مهناز سعیدی

The global education landscape is witnessing a rise in teacher accountability, where educators bear a heightened responsibility for demonstrably achieving student learning outcomes. In response, teachers are engaged in a continuous quest to enhance their pedagogical effectiveness, seeking strategies and methodologies to optimize their classroom practice. The present study investigates the relationship between Continuous Professional Development (CPD) practices and teacher success in the Iranian context. A sample of 364 EFL teachers from junior and senior high schools self-reported on their CPD engagement, while 422 of their students provided their perceptions of teacher success. Findings revealed the substantial potential of CPD to elevate teacher success through interconnected processes of knowledge updating, reflective practice, collaborative learning, and refined decision-making skills. Notably, updating knowledge strongly influenced both collaboration and reflection, while reflection moderately stimulated collaboration, and collaboration exerted a robust influence on effective decision-making. However, the study unexpectedly uncovered a negative direct association between teacher decision-making and professional success within the specific Iranian context. Additionally, no significant gender-based differences in teacher success were observed. The negative association between teacher decision-making and professional success in the Iranian context warrants further investigation. This suggests that factors specific to the Iranian educational system or cultural context might influence the relationship between these two variables. Understanding these factors is crucial for developing contextually relevant CPD programs.

Speaking proficiency is a crucial skill for Iranian EFL learners, yet it remains one of the most challenging aspects of language acquisition due to traditional, teacher-centered instruction and a lack of communicative practice. This study examines the effects of Differentiated Instruction (DI) and Gamification (G) on the Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency (CAF) of Iranian EFL learners’ speaking skills. A quasi-experimental design was employed, involving 108 B2-level learners from Safir Language Institute, Iran. Participants were divided into three groups: one receiving DI-based instruction, another engaging in Gamification-based tasks, and a control group following conventional teaching methods. The study utilized pre- and post-tests of speaking performance, evaluated through CAF metrics, alongside qualitative interviews to explore learners’ perceptions. Statistical analyses revealed significant improvements in all three dimensions of speaking in the experimental groups, with DI showing greater gains in accuracy and complexity, while G was more effective in enhancing fluency. Qualitative findings indicated that both approaches increased learner engagement, motivation, and confidence. These results suggest that DI and Gamification are effective pedagogical strategies for improving speaking proficiency and should be integrated into EFL curricula to optimize learning outcomes.

After Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory (MIT), some language teaching practitioners set out to teach students in a way to help their dominant intelligence(s) blossom. In an EFL context, usually teachers’ main focus is to develop communication skills. Nowadays, writing is one of the main ways by which people communicate. Thus, this study aimed at investigating possible relationship between Multiple Intelligences and writing performance of Iranian EFL learners across different genders. To conduct this study, 15 male and 15 female advanced EFL learners from a reputable institute in Tabriz participated. They passed through a placement test to enter the course, yet the researchers administered a Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) to ensure homogeneity in the group. After a session of introducing the project’s purpose, Multiple Intelligence Developmental Assessment (MIDAS) questionnaire was administered for obtaining participants’ Multiple Intelligence profile. Later, the participants were given a text and asked to read and summarize it. The collected writings were analyzed for grammatical accuracy, complexity and quality of the writing based on Jacob et al.’s (1981) scale. The results of the correlational analysis revealed that overall Multiple Intelligences correlated positively with the quality of the female learners’ writing. The findings suggest that English teachers consider the role of multiple intelligences in learning and teaching process and provide more effective activities to help learners of different intelligences improve their foreign language writing skill.

This study investigated the effects of different learning levels, including Remember an Instance (RI), Remember a Generality (RG), and Use a Generality (UG) in multiple-choice and essay tests on immediate and delayed retention. Three-hundred pre-intermediate students participated in the study. Reading passages with multiple-choice and essay questions in different levels of learning were given to the participants to investigate the effects on both immediate and delayed retention. The findings revealed that to evaluate immediate retention, multiple-choice questions at remember levels are effective, but for enhancing delayed retention, essay questions, especially at UG level, are more effective. The results of the study suggest that tests can be used as aids to retention beyond their primary evaluation function.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of teaching communication strategies on students’ self-efficacy in speaking in content-based courses in Iranian EFL context. To this end, 30 students in two content-based classes, one as the experimental group and another as the control group, in SAMA private junior high school school in Tabriz, participated in this study. Communication strategy instruction was taught explicitly over a period of 16 one-hour sessions to the experimental group, while the control group didn’t receive any explicit communication strategy teaching. Data on the learners’ self-efficacy in speaking were collected through a researcher made questionnaire. The results of the data analysis using ANCOVA revealed the positive effect of teaching communication strategies (CSs) on students’ self efficacy in speaking in content-based courses in Iranian EFL context. The findings of this study have important implications for material developers for designing activities involving communication strategies and for teacher training programs for teaching communication strategies to improve learners’ self-efficacy regarding speaking skill.

This study aimed to translate MIDAS questionnaire from English into Persian and determine its content validity and reliability. MIDAS was translated and validated on a sample (N = 110) of Iranian adult population. The participants were both male and female with the age range of 17-57. They were at different educational levels and from different ethnic groups in Iran. A translating team, consisting of five members, bilingual in English and Persian and familiar with multiple intelligences (MI) theory and practice, were involved in translating and determining content validity, which included the processes of forward translation, back-translation, review, final proof-reading, and testing. The statistical analyses of inter-scale correlation were performed using the Cronbach's alpha coefficient. In an intra-class correlation, the Cronbach's alpha was high for all of the questions. Translation and content validity of MIDAS questionnaire was completed by a proper process leading to high reliability and validity. The results suggest that Persian MIDAS (P-MIDAS) could serve as a valid and reliable instrument for measuring Iranian adults MIs.

With the purpose of examining the sources of spelling errors of Iranian school level EFL learners, the present researchers analyzed the dictation samples of 51 Iranian senior and junior high school male and female students majoring at an Iranian school in Baku, Azerbaijan. The content analysis of the data revealed three main sources (intralingual, interlingual, and unique) with seven patterns of errors. The frequency of intralingual errors far outnumbers that of interlingual errors. Unique errors were even less. Therefore, in-service training programs may include some instruction on raising the teachers’ awareness of the different sources of errors to focus on during the teaching program.

In recent years, there has been an increasing amount of literature on genre-based approaches to writing instruction. However, scant attention has been paid to the use of genre-based scaffolding in the realm of academic writing. Hence, in an attempt to tackle the problems prevalent in academic writing, this study set out to investigate the effect of genre-based scaffolding through sentence starters and writing frames on MA candidates’ research paper writing. To this end, twenty MA candidates majoring in ELT were randomly assigned to two homogenous groups, one control and one experimental group, each including 10 participants. Both groups were exposed to a five-session genre-based instruction while the experimental group benefitted from the additional provision of sentence starters and writing frames relevant to different sections of a research paper. The analysis of the results, using independent sample of t-test, reveals that genre-based instruction can be a useful tool in improving academic writing. Moreover, the outperformance of the participants of the experimental group is indicative of the beneficial effect of scaffolding through starters and frames.