نسیم شنگرفام

This study explored the impact of critical pedagogy training for IELTS teachers on their students’ self-regulated learning. It also examined the relationship between students’ self-regulation and their IELTS performance, as well as how teachers implemented critical pedagogy principles in their classrooms. A mixed-methods research design was used, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. 30 IELTS teachers and 150 learners from a language school in Tehran were recruited based on non-random convenience sampling technique. Teachers received training in critical pedagogy, after which learners completed a self-regulation questionnaire both before and after the intervention. Language proficiency was assessed using two official IELTS mock tests. Classroom observations and semi-structured interviews with teachers provided qualitative insights into instructional practices. Results showed that learners whose teachers received the training had significantly higher self-regulation scores post-intervention compared to a control group. A positive correlation was found between self-regulation and IELTS performance. Observations and interviews revealed that trained teachers used more dialogic, student-centered methods that promoted autonomy and reflective learning. The findings suggest that critical pedagogy training can effectively enhance both learner autonomy and exam preparedness. These results have implications for improving teacher education and classroom practices in high-stakes language testing environments.

This study intended to unveil the impact of incorporation of positive psychology theory into English instructions on the preference for anxiety-reducing strategies among Iranian EFL learners. The participants consisted of 60 EFL learners, from Safir Institute, Tehran, Iran, at the intermediate level, who were selected out of 90 EFL learners selected on convenience sampling basis. The 60 learners selected on the basis of their scores from an Oxford Placement Test (OPT), given to the 90 learners, were split into two equal 30-member groups. Both groups were given the language anxiety reducing strategies (LARS) questionnaire as pretest. Then, positive psychology-based instructions were provided to the experimental group drawing on five types of positive psychology-based instruction techniques for 20 sessions. These five instruction techniques included gratitude, optimistic intervention, positive affirmations, savouring, and strength-building measures. The control group received no intervention concerning positive psychology, and learners followed the conventional syllabus of the language school. After the treatment, the two groups took the LARS questionnaire as post-test. The results of ANCOVA indicated that teaching positive psychology techniques significantly increased anxiety-reducing strategies preference among Iranian EFL learners.

AbstractThe resilience of teachers has arisen as a crucial issue in developing exceptional teaching and learning experiences. It is imperative to foster resilience, which entails the capacity to endure and overcome obstacles and challenges encountered during the teaching process. Additionally, research has demonstrated that the self-efficacy of instructors is pivotal in this regard. To investigate these features, this research aimed to inspect the role of International English Language Testing System (IELTS) teachers' resilience and self-efficacy. To this end, a total of 60 IELTS teachers were chosen from Oxford Language Center, Tehran, Iran thanks to the convenient sampling and they completed a self-efficacy scale, and a resilience scale and were assigned to experimental and control groups that the former were trained through self-efficacy workshop training course in Oxford IELTS center in Tehran, Iran. The findings of this study through running an Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) indicated a constructive effect of self-efficacy on IELTS teachers' resilience after the workshop training course (F (1,57) = 60.00, p = .000 < .01, partial eta squared = .513, representing a large effect size). Correspondingly, it was revealed through Pearson Product-Moment Correlation that there is a positive and significant correlation between IELTS teachers’ self-efficacy and resilience (r = .462, p = .01 < .05). This study helps IELTS teachers improve their resilience. In line with these findings, some implications were presented to language stakeholders to consider the role of teacher self-efficacy.

This study investigated a new blended approach for enhancing vocabulary achievement. To this end, the project used a convenience sample of 50 intermediate EFL learners ranging from 19-35 years of age from three intact classes studying English translation at university. They were randomly assigned to two groups of 25 students each. In the experimental group, the treatment consisted of providing photos/cartoons related to the sessions’ course of instruction on Instagram, with the learners discussing and exploring the meaning of vocabularies via peer scaffolding using metacognitive strategies. The control group followed the syllabus and assigned homework according to the class program. To investigate the vocabulary achievement of the participants, a piloted multiple-choice vocabulary posttest was administered. The results that were analyzed through independent samples T-test revealed that the blended approach could significantly affect the performance of the experimental group. This study has implications not only for teachers, researchers, and syllabus designers but also for EFL learners with unpacking the notion of metacognition and peer scaffolding, proposing an integrated framework that illustrates how it may pervade the teaching-learning process as an educational goal. The implication of this study supports student responsibility, a student-centered classroom, and higher levels of cognition.

The focus of this study is to investigate the comparative effect of teaching grammar through interpretation tasks and pictorial clues on EFL learners’ writing accuracy. The participants were 60 female intermediate EFL learners with age range of 21-35 who were divided into two experimental groups after being homogenized by a piloted PET test. In the piloted researcher-made pre-test, the researcher required the participants to write a narration and also complete another narration with some blanks with provided words using grammatical points they were going to be taught. After the treatment phase, another researcher-made parallel form of the pre-test was administered as the post-tests. To investigate the research question of the study, an ANCOVA was conducted. The results revealed that there was not any significant difference between the performances of either group. In other words, the mentioned ways of teaching grammar had equal effect on the learners’ writing accuracy.

The present study was an attempt, in the first place, to observe whether there was any significant relationship among teachers’ critical thinking, self-efficacy, and perception of effective teaching. Moreover, the researchers tried to examine which variable was a better predictor of perception of effective teaching. To this end, the measures of the critical thinking ability of 143 EFL teachers were obtained using Honey’s (2000) Critical Thinking Questionnaire(adopted from Naieni, 2005). Also, their sense of efficacy was estimated utilizing Tschannen-Moran and Hoy’s (2001) Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale. Moreover, their perception of effective teaching was determined employing Bell’s (2005) Effective Teaching Questionnaire. The results revealed a statistically significant relationship between both critical thinking and self efficacy of teachers and their perception of effective teaching. However, only two of the components of critical thinking, namely analysis and evaluation, were correlated with perception of effective teaching. Also, critical thinking components had a significant relationship with perception of effective teaching components. Additionally, it was found that there was a positive relationship between all components of self efficacy and perception of effective teaching and its components. Finally, the regression analysis showed that self efficacy was a better predictor of teachers’ perception of effective teaching in comparison with critical thinking though the margin of difference was not that large. This study has implications for the EFL teacher preparation and education programs.