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The unprecedented growth of English and arrival of English as an International Language (EIL) has generated a new fledged argument about English language teachers’ role and status around the world. To date, much of the debate on the native/non-native distinction in EIL settings and factors contributing to sharpen distinctions has remained unsettled. This gap motivated this study on the English teachers’ grasp of their role and their stance in the EIL setting of Iran. For this purpose, this study adopted both quantitative and qualitative approaches to explore the nature of the English teachers’ attitudes through an EIL scale and teachers’ narrative accounts through Telegram groups. The three-level positioning analysis (Bamberg, 1997) of English teachers’ narrative accounts contradicted their perceptive evaluations of their status, as non-native English teachers. The results proved that, despite highlights of blurred distinctions, English teachers in Iran still believe that English belongs to the native speakers and position native speaker teachers as better models for pedagogical practices. The results have implications for teachers’ beliefs and the role of teacher education programs

: The purpose of the current attitudinal study is to investigate the attitudes and opinions of language teachers toward the implemented ELT program resulted from the Fundamental Reform Document of Education in the Iranian Ministry of Education. Three items were investigated: Teacher’s Practice, Teacher Training Courses, and Materials. Following the rigorous and systematic procedure, the quantitative approach was applied and the 5-Likert scale with 30 items was used so as to determine the issues mentioned before. First the items were extracted based on the FRDOE and, thereafter, the primary questionnaire was developed and after ensuring of its validity and reliability the final version was obtained. Then, after ensuring its practicality, the questionnaire was distributed among 240 language teachers. The results showed that the ELT based on the new program had inconsistency in a number of respects with policies approved by the policy-makers. The findings showed that the lack of agency of the language teachers is the main reason for the failure of the new program and it is recommended that language teachers’ contribution should be taken into account before-, while- and after administrating and implementing the new program in ELT program in the future.

This study compared the effect of four reading models on reading comprehension, foreign language reading anxiety (FLRA), and reading self-efficacy. In order to do so, 184 female Iranian senior high school EFL students at intermediate English reading level were selected through convenience sampling in three high schools and one language institute in Zanjan. The participants were in four intact groups. Each group was randomly assigned to one of the treatment conditions— ‘Direct Activities Related to Texts’ (DARTs), Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS), ‘Read, Ask, and Put into your own words’ (RAP), and ‘Title, Headings, Introduction, Each first sentence, Visuals, End of each part, Summary’ (THIEVES) models. These models were taught for eight sessions. Data were collected using the reading comprehension part of the Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency (MTELP), Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS), and Reading Self Efficacy Questionnaire (RSEQ). The collected data were analyzed using three one-way ANCOVA procedures. The results showed that the four models did not significantly differ in terms of their effect on foreign language reading anxiety and reading self-efficacy. However, there was a significant difference between the effect of THIEVES and RAP on reading comprehension in favor of RAP. Besides, only RAP and PALS improved reading self-efficacy. Moreover, DARTs, THIEVES, and RAP improved reading comprehension and decreased reading anxiety, whereas PALS increased reading anxiety and negatively affected reading comprehension. The theoretical and pedagogical implications of the findings are also discussed.

Corrective feedback has received significant attention in English language teaching, and its role has been highly substantial. Considering the importance of corrective feedback in EFL classes, this study aimed at finding the effects of indirect and gradual CF on Iranian EFL learners' grammatical development and their beliefs toward CF. Twenty EFL learners, meeting the criterion of being lower-intermediate in their proficiency, participated in this study and were divided randomly into two groups of indirect and gradual CF. An Oxford Placement Test, Aljaafreh and Lantolf's (1994) regulatory scale, error correction test, writing tasks, and Corrective Feedback Belief Scale were used as data collection instruments. The indirect group received indirect CF based on cognitive theory and the gradual group received feedback based on Aljaafreh and Lantolf's (1994) regulatory scale for four sessions. The findings obtained from Mann-Whitney U tests revealed that the gradual group which received CF based on sociocultural theory was better able to overcome the problems related to simple present and present progressive tenses than the indirect group which received indirect CF based on cognitive theory. The findings also indicated that all learners, both gradual and indirect, preferred receiving CF and both groups always preferred to be corrected and likewise, both groups considered the teacher as the main provider of CF. The results of this study suggest that gradual feedback based on learners’ ZPD was more effective in improving EFL learners’ grammar development. In conclusion, these findings support the idea that social interaction is a prerequisite for cognitive development.