درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Learning to teach is conceptualized as a complex process of identity development. To address this process, this study explored Prospective Teachers’ (PTs) professional identity development at different stages of learning to teach within a four-year Second Language (L2) initial teacher education program. Participating in a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach, 140 PTs filled out the English language teacher professional identity questionnaire three times: at the end of the second year, third year, and fourth year. Then, after each round of the questionnaire administration, 12 PTs were asked to participate in the interview phase to gain further insight into the participants’ professional identity development. Three separate sets of Freidman test and grounded theory were employed to evaluate the questionnaire and interview data, respectively. The results of both quantitative and qualitative data analyses revealed that the second-year PTs’ language awareness had a major contribution to the enactment of collective identity of language analyst and language user roles as part of their professional identity. Teaching practicum experiences also helped the third-year PTs develop a sense of belonging to the school community by aligning themselves with its rules and policies, which helped them develop their professional identity in a prescribed manner, informing institutionally situated identity of formal teachers. The fourth-year PTs’ identification of themselves with regard to their prospective learners’ needs was also the identity development observed in the form of learner-oriented attitude toward learners as whole persons, all conducive to imagined future identity of needs analysts. The results and implications are further discussed.

Language placement tests (LPTs) are used to assess students’ proficiency in a progressive manner in the target language. Based on their performance, students are assigned to stepped language courses. These tests are usually considered low stakes because they do not have significant consequences in students’ lives, which is perhaps the reason why studies conducted with LPTs are scarce. Nevertheless, tests should be regularly examined, and statistical analysis should be conducted to assess their functioning, particularly when they have a medium or high-stakes impact. In the case of LPTs administered on a large-scale, the logistic and administrative consequences of an ill-defined test may lead to an economic burden and unnecessary use of human resources which can also affect students negatively. This study was undertaken at one of the largest public institutions in Latin America. Nearly 1700 students sit an English LPT every academic semester. A diagnostic statistical analysis revealed a need for revision. To retrofit the test, a new test architecture and blueprints were designed in adherence to the new curriculum, and new items were developed and tried out gradually in several pilot studies. Item Response Theory (IRT) was used to examine the functioning of the new test items. The aim of this study is to show how the test was retrofitted, and to compare the functioning of the retrofitted version of the English LPT with the previous one. The results show that the quality of items was higher than that of the former English LPT.

Much has been done on assessment literacy (AL) components and job demand-resources (JD-R). However, an interdisciplinary look at AL components as the predictors of JD-R and its possible consequences in the engagement and burnout of teachers’ assessment performance has been neglected. To fill this gap, the present study explored this issue in the context of Iran. To this end, through convenience sampling, 146 Iranian EFL teachers were selected to answer questionnaires on AL, JD-R, burnout and engagement. A series of multiple regression analyses were run to analyze the collected data. The results showed that some components of AL such as test construction, administering, rating, and interpreting test, psychometric properties of a test, using and interpreting statistics and authenticity were significant predictors of job demand. Moreover, the results revealed that alternative and digital-based assessment, recognizing test type, distinction and function, and authenticity were significant predictors of job resource. Furthermore, test construction, administering, rating, and interpreting test, psychometric properties of a test, and using and interpreting statistics could significantly predict teachers’ burnout. In addition, alternative and digital-based assessment, giving feedback in assessment, and ethical and cultural considerations in assessment turned out to significantly predict teachers’ engagement. These findings can have theoretical and practical implications for stakeholders.

In the long process of learning English as a foreign language, learners may become exhausted and, if not treated properly, decide to give up learning temporarily and even permanently. Therefore, it seems necessary to explore the reasons for their temporal delays and consider them appropriately to avoid permanent give-ups. As an attempt to determine the reasons for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ delays, the researchers in the present study explored their contributing factors through application of a classical grounded theory approach which led to the development of Language Learning Procrastination (LLP) theory. The research data were collected through semi-structured interviews from 43 EFL learners in Tabriz, Iran, and were coded in open, selective, and theoretical coding stages through a Constant Comparative Method. The emerged theory involved a core category (i.e., Dilatory Behavior) indicating that EFL learners mostly procrastinate in five domains of doing exercises, preparation for exam, submitting projects, starting up speaking, and learning spelling. Furthermore, three major categories of Learners’ Characteristics, Environmental Conditions, and Task Features as the causes of Dilatory Behavior emerged during the iterative data collection and analysis procedures. The results of the study indicated that both EFL learners’ own characteristics and external factors related to the learning environment and language tasks are significant in shaping the EFL learners’ procrastination. The theory of LLP can be applied in EFL settings to recognize the learners’ sources of Dilatory Behavior and devise appropriate solutions for them.

In recent years, some language teachers have made investments in approaches and models such as mobile assisted flipped language learning. Some studies in Iran have examined flipped learning impact on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ language skills as well as language systems. However, no researches have been conducted on the impact mobile assisted flipped learning might have on improvement of intermediate EFL learners’ cohesive devices and their motivation to learn cohesion which is the focus of the current study. To this end, 40 female intermediate EFL learners in an English language institute in Kerman, Iran were recruited. Employing a quasi-experimental design, subjects were assigned to two classes of experimental (EG- N = 20) and control (CG-N = 20). Oxford Placement Test, researcher-made writing achievement tests, and Academic Motivation Scale (AMS) were utilized to collect the required data. The findings indicate that participants in mobile assisted flipped language learning group outperformed those in the control group. Moreover, the results of a chi-square test showed a significant relationship between mobile assisted flipped language learning and intermediate EFL learners’ motivation to learn cohesive devices. The findings might help stakeholders design, introduce, and address mobile assisted flipped language learning to their context-specific needs, thereby facilitating the language learning process.

Assessment literacy refers to the knowledge teachers have about definitions of testing and the employment of this knowledge to classroom practices. This study inspected the extent to which high school teachers of English, mathematics, science, and social studies utilize assessment literacy and instructional improvement practices in their classrooms and the probable relationship between these two factors. To this end, ninety-seven teachers from sixty high schools across Zanjan province in Iran were selected based on convenient sampling. The instrument used was a 32-item questionnaire designed by researchers and validated by experts. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was also conducted in order to validate the factor structure of the questionnaire. The results showed a strong positive relationship between assessment literacy and instructional improvement practices in all four subject areas through correlations. This suggests that showing an understanding of assessment literacy results in a greater understanding of instructional improvement in the classroom. Moreover, a one-way ANOVA was performed in order to determine if there is a significant difference in the use of assessment literacy practices and instructional improvement among different subject areas. The data revealed no statistically significant differences between neither assessment literacy nor instructional improvement scores by subject area. The study can be beneficial to school districts and teachers since the review of existing teaching practices and an increase in ongoing professional development in assessment literacy theories and practices may improve instructional improvement in all subject areas.

Knowledge of verb-argument constructions (VACs) has been examined in a variety of contexts where English is mostly taught from the early stages of their schooling. No study has so far examined EFL learners’ knowledge of VACs in a context where English as a foreign language is taught only late at the secondary school level. The current study fills this gap by exploring construction knowledge in a context where teaching EFL is postponed until other languages have been introduced to learners. Using written essays of 180 students of 3 different proficiency groups, three indices of syntactic sophistication (i.e. the frequency of the Verb-argument constructions, the frequency of the verb-construction combinations and the verb-construction strength of association) were examined for their development across the three grade levels. As a second objective, this study examined the ability of these indices to predict students’ writing quality, through their grades. The results suggest that while the higher proficiency group showed a significant improvement in the rareness of their VACs, the three groups showed slow progress in the use of less frequent and less strongly associated verb-construction combinations. Similarly, only the index of construction sophistication (i.e. rareness) correlated significantly with and could predict variance in the writing score. This suggests that EFL learners follow a ‘necessary first’ principle in their learning of constructions. Similarly, these results indicate that the use of rare constructions enhances raters’ judgements of students’ writing quality.

Despite the fact that classroom interaction is an indispensable aspect of language learning, many EFL students do not show any willingness to participate (WTP) in classroom activities. In view of this problem, the current study aimed to describe how Iranian EFL learners’ participation in collaborative tasks can lead to WTP. Therefore, primarily discoursal features of collaborative tasks and then behavioral representations of WTP were identified. To this end, nine EFL intermediate learners (five males and four females) participated in the study and were assigned to two groups. First two collaborative tasks were designed: The first group were asked to make a digital story collaboratively and the second group were asked to make an advertisement for selling a house. The classroom interactions among students in different classrooms were video-recorded and transcribed based on conversation analysis principles. Then the frequency of the turns taken by each student was counted as indicator of WTP in the assigned task. Multimodal analysis (gaze, facial expressions, head movement, body posture and gesture) was also used to analyze behavioral representations of EFL learners’ WTP. The findings revealed that discoursal features of WTP include negotiation, elaboration, conflict, sharing expertise, humor, asking for elaboration, conflict.,and behavioral representations include eye contact, body language, and the sitting position of students which can indicate that students’ engagement in collaborative tasks can have impact on their WTP. The findings can have implications for EFL teachers, material developers, and teacher education programs.

This study is conducted to reveal the types of mood, speech function realizations, and the persuasion strategies applied to Donald Trump’s clauses in his three remarks regarding the issue of COVID-19. Discourse analysis is applied to analyze the data. The applied mood types and speech function realizations are then correlated with Cialdini's principles of persuasion to see the persuasion principles applied in the three remarks. The results show that the President's three remarks are dominated by declarative mood with three most frequently used speech functions: statements of fact, statements of opinion, and statements of the assertion. In terms of Cialdini's persuasion principles, the speaker uses all of the six principles in his three remarks, except the principle of preference employed only in the third remark. The other five principles, namely authority, consistency, social-evidence, reciprocity, and rareness/scarcity, are contained in the three remarks with their persuasive purposes. In Cialdini's persuasion principles, the clauses used by President Trump reveals the strategies of taking advantage of his powerful authority in his remarks, showing his consistency while delivering the remarks, expressing his best efforts for his inhabitants, and showing successful evidence in overcoming the pandemic compared with other countries’ endeavors.