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Foreign language vocabulary learning is challenging and requires using an appropriate method. To this end, this study aimed to investigate the effect of listening and viewing BBC News lessons as a teaching and learning tool on high school EFL learners’ vocabulary learning. This quasi-experimental research was carried out in the twelfth grade of Shohada high school in Kalybar city in East-Azarbijan, Iran. Forty two high school EFL learners were chosen as participants from two intact classes. The homogeneity of the classes was checked through a KET test. Then, they were randomly assigned into the experimental (n=19) and control (n=23) groups. Target words were selected from the eight BBC News lessons for both groups. The unfamiliarity of these words to the learners was found through the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale. The experimental group experienced vocabulary learning through watching and listening to the BBC News lessons; while, the control group received the same target words through the traditional method. A vocabulary-based post-test was administrated after the treatment. The result of Independent-Samples t-test on the post-test scores of both groups revealed the significant outperformance of the experimental group compared to the control group. Practical implications are presented to teachers, researchers, and learners.

The current study attempted to investigate and compare the perceptions of Iranian in-service hard disciplines, soft disciplines, and English teachers of their prognostic, formative, and summative assessment literacy. To this end, a total number of 282 high school teachers (94 teachers from each disciplinary groups) were asked to complete the modified and validated version of Rahimi and Rastgoo’s (2017) questionnaire. To enrich the quantitative phase, 90 teachers (30 ones in each group of disciplines) were also interviewed. The results of one-way ANOVA and multiple comparisons revealed a significant difference between hard disciplines and English teachers in terms of their prognostic and summative assessment literacy. However, no significant difference was found among the three groups in terms of their formative assessment literacy. The content analysis of the interviews cast light on the commonalities and discrepancies of assessment perceptions and practices depending on the teachers’ disciplines. The findings can be transferred to teacher education programs to enhance the teachers’ subject-specific assessment competencies. 

Despite widespread coverage of language policy in the literature, there has been scant research probing into English language education policy at tertiary levels in general and the higher education context of Iraqi Kurdistan in particular. The present qualitative study investigated EFL students' perceptions of English language education policy, current educational policies, and the purposes for learning in Kurdish contexts across genders and study fields. To this end, a version of Yang's (2012) questionnaire was adapted and administered to university EFL students majoring in soft and hard sciences (N=300, male 34%, female 67%) at two private and state universities in Iraqi Kurdistan. The statistical analysis of the obtained data revealed students' positive attitudes toward learning English as an international language in both soft and hard sciences. Notably, students stressed that all Iraqi Kurdish students should learn the English language in English- and Kurdish-medium classes. They also considered English competence as a significant academic accomplishment. However, some of them felt dissatisfied with the status quo of English education in their institutions. The findings of this study offer insights and recommendations for English education policymakers, administrators, and instructors at tertiary levels.        

Over the past decades, writing assessment research has been concentrating on alternative methods with a social-oriented view of assessment, including dynamic assessment (DA). Given the lack of research juxtaposing the interventionist and interactionist DA frameworks in the area of narrative writing, this study sought to compare the effectiveness of Brown’s graduated prompts model vs. Poehner’s model in the development of one-paragraph narrative essays in terms of grammatical accuracy. The study followed a quasi-experimental design, with 15 Iranian EFL learners selected via convenient sampling from among the female students of a language institute in Tehran. The participants were then randomly divided into three groups: Interventionist group, in which mediation was based on Brown’s model in the sandwich format; interactionist group, where mediation was done using Poehner’s model in the cake format; and non-dynamic assessment (NDA) control group with no mediation involved. The research consisted of three pilot sessions and eleven sessions as the main phase. To analyze the data, both descriptive and non-parametric inferential statistics were run. The results conceded the superiority of both DA approaches to NDA, whereas no significant difference was observed between the two DA groups in their general performance on narrative tasks. However, the analysis of the number and types of required mediational moves over the DA sessions indicated the superiority of the interactionist model to interventionist framework in the development of grammatical accuracy in narrative paragraphs. The study offers some theoretical and pedagogical repercussions for educators, curriculum designers, and L2 teachers.

As an inseparable part of teachers’ education career, practicum supervision can function as a double-edged sword that can generate pedagogical improvement or even make the worse worst in the class depending on the time and manner of its implementation. Given its significance and crucial role in EFL contexts, supervision has captured the attention of some scholars in this line of research. However, few studies (if any) have focused on EFL teachers’ beliefs about instructional supervision and its role in pedagogical development considering their experience level. To fill this lacuna, the current study examined the perceptions of 100 Iranian EFL teachers with different experience levels toward various supervisory practices and their contribution to teacher pedagogical growth using an Instructional Supervision Questionnaire (Kayaoglu, 2012). Furthermore, a semi-structured interview was carried out with 10 EFL teachers taken from the same sample. The results of analyses indicated that both novice and experienced teachers had a negative view concerning the existing supervision system in Iran. Additionally, no significant difference was found between the novice and experienced EFL teachers’ beliefs about classroom supervision (p > .05). The qualitative findings also revealed that both novice and experienced EFL teachers considered supervision as bureaucracy, fault-seeking, confidence-minimizing, and with little to no instructional worth. They also had similar beliefs as per the characteristics of an effective supervisory act. Moreover, supervision was perceived useful only when teachers were novice instructors, but ineffective as they became experienced.

Despite the voluminous body of research investigating linguistic, disciplinary, and cultural variations in citation practices in research articles, these practices have not been examined in light of the interplay between disciplinary conventions and research methodological underpinnings in the field of linguistics. Adopting a multi-faceted design, this study analyzed 180 research article introductions from two close-knit disciplines (Theoretical Linguistics and Applied Linguistics) to look into the contextualized citation functions and authorial evaluative stance toward citations. The corpus was purposively selected to sample three research methodologies. Comparisons were carried out at disciplinary, research methodological, and combinatory levels. The findings of the study show clear variations in the citation functions and evaluative stances taken toward citations. These variations are thought to be the result of the disciplinary conventions which authors must abide by as well as the paradigmatic underpinnings of the research methodologies which the articles are built upon, though the latter have greater impacts. As a partial contribution to the field of second language writing, a practical taxonomy is also proposed to account for the contextualized citation functions in the two disciplines. The study concludes with some pedagogical implications

The objective was threefold: (a) to investigate the difference among online teaching performance of EFL student teachers at Iran University of Science and Technology who received peer feedback, expert feedback, and reflected on their own teaching practice; (b) to examine the difference between rating scores given by student teachers and those by instructor to online teaching; and (c) to determine student teachers’ best experiences, challenges, and lessons they learnt from expert feedback, peer observation, and reflection. The results of this mixed methods experimental research revealed no statistically significant difference in the three group’s scores on their second teaching practice; however, there was statistically significant difference between the scores of the first and second practices for all three groups. The results also showed that student teachers mostly underrated their first teaching, while they overrated their second teaching. The findings also indicated that their best experiences were related to using technological tools, working with Adobe Connect, making interesting materials, and using games and songs. Their challenges included lack of face-to-face communication, engaging all participants, and preparing suitable materials, whereas teaching new vocabulary in context, simplifying songs by pre-teaching their unknown words, and using online games and websites were the lessons they learnt.