رضا پیش قدم

هویت ایرانی را نمی توان مفهومی یکپارچه در نظر گرفت. تاریخ ایران نشان می دهد که ایران ترکیبی از مدرینته/اسلام/ملیت می باشد. هافستد (2001) فرهنگ را به شش قسمت تقسیم می کند: فاصله قدرت، فردگرایی/جمع گرایی، مردسالاری/زن سالاری، گریز از عدم قطعیت، تمایل کوتاه مدت/بلندمدت، و لذت طلبی/سخت کوشی. این پژوهش قصد دارد رابطه این ابعاد فرهنگی را با هویت بررسی نماید. بر این اساس، دو پرسشنامه ابعاد فرهنگی و اجزای هویتی به تعدادی از دانشجویان ایرانی از رشته های مختلف داده شد. از تحلیل کارسپاندنس و رگراسیون چندگانه برای تحلیل داده ها استفاده شد. نتایج نشان داد ارتباط معناداری میان ابعاد فرهنگی و اجزای هویتی وجود دارد که می تواند برخی از بحران های هویتی در جامعه ایرانی را توجیه کند. در پایان، نتایج مورد بحث و بررسی قرار گرفت و راهکارهایی برای کاهش بحران هویت ارائه شد.

The current study aimed at investigating the relationship between life-wise syllabus- as a new type of syllabus which emerged as the result of recent developments in applied ELT and corresponding to the "education for life"- and teacher success in an EFL context. Life-wise syllabus introduced by Pishghadam in 2011 directed English teachers’ attention to give priority to life issues rather than language in class. These new concepts encourage curriculum development based on life and all of its manifestations which is the core principle of humanistic education. Then teaching should not only comprise mathematics, chemistry, or literature, but also emotions, relationships, attitudes, thinking styles, feelings, and states of mind. Due to the recent emergence of this syllabus and the dearth of research over its effectiveness, this research study was carried out to shed more light on the issue. To this end, 200 teachers- 100 from private sector and 100 from public sector- and their 1771 students were chosen as the participants of the research study from Mashhad and Ghaen cities. In this study, the teachers were given "Life-Responsive Language Teaching beliefs Questionnaire" (hereafter LRLTB), and their students were given the "Characteristics of Successful EFL Teachers Questionnaire" (hereafter CSET). The results of the correlational study indicated that the main variables and also their subscales were highly correlated. The comparison between male and female teachers regarding correlation between variables did not show any significant difference. But the comparison between private and public school teachers in terms of the relationship between the variables displayed that they were more strongly correlated for the latter.

Almost little is known about creative writing. In this research, creative writing has been introduced as an alternative to academic writing. The aims were to introduce creative writing as an alternative to academic writing to boost the participants’ attitude towards writing in general. The participants were 32 senior university students studying English Translation at Islamic Azad University, Tehran. The study includes two phases: quantitative and qualitative. For the quantitative phase, the participants were given a questionnaire so that the researchers could measure their attitudes about writing. Then, a creative writing pretest was administered, followed by a posttest to see to what extent the treatment could help the participants improve their writing skill. For the qualitative phase, a videotaped oral interview with the participants was closely examined to find out about the participants’ attitudes towards writing. The means of the pretest and posttest indicated a three-fold increase in the scores after the treatment was over. The oral interview, furthermore, showed that most participants had a negative attitude towards creative writing. It was finally concluded that creative writing might be considered as a useful asset in academic contexts, expected to alleviate the negative attitude of learners towards writing to feel more confident.

The present study aimed to design and validate a “Critical Understanding of the Global Spread of English” Scale (CUGSES). To this end, a framework was designed based on the tenets of linguistic imperialism, English as an International Language (EIL), and globalization. The scale was then administered to a population of 425 participants, comprising English language teachers in language institutes, English language learners in language institutes, parents whose children attended English language institutes, university students majoring in English and English-major university professors. Rasch measurement was utilized to substantiate the construct validity of the instrument. The results of the Rasch analysis revealed that except for three items, the scale is unidimensional and meets the criteria to fit to the Rasch model. Next, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to extract the factors underlying the scale. Five components were extracted and labeled as: domination of English language and culture, preference for home culture and language, age and medium of instruction, native speakerism, and localization in ELT. Implications of the newly- designed scale in the Iranian EFL context were then provided.

The role of teachers in the educational context could go beyond simply teaching the subject matter. It is not uncommon for some students to be greatly influenced by certain teachers and even consider them as their role models. An interesting and novel way of inferring the impact a teacher has on the students is through revealing the status of the teacher as perceived by the students. The present study pursued two goals: first, to construct and validate a teacher status scale (TSS); and second, to reveal the relative status of English language teachers as compared to other school teachers in students’ perceptions. Regarding the first goal, an 18-item teacher status scale was designed and, using the data collected from 200 students, its construct validity was substantiated through Rasch model. As for the second goal, 650 junior high school students rated their 300 teachers. The data was then analyzed using Chi-square test. In addition, 135 students participated in short interviews and a total of 530 minutes of recorded interviews constituted the qualitative data. Based on the results, English teachers were found to have the highest status of all school teachers as perceived by the students. Finally, statistical results were discussed, and implications were provided for English language teaching in the formal context of education.