International Journal of Research in English Education

This study aimed to investigate the effect of teaching discourse markers (DMs) on Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ speaking achievement. In the first step, 60 homogeneous intermediate students out of 110 were chosen from a private English language institute and randomly divided into two equal groups, namely an experimental group and a control group. Then they were pretested through a researcher-made speaking test. During the treatment, the experimental group was taught DMs by conversations. Then, they found the DMs in transcriptions of conversations. Also, the researcher used a researcher-made booklet containing the instructional materials related to DMs to be taught to the learners. On the other hand, there was not any direct instruction to DMs to the students in the control group. They only narrated the assigned storybook, and performed conversations by role play. These posters were used based on the related topics of the learner’s textbooks. After the treatment which took 12 sessions, the researcher administered the modified version of the mentioned pre-test as the post-test to find out the effect of the treatment on the participants’ speaking achievement. When the data were collected, one-way ANCOVA was run to analyze them. The results showed that there was no significant difference between experimental and control group in the post-test. Indeed, the findings indicated that teaching discourse markers (DMs) did not have any effect on Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ speaking achievement.

Though English Language Teacher Education Programs (ELTEPs) in Yemen offer two technology-related courses for EFL student teachers, they have not rendered a course for CALL as part of their curricula. Therefore, a pioneering initiative of Computer Assisted Language Learning Project (CALLP) was implemented to expose EFL student teachers to CALL concepts and skills. This quasi-experimental study aimed at examining the effect of CALLP on student teachers’ perceived self-efficacy using the EFL student teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)-for-EFL self-efficacy survey (known as TPACK-EFL). The study employed a one-group pre-test-post-test design and a mixed-method approach for collecting data from a sample of 400 EFL student teachers in four public universities across the country. The findings revealed that student teachers’ perceived TPACK self-efficacy significantly increased as a result of CALLP. Furthermore, the participants believed that the technology-related courses offered in their ELTEPs were not enough to prepare them well to use CALL in EFL instruction. Therefore, it was recommended that a CALL course should be integrated into ELTEPs to enhance student teachers’ CALL competency and to make them fit to harness CALL while teaching in the digital era.

Although Task-Based Instruction (TBI) has received large attention on the part of English practitioners throughout the world, it seems that there is yet a huge gap between the Iranian EFL teachers’ perceptions and practices in implementing it in real classes. Hence, this study set out to unearth the possible sources of difficulties in using TBI in EFL classes. To meet the goals, a total of 120 male and female EFL teachers were selected through stratified random sampling from Iran language institute (ILI) branches in Tehran, Iran. After critically reviewing the literature and using a flow chart technique, a questionnaire including 20 items was developed, piloted, and distributed among the participants. Then, the collected data were analyzed through the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Results indicated that three main factors, namely lack of appropriate assessment methods , cultural difference , and efficacy of the method received the utmost significance from the EFL teachers’ perspectives that have led to not using TBI. In the end, the implications of the findings were discussed for different stakeholders.

Over the years, teachers are considered as one of the most influential factors, which play an important role in pedagogical and educational settings. Numerous research studies have been done about teachers and their performance in the classrooms. Among the investigated factors motivation, anxiety, burnout can be considered as having higher importance concerning related literature. Therefore, the present study sheds light on their interaction and relationship with Iranian language teachers’ performance. To this purpose, 80 male and female English teachers with at least 10 years of teaching experiences were selected in Neyshabur, and their motivation, anxiety, and burnout were examined through filling out the related questionnaires. The design of the study was correlational, focusing on the correlation between each two variables. The data analysis showed that there is a significant correlation between teachers’ burnout and the research factors such as their motivation and anxiety. Finally, some pedagogical implications of the study concerning the improvement of teachers’ performance at schools are presented. The findings of the present study put much emphasis on designing and administrating teacher-training programs with especial regard to psychological traits such as language teachers’ motivation and anxiety to reduce the probable great burnout, which the majority of language teachers may feel after several years of teaching experiences.

This study aimed to determine the university students’ level of social presence, preferred synchronous learning tool, and learning performance and their differences according to sex, age, year, major, Blackboard experience, and perceived computer literacy. The relationship between students’ social presence, preferred synchronous tool, and learning performance was also determined. The respondents were 29 students enrolled in the ESL online elective class, Global Business Communication, at a university in South Korea. There were two sets of online surveys used in this study. The statistical tools used in this study were the mean, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test, Mann-Whitney Test, and Kruskal-Wallis Test. The results showed that the students maintained a Moderately High level of social presence throughout the duration of the course, chose KakaoTalk as their preferred synchronous learning tool, and concluded the course with an overall average grade, or learning performance level of “B”. There was a significant difference regarding the students’ learning performance when they were classified according to Blackboard experience; and no significant relationship existed between the students’ social presence, preferred synchronous tool, and learning performance.

The present study aimed to investigate the concept of “Teacher Education” from a hermeneutic point of view. This view was selected since there were rare cases in the whole literature related to teacher education. On the other hand, defining a hermeneutic model could be expected to provide a more objective and tangible of teacher education nature and its configuration in the minds of those who directly deal with or discuss it. The main question for which this study tried to find an answer was whether it was possible to present a hermeneutic model for giving an operational definition to teacher education. To answer the question, the study followed a survey-qualitative methodology: first the concept of teacher education was investigated through archival scrutiny and its definition deficiencies were determined. Next, the same procedure was followed for the hermeneutics concept. The data of the study were analyzed via non-statistical comparative analysis, and it was concluded that it was possible to define teacher education hermeneutically; however, the vastness of the issue needed more survey.

The current study was conducted to discover the impact of the positive assessment on Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners speaking skill and their self-efficacy. To accomplish the research, 40 Iranian females (17 to 8 years old) were selected from Shokooh Andishe Language Institute in Mashhad. A KET test which administered to determine the participants’ level of proficiency. Then, they were divided into two groups, one control group and one experimental group (each included 20 participants). Two instruments, including KET speaking test and a self-efficacy questionnaire, were administrated to both groups as pretests. The experimental group received the treatment based on the principles of positive assessment i.e. using phrases such as very good, excellent, giving small gifts, using thrilling labels and so forth. At the end of the study, the same instruments (as post-tests) were conducted to collect the required data for the analysis. To measure the statistical differences between the means of two groups, some independent samples T-tests were calculated. The results of the analyses indicated that the experimental group outperformed the control group both in the case of speaking skill and self-efficacy. The findings of this research might be useful for EFL teachers and EFL learners, also they can be helpful for training programmers, institutes, and course designers.