شادی دنیایی

The present study investigated whether individual or collective reflective journals could lead to teachers’ professional development and professional identity (re)construction. To this end, 30 Iranian EFL teachers were selected through convenience sampling. The participants wrote pre-workshop reflective journals individually and collectively and attended a reflective consciousness-raising workshop for eight sessions. The participants were informed about the major tenets of reflection, professional development, and professional identity (re)construction in the workshop. Afterward, they wrote post-workshop reflective journals again individually and collectively. The participants sat follow-up interviews for the researchers to find out which kinds of journals better helped them develop professionally and (re)construct their professional identity. The findings showed that individual reflective journals and collective reflective journals contributed to teachers’ professional development and professional identity (re)construction respectively. The findings might imply that stakeholders involved that is EFL education policymakers, curriculum developers, and syllabus designers hold interactive workshops for pre-service and in-service teachers on reflective journal writing which might lead to both EFL teachers’ professional development and identity (re)construction. Moreover, it is recommended that the decision-makers and senior managers develop systematic checklists addressing those influential factors found in the present study to contribute to teachers’ professional development and professional identity construction.

Despite its importance, a review of the related literature reveals not many studies have examined criticality in EAP. Accordingly, in the present study, whether critical approaches were followed in Iranian EAP classes were investigated among EAP teachers and students based on Benesch (1993). To do so, 40 EAP teachers and 150 EAP students were selected based on convenience sampling. The study drew on both qualitative and quantitative approaches as the participants completed a researcher-made questionnaire and attended an interview. The quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and independent-samples t -tests and inductive content analysis respectively. The quantitative results indicated that Iranian EAP classes (from both teachers and students’ views) suffered low levels of criticality and that there was a significant difference between teachers’ and students’ perspectives on the existence of criticality in EAP classes. The qualitative findings also confirmed EAP teachers’ low familiarity with criticality in EAP courses. The inhibitors and facilitators in the journey towards criticality were finally identified based on the teachers’ perspectives. 

The study investigated the relationship between Iranian EFL teachers' perception of critical pedagogy (CP) and reflective teaching (RT), the possible effect of gender, academic degree, and teaching experience on teachers’ perceptions of CP, the possible differences among the three groups of teachers of universities, public schools and private language institutes regarding their perception of CP and also the possible difference between the reported CP perception of teachers and their actual classroom implementation. The instruments adopted for data collection purposes included the CP Questionnaire developed by Pishvaei and Kasaian (2013) and the RT Inventory developed by Akbari, Behzadpour and Dadvand (2010) which were validated through pilot-testing and factor analysis. Then, the CP Classroom Observation Checklist, was developed by the researchers and was viewed by an expert. The results of one-way ANOVA showed that there were significant differences among the three groups of university, school, and language institute EFL teachers regarding CP perception. Also, the results of Pearson correlation showed a significant relationship between participants' perception of CP and RT. Moreover, the results of Factorial ANOVA indicated that gender and teaching experience did not significantly differentiate the participants concerning CP perception; however, academic degree did so. Furthermore, the results of Independent Samples t-test revealed significant differences between the participants' reported perception of CP and their actual classroom implementation of it. The findings of the study might imply that English teachers should be equipped with the knowledge of how to put CP into practice in actual classroom settings in addition to the propositional knowledge of the concept.