitable and unfeasible in the context of Chinese senior secondary L2 writing classrooms. Also, students in the study ranked clear instruction and vocabulary increase as the first two contributors in improving their L2 English writing. But half of all students also valued an interesting writing classroom and took it as a third facilitator to develop their writing. Besides, adaptations were suggested to include professional task design, teacher discussion, reward mechanism and teacher profession development. In the future, further research is needed to examine the findings in this study, generalizing them to different contexts, ages and domains, and exploring teachers’ individual differences and their choice of teaching approaches.

Teachers' decision-making and pedagogical reasoning and their improvement are key to the effectiveness of teaching. Although a number of studies have been conducted on these issues, there is still not enough information about teachers' interactive decision-making and pedagogical reasoning, and teachers also do not have the necessary skills in this area. To address this gap, the current multiple case study investigated four novice EFL teachers' decision-making and their underlying pedagogical reasoning in implementing instruction. The result of the constant comparative and categorical content analysis on the ten-session classroom observations and the transcribed stimulated recall interviews indicated common themes, including teachers' overusing of learners' L1, excessively using the deductive approach to teaching, failing to incorporate technology but using available resources in class during instruction, using whole-class or individual instructional techniques, and rarely emphasizing on learners' knowledge of the world. The targeted teachers made such decisions to perform their predetermined responsibilities, transfer the correct information, motivate learners, manage time, and help learners toward their language achievement. This study has implications for teachers to reflect on their instructional decisions and pedagogical reasoning, and for managers to provide them with opportunities for reflection.

This study reports on research article (RA) authors’ definitional understanding and sociocultural perceptions of intertextuality and plagiarism in academic writing. To meet this end, a questionnaire, consisting of three sections, was constructed and emailed to Iranian RA authors who have published in leading international and local applied linguistics journals. The findings of the first two sections suggest that authors recognized the crucial role intertextuality plays in RAs; however, they had a flimsy understanding of the concept and its cultural bearings. On the other hand, unacceptable, as most of these respondents may find it, plagiarism was seen as an unavoidable part of academic research at least in initial steps of academic writing. This was shown to be mainly the function of the authors’ sociocultural perceptions of plagiarism. The third section of the questionnaire addressed the authors’ departure from plagiarism and gradual proximization to intertextuality. The findings imply that plagiarism, intertextuality and their concomitant sociocultural perceptions ought to be discussed, re-examined, and put to trial in local contexts

The Persian translation of the emotion regulation strategies inventory (Gross & John, 2003) was validated among Iranian EFL teachers. The predictive power of variables, i.e. educational background, working experience, gender, and age was also appraised. To do so, 250 EFL teachers with at least five-year teaching experience at the universities of two states, Isfahan and Fars, were invited to take part in the study. The non-random convenient sampling technique was then adopted. Filling out the inventory was done after the class time. The results of the principal component analysis (varimax rotation) verified the original two-factor model. The multiple regression analysis done by AMOS software also revealed that demographic variables could significantly affect teachers’ emotion regulation, though their effect in the present sample was small (R2=0.08 and R2=0.02). The results also suggested that the teachers disagreed about the use of expressive suppression in their classes (m=3.28) and were rather undecided as to the use of cognitive reappraisal in their teaching (m=4.49).

Washback refers to the effect of testing on teaching and learning. The university entrance exam for Iranian MA candidates of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (hereinafter TEFL MA UEE) is a nationwide high-stakes test administered every year, and significant decisions will be made based on the examinees’ performance on this exam; therefore, it is prone to bring about degrees of washback at the micro and macro levels. This study was an attempt to examine the washback effect of TEFL MA UEE on Iranian lecturers’ classroom activities. Therefore, a mixed-method approach was used to collect, analyze, and integrate both quantitative and qualitative data in order to obtain a better grasp of the research topic and to enhance validity and reliability of the information. Based on a sequential design, two phases of data collection were conducted with a two-week interval. In the first phase, a valid and reliable researcher-made questionnaire was administered to a sample of 16 Iranian university lecturers. In the second phase, five lecturers agreed to be interviewed. For this purpose, an interview protocol was developed and it was checked for the validity and reliability. The findings showed that TEFL MA UEE did not induce a high level of washback on the lecturers’ classroom activities and their teaching methodology. The findings could have practical implications for TEFL MA UEE constructors and policymakers in Iran and could also be of use to the researchers in the field of washback studies by providing some guidelines for this complicated phenomenon.

The current comparative study aimed to juxtapose the newly compiled English textbook for the students in the third grade of senior high school, Vision 3, and the previously taught English textbook for pre-university students. To this end, 130 experienced teachers, with the experience of teaching both textbooks, were asked to complete an eclectic checklist comprising 38 items and evaluating the book in terms of nine major criteria, namely general considerations, vocabulary, grammar, speaking, listening, reading, writing, pronunciation supplementary materials, tasks, and activities. Following that, 20 teachers were interviewed to enrich the results of the quantitative data. Overall, the results revealed the teachers’ contentment with the newly developed English textbook. In particular, the mean values indicated that English teachers rated the speaking and listening sections as the most satisfactory parts while they ranked the supplementary materials criterion as the least satisfactory one in Vision 3. Indeed, they believed that notwithstanding the dramatically positive changes in Vision 3, the book still requires undergoing major revisions to act as a rich source for enabling the EFL students to communicate fluently, accurately, and effectively. In this regard, the findings would benefit the materials developers to locate the areas for further modifications.

پژوهش حاضر به بررسی تاثیر داده محور بر تشخیص و تولید هم آیی ها ی زبان آموزان با سطح توانش انگلیسی بالا و پایین متوسط پرداخت. همچنین تاثیر ثانویه داده محور بر هم آیی های ثانویه (هم آیی هایی که در واژه یاب گنجانده نشده بودند ولی به صورت مستتر در تکالیف استفاده شده بودند) نیز مورد بررسی قرار گرفت. نگرش زبان آموزان نسبت به نقش واژه یاب در یادگیری هم آیی ها و تغییر نگرش آنها در طی فرایند پژوهش نیز از طریق مصاحبه مورد ارزیابی قرار گرفت. حدود 40 زبان آموز ایرانی به دو گروه آزمایشی و گواه تقسیم شدند. هر گروه به دو زیرگروه سطح توانش بالا و پایین نیز تقسیم شدند. گروه آزمایشی به مدت 10 جلسه به واژه یاب دسترسی داشتند تا تکلیف دوباره نویسی را انجام دهند. نتایج حاکی از آن است که زبان آموزان با سطح توانش بالا بیشتر از زبان آموزان با سطح توانش پایین از تاثیر اولیه و ثانویه واژه یاب بهره مند شدند. هر دو زیرگروه، نگرش مثبتی به تاثیر واژه یاب در یادگیری هم آیی ها داشتند و این نگرش با گذر زمان پررنگتر شد.

As a part of a larger-scale research, the present study aimed to use the main tenets of sociocultural perspective; namely, mediation, internalization, zone of proximal development, and the activity theory, to analyze the novice and expert teachers’ professional development through personal practical theorizing as an awareness raising technique. Furthermore, the study attempted to identify the contextual factors hindering teachers’ pedagogical beliefs enactment. The areas of mismatches between the teachers’ beliefs and practices were identified in the previous phases of the study, and personal practical theorizing procedure was implemented in the program to help teachers converge their beliefs and practices. Within the domain of the qualitative research, a multi-case study design was utilized, employing eight novice and experienced teachers who were selected through purposive sampling. The teachers’ professional development in the proposed program was analyzed through the lens of sociocultural perspectives, and the contextual factors hindering teachers’ beliefs enactment were enumerated based on the results gleaned through interview sessions.

Developing, exploring and standardizing digital game based learning for EFL and English for Specific Purposes (ESP), requires a thorough understanding of learning context, gaming elements, ludical manners, as well as features of virtual reality in a real-life and career like setting. Unlike some traditional scientific approaches that focuses only on individual systems separately as a dipped in fashion approach, digital game requires a platform for understanding game genres, games’ use and various kind of games in order to define game design characteristics, theories of learning in digital era and to expand the characteristics and patterns of CALL application combined with linguametric perspective for digital games. It is a means and umbrella term for combined framework for multidimetional advancements, research and practices from major areas of inquiry, namely applied linguistics, psychometrics, and edumetrics of inter, supra disciplinary perspectives and emotional intelligence which gives importance to this discussion and a need to implement, develop, blend and use positive features of various digital game types in a user friendly and massively online course platform worldwide.

The demand for learning English as a foreign language has significantly heightened the need to recruit efficient teachers. Related literature confirms the lack of studies on teacher characteristics that can affect their job satisfaction. This study aimed to study the relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ professional development, job satisfaction, and reflective thinking. One-hundred and fifty-nine teachers from different universities, language institutes, and schools wer e requested to answer the professional development questionnaire, the Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire, and reflective thinking scale as the main data collection instruments. These questionnaires were given in three different ways: in person, email, and social networks. Structural Equation Modeling was used to examine the hypothesized model of associations. This model was confirmed following the application of the modification indices proposed by the software (Normal chi-square = 3.4; RMSEA =.03; RMR =.02; GFI =.94; AGFI =.91; NFI =.94; CFI =.94; IFI =.94). The findings showed that there were significant internal correlations between all the latent variables and their sub-scales. Furthermore, findings of multiple regression analysis revealed that professional development and reflective thinking positively predicted job satisfaction, with professional development exerting more predictive power compared to reflective thinking. Pedagogical implications of the results have been discussed.