درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Teacher professional development plays a critical role in enhancing educational outcomes, with Teacher Training Courses (TTCs) serving as a primary avenue for improving teaching quality. This study evaluates the effectiveness of an English TTC conducted at the Iran Language Institute (ILI) by employing a concurrent mixed-methods approach. Data were gathered from TTC candidates, attendees, and ILI teachers to assess their expectations, immediate evaluation, and delayed evaluation of the TTC. Seven interviews with TTC candidates were conducted to capture expectations, while 69 questionnaires from attendees and 85 from ILI teachers provided immediate and delayed evaluations respectively. Both interviews and questionnaires were structured around the five standards of the California Standards for the Teaching Profession (CSTP), and the data were analyzed using content analysis and descriptive statistics. The findings indicate that candidates expected the TTC to focus on modern teaching techniques, syllabus design, classroom management, and supporting diverse learners. Besides, satisfaction levels were higher among female teachers and TTC attendees compared to male teachers and ILI teachers respectively. All in all, areas such as supporting diverse learners and professional development emerged with the lowest levels of satisfaction. These findings underscore the importance of tailoring TTCs to address specific needs, particularly in areas where satisfaction levels are suboptimal, to ensure the continued improvement of teaching quality and student outcomes.

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.

Over the last three decades, Second Language Teacher Cognition (SLTC) and the factors affecting teachers’ cognitive patterns have turned into one of the concerns within the realm of Second Language Teacher Education (SLTE). The inconsistency of the findings concerning the role of teacher education courses in bridging the gap between theory and practice has highlighted the need for exploring new techniques to encourage teacher reflection and cognitive development. In line with this perceived need, in the present qualitative study, seven researcher-designed Problem-Based Teaching Scenarios (PBTS) were assigned to seven TEFL students to explore the cognitive patterns recurring in their responses. Besides, their transformation while generating practical pedagogical solutions to the posed problems were traced over the course of study. The analysis of the data collected through the PBTSs and a structured electronic interview revealed a number of cognitive patterns including thinking within the boundaries of the prior language learning experience, educational culture, teaching experience, and pedagogical content knowledge. Furthermore, three main cognitive changes namely, moving from not fully grasping the problem to providing well-ordered solutions, from imitating to partially reflecting, and from prescribing to describing were observed. It is hoped that the findings have pedagogical and practical implications for SLTE instructors, curriculum designers, materials developers, and researchers.

Reading education and reading affective factors significantly affect school-age students’ academic achievement. Nevertheless, most teachers disregard scientific strategy-based reading instructions and scholars have recently regarded L2 reading affective factors, namely reading motivation and anxiety. Moreover, technology-aided EFL reading courses for primary schoolers have been neglected. Accordingly, the current study aimed to implement seven L2 reading strategies suggested by Yapp et al. (2021a), and evaluate the effect of these strategies on English reading comprehension, motivation, and anxiety at virtual environment by using online team-teaching. The EFL fifth graders and pre-service teachers of the study were selected via volunteer sampling. The students (n = 28) were randomly assigned to two groups (n = 14 for each group) and the teachers (n = 4) were randomly assigned to two groups (n = 2 for each group) as well. One group was given Traditional Instruction (TI) and taught by two instructors whereas the other group received Strategy-Based Instruction (SBI) and was taught by the other two instructors. To assess L2 reading motivation and anxiety, the questionnaires by Dhanapala (2008) and Saito et al. (1999) were administered. The within- and between-group analyses using paired-sample t-tests and ANCOVAs indicated that although both groups’ reading comprehension, motivation, and anxiety were enhanced, the SBI participants outperformed the TI participants. Moreover, the interview with the SBI group demonstrated their positive attitudes toward the SBI course. The current study would encourage EFL teachers to base reading instruction upon reading strategies when teaching young EFL 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. 

While the bulk of literature repletes with studies on emotional intelligence and its effect on teachers' performance and students' academic achievement, few have been released as to the potency of the factors that can foster emotional intelligence inside classrooms. Accordingly, the present study aimed to investigate the extent to which spiritual intelligence could be a predictor of emotional intelligence. The data were collected through a merger of the Brief Emotional Intelligence Scale (BEIS-10) and Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory (SISRI).  The evolved 34-item questionnaire was translated into Persian to ensure maximum comprehension of participants. The sample of this study consisted of 847 undergraduate Iranian EFL learners from two provinces in Iran. Three phases were in this study. First, an exploratory factor analysis of SISRI-24 was performed. Second, confirmatory factor analysis of both inventories, individually, was done by IBM SPSS AMOS. This was followed by CFA of the 34-item questionnaire. Last, multiple regression analysis was modeled to find the predictive relationships. The results of PCA revealed a three-factor model of SISRI (18 statements). CFA also verified both inventories under investigation. The model fit estimated of the 34-item questionnaire was sufficiently adequate to approve the model. Multiple regression analysis also indicated that critical existential thinking could predict both appraisal and regulation of own emotions as well as utilization of emotions. Likewise, conscious state expansion could predict the utilization of emotions. It was also found that personal meaning production could predict the appraisal of other emotions. 

Collaborative dialogue (CD) in developing L2 skills known as ‘knowledge-building dialogue’, in spite of its momentum in foreign language acquisition, has rarely been conjoined and empirically investigated with a Task-based approach. To this end, the present research was conducted with a two-fold aim: firstly, investigating the effect of task-based collaborative dialogue on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ speaking ability, and secondly, exploring teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of the exercised treatment process. The participants of the study consisted of 100 Iranian B.A. TEFL and Translation Studies students were identified as relatively homogeneous with regard to their language proficiency through administering Oxford Placement Test (OPT) and ten Iranian EFL teachers. The experimental group was exposed to task-based collaborative dialogues, while the control group experienced conventional mainstream teaching the speaking skill. Upon completing the treatment, CD questionnaires were administered to the experimental group of learners and teachers to investigate their perceptions of implementing CDs in speaking classes. Subsequently, the teachers and 12 students from the experimental group attended the semi-structured interview sessions to explore their views regarding the efficiency of task-based CDs. The findings indicated that the experimental group outperformed the control one regarding speaking skill. The results of the questionnaires and the semi-structured interviews complemented each other and indicated that the teachers and the learners adopted positive views toward applying the task-based CD. The findings offer some implications for the stakeholders, including material developers, EFL learners, and teachers, to incorporate task-based collaborative dialogues in second language education.

Learners’ perception of culture on receptive skills more specifically on reading comprehension has been an area facing a big challenge contemporarily. The current research aimed to investigate the cultural perception of Iranian EFL learners on reading comprehension ability. To conduct the study, a mixed-methods design consisting of a questionnaire and interview study was used. Participants, 50 intermediate EFL learners (25 males, 25 females), were randomly selected using Oxford Placement Test. The participants were provided with two passages with different cultural contents (one containing Iranian culture and another containing culture of English spoken countries). Then participants were required to fill in a Likert-scale questionnaire which was distributed through Google form online platform. Also, an interview session was conducted to gather more detailed data. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded to find common themes. Analysis of interview and questionnaire data showed that learners hold similar cultural perceptions on reading comprehension ability by gender and social class has no significant impact on learners' perceptions. The results of the study specified that Iranian EFL learners held a positive attitude towards the integration of cultural materials into reading passages to better comprehend the target language. Moreover, it was seen that gender and social class did not impact significantly learners' cultural perceptions of English reading comprehension. The findings imply that ESL students with various reading levels or capabilities can learn from materials that are culturally diverse, specifically the ones at higher reading proficiency levels.