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In any teacher education practicum program in the Philippines, teaching demonstration is the most challenging undertaking of the student teachers during the internship program. This phenomenological study design explored the teaching demonstration experiences of student teachers reflected in their teaching journals. Data were 22 teaching journals taken from the internship portfolios produced by the Bachelor of Secondary Education (BSEd)-English graduates from a state university in the Philippines. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. Eight generated themes from the teaching journals that could provide suggestions for future student teachers and other members of the discourse community concerning the teaching demonstration were drawn, which are 1. ‘The Look’ of a Student Teacher, 2. Teaching with Enthusiasm, 3. The Voice of a Student Teacher in the ESL Classroom, 4. Lesson Planning Advice, 5. Subject Matter Familiarity, 6. Instructional Materials Efficiency, 7. Tips for Classroom Management, and 8. Improving the Questioning Skill. A focus group interview with the participants, which was also analyzed using content analysis, with some of the BSEd-English graduates was also utilized to further discuss the findings. The paper concludes with pedagogical implications for the Teacher Education Institution (TEI) and the concerned members of the discourse community.

Based on multifarious levels of social status, education, and occupation, people have certain values which construct and reconstruct their identity. In the Iranian culture, “Devaluation” means blemishing these values that make people ignore individuals’ val ues and virtues through certain linguistic expressions. Studying these expressions, one can achieve its dominant culture in Iranian society. Therefore, the current research is an attempt to study Devaluation Cultuling (culture+language) in light of the conceptual model of cultuling analysis. By integrating the components of Hymes’s (1967) SPEAKING model, emotioncy model and cultural models, the conceptual model of cultuling analysis is the most comprehensive model for studying cultulings of the Persian language. Studying 712 linguistic structures and expressions containing devaluation cultuling and interviewing 140 individuals, the authors found that devaluation cultuling is commonly used in Iranian culture with high frequency, and individuals have negative feelings toward this cultuling. Iranians employ devaluation cultuling for various purposes such as destructing and belittling others’ achievements, insulting, questioning the culture of community members, flattering and hiding their weaknesses. Findings demonstrated that this cultuling could represent cultural models of indirectness, high context, low trust, and holistic thinking of Iranians. Informing people about devaluation cultuling enables us to modify and change this defective cultural gene.

This study investigated rhetorical functions and their associated linguistic realizations in English review article abstracts. The analysis was based on a corpus of 100 English review article abstracts from linguistics and applied linguistics disciplines and followed a corpus-driven discourse analytic top-down approach. MAXQDA and WordSmith were used to code the moves and analyze their associated sub-corpora, respectively. The results of calculating range and frequency distributions showed that English conceptual review article abstracts use a rhetorical structure, different from that of research paper abstracts. This rhetorical organization is realized through a different set of moves, namely 1) establishing the territory or area of study, 2) identifying the problem, 3) introducing the present research, 4) organizing the paper, and 5) concluding or reflecting. Moreover, each move was realized through a distinct set of sub-moves. In terms of range, the moves dealing with purpose and structure were the most widely present moves; in terms of frequency distribution, the move dealing with structure was the most frequent. Furthermore, the highly frequent use of plural self-mentions indicates that in review article abstracts the emphasis is on research as a group activity inclusive of the researcher(s) and objects of study. In addition, the presence of ‘establishing the territory’, together with ‘identifying the problem’ can be seen as an attempt to sell the research. Finally, the prevalent use of the five moves showed that most review article abstracts are indicative-informative in function

Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) assume different roles amongst which is leadership. To lead effectively, they need to possess some significant awareness of the language in order to adequately respond to learners’ needs. One domain of awareness is the ability to distinguish between structurally similar, yet semantically different structures. This study set out to assess ESL teachers’ level of semantic awareness in view of establishing their readiness to meet learners’ needs within their Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The Follow-up Explanatory Research Design was used. Data on the cognitions of ESL teachers were elicited from a questionnaire survey while a test was used to quantify ESL teachers’ language awareness levels in the domain of semantics. The quantitative data from the test were analyzed using frequencies and simple percentages while the qualitative data were analyzed using the framework of Content Analyses. The findings reveal that though ESL teachers overestimate the level of their knowledge base in components that have a bearing on semantics awareness, a majority of them do not wield beyond a fundamental level of awareness as concerns applying that knowledge to differentiate the meanings of structurally similar pairs of sentences. It is therefore crucial for English language pre-service and in-service teacher training to seek ways of enhancing the professional knowledge base of ESL teachers especially in domains that are critical to establishing differences between pairs of sentences that tend to be similar.

The present study is part of a Ph.D. program that explores the possible effect of critical thinking-oriented dynamic assessment (CT-DA) on learners' learning potential in reading comprehension skills. 21 Iranian language learners who were homogenized in terms of their language proficiency, reading comprehension, and critical thinking abilities participated in this study. Learners were divided into three groups of CT-DA, dynamic assessment (DA), and Control group. While learners in CT-DA received mediation loaded with critical thinking techniques, learners in DA group received dynamic assessment mediation, and learners in the Control group did not receive any mediation. The analysis of the results revealed that DA and CT-DA significantly improve learners' reading potential scores. Moreover, significant differences between the Learning Potential Score (LPS) of DA and CT-DA groups were found, denoting the better performance of participants who received a critical thinking-oriented dynamic assessment. Finally, the qualitative analyses led to the detection of eleven mediational strategies which nurtured the development of the reading comprehension ability of L2 learners during CT-DA. The article concludes with suggestions for further research on dynamic assessment and critical thinking in second/foreign language development.

Some universities in Iran have recently witnessed a shift in admission criteria from university admission test performance towards high school records. This sudden change seems to be unwarranted since the predictive power of high school records has not been explored. To fill in this gap, this study aims at showcasing the predictive validity of high school records for undergraduate students of English language and literature. To this end, a random sample of undergraduate students studying at Shahrood University of Technology were selected as the participants, the predictor variables were operationally defined as the participants’ grade point average (GPA) in three school subjects including English, Persian and Arabic languages along with their overall high school GPA, and the explained variable was operationalized as the participants’ overall GPA for the first academic year. The results of Pearson correlation revealed a significant but very low correlation between the variables of interest. Moreover, the results of multiple regression analysis revealed that none of the predictor variables well predicts academic success in English language and literature. Although the results of this study are case-specific, they have clear implications for policy makers and interested researchers nationwide.

The need for a strong educational system is felt more than ever due to globalization. In this respect, teacher agency has an important role in educational change. This qualitative meta-study, therefore, addressed the attitude of the teachers towards agency and the way they enact agency to facilitate learning process. To this purpose, the needed data were gathered from the narrative of life, professional history and class observations of five English teachers in Iranian context. Then, based on the Grounded Theory Approach, the data were analyzed and the obtained results showed that teachers’ pre-teaching and during teaching processes were made up of complex relationships among different resources; that is, teachers’ life ideology (their perception towards themselves and their job) and financial status. At the same time, the results revealed that teachers’ instruction experiences highly affect both their magnification of agency and their decision-making processes. It was further seen that agency was not stable at all, meaning that social factors and environmental conditions played important roles in shaping teacher’s agency.

Berzonsky (1990) conceptualized three social-cognitive components of the identity process: an informational or scientific style, normative or dogmatic style, and a diffuse or ad hoc style. Despite the importance of this concept, no previous studies have been conducted to develop and validate the IPS scale to measure this construct as it relates to the EFL settings. Accordingly, the present study aimed at developing and validating a measure that could assess IPS in the EFL context of Iran. To this end, a sequential mixed methods design was conducted in two phases. In the qualitative phase, the researchers reviewed related literature and conducted semi-structured interviews and focus group interviews with EFL teachers in order to seek out the EFL teachers' perspectives regarding what shapes their identity processing styles. Next, the researchers used the principles of data analysis of the grounded theory to analyze data. Then, seven sub-components were initially identified that constitute the Iranian version of identity processing styles model, namely, informational style (analytical/rational thinking), normative style (personal norm thinking, social norm thinking, and religious thinking), and diffuse-avoidant style (pessimistic thinking and optimistic thinking). Finally, to measure the EFL teachers’ identity processing styles, 42 five-point Likert scale items were developed. Then, the newly-developed instrument was completed by 203 EFL teachers in higher education contexts. In the quantitative phase, the IPS scale was tested through different statistical procedures included confirmatory factor analysis and Cronbach alpha for reliability. Finally, statistical results were discussed and implications and applications of the study were explained.

Washback or backwash, used similarly, has been defined as the impact of testing on curriculum design, teaching practice, and learning behaviors. Iranian PhD candidates’ performance on this exam is required to pursue PhD study; therefore, degrees of washback both at the micro and macro levels are at stake. Despite the importance of this exam for the candidates, it seems that studies on washback and specifically washback effect of EPT on Iranian PhD candidates’ learning materials has not been given adequate attention in Iran. Given this, the present study attempts to examine the washback effect of EPT on Iranian PhD candidates’ learning materials. Based on sequential design, two phases of data collection were conducted with a two-week interval. In the first phase, attitude questionnaire was administered to 200 Iranian PhD candidates at Islamic Azad University, Isfahan (Khorasgan) branch. In the second phase of the study, 20 Iranian PhD candidates were interviewed. Finally, the collected data from both the questionnaires and the interviews were analyzed via quantitative and descriptive analysis, respectively. The results of the study revealed both positive and negative washback impacts on learning materials. The findings of the study have practical implications for language teachers in general, and EFL language teachers, syllabus designers, and material developers in particular.