درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The digital information age requires skills and strategies that are crucial in comprehending online academic texts. Also, research has emphasized the crucial role of critical thinking (CT) in education. Thus, this explanatory sequential mixed-methods study aimed to (a) identify Iranian EFL students’ metacognitive online reading strategies and CT skills, and (b) investigate the possible relationship between Iranian EFL students’ metacognitive online reading strategies in academic texts with their CT skills. To these ends, 80 Iranian EFL university students, selected nonrandomly from Shahrekord University, took part in this study and responded to the Pookcharoen’s (2009) Online Survey of Reading Strategies and Facione, Facione, Blohm, and Giancarlo’s (2002) California Critical Thinking Skills Test. In the follow-up, to probe into metacognitive online reading strategy use, 10 Iranian EFL university students were selected to do think-aloud online reading tasks. The descriptive statistics indicated that the EFL university students greatly preferred to use problem solving strategies more, followed by different global and support reading strategies respectively. Also, evaluation and inductive (sub)skills of CT were used mostly by the university students. Moreover, the results of the think-aloud provided evidence in support of quantitative results, confirming various problem solving, global and support strategy use in online academic reading. Furthermore, Pearson correlations revealed a positive and significant relationship, though it was small, between metacognitive online reading strategy use and CT skills. Integrating the findings from the quantitative and qualitative components call for metacognitive strategy assistance and instruction and CT development to improve online reading comprehension.

Central to the spirit of reflective teaching is the ability to focus critically on one’s own beliefs, cognitions, and concerns. Numerous proposals have been developed for implementing reflective practices in pre-service teacher education contexts with the aim of producing highly competent reflective teachers. However, it is imperative to identify the candidates’ beliefs and knowledge base before any interventions could be introduced to effectively trigger a response. This study utilized a reflection oriented model to explore pre-service language teachers’ concerns about language learning/teaching. Interview techniques facilitated such an in-depth exploration among a conveniently sampled 13 candidates studying at a teacher college in Iran. The content analysis of the interviews revealed that affective factors, classroom management, language-related fears, and tensions between their beliefs and practices were the candidates’ major concerns. On the whole, candidates’ preexisting learning experiences seemed to cast a shadow over their cognitions and concerns. Implications regarding reflective practicums in teacher education programs are discussed.

This study examined the effect of two types of feedback, post-text as a written feedback and recast as an oral one on written grammatical accuracy of Iranian intermediate EFL learners. To this end, 45 intermediate students who were studying at Ideal Language Institute in Sari were selected based on their performance on the Nelson proficiency test, and then divided into three groups (two experimental and one control groups) randomly. As pretest, the participants were asked to write 150-200 words about the worst memory they had in their life. Then, they were exposed to 10 weeks of treatment. Each week, they received a topic to write. One of the experimental groups received post-text feedback and another one recast. Afterwards, the three groups sat for the posttest. The obtained results were compared using ANCOVA. The findings revealed that there was a significant difference between the post-test scores of the students in different groups. It was made clear that both treatments were effective on the reduction of students grammatical errors in writing, but post-text feedback was much more effective than recast.

Practical improvements in students’ overall success can be made if we take into account the contribution of learning environments to learners’ various attributes that would greatly affect their academic selves. This study aimed at scrutinizing the possible associations among Iranian EFL students’ perceived classroom climate, academic self-concept, learning self-regulation, and academic identity status. 420 university students were asked to fill out College and University Classroom Environment Inventory (CUCEI), Academic Self-Concept (ASC) Scale, Learning Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SRQ-L), and Academic Identity Status (AIS) Questionnaire. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and based on its several goodness-of-fit criteria, the proposed model of the possible interactions of the main variables was confirmed. Furthermore, classroom climate was correlated positively with subscales of learning self-regulation and academic self-concept and negatively with academic identity status. Besides significant correlations among study variables, the final model also revealed some intra-scales associations. Multiple regression analysis also indicated some significant predictions. The findings could provide classroom instructors and university syllabus designers with implications so that they can plan the EFL environments and class activities taking into consideration students’ various academic characteristics. This involves their status of self-concept, identity, and regulation to help them achieve highly recognized long-term academic objectives.

Formative writing assessment can help writing instructors to explore weaknesses and strengths of language learners’ writing performances. The current research aimed to explore firstly writing attributes and secondly examine their reciprocal contribution to one another. To achieve such an objective, the participants (N=200) were asked to write about two different topics. One writing sample before treatment was considered as the pre-test and the other after the treatment was considered as the post-test writing sample. Having scrutinized the pre-writing samples, five raters extracted the writing attributes which appeared in pre-test and post-test writing samples. Results indicate that there is a statistically significant difference among the participants’ performances in terms of using writing attributes. The results can be advantageous for both instructors and syllabus designers to provide pedagogical materials which identify particular frailties and notify them about the more troublesome points to concentrate on in the classroom so as to arrange effective education.

Because of the importance of instructor success in the adequacy of instruction and learning, this study aimed to explain the impact of two factors, namely language teachers’ professional identity and autonomy, with respect to their success. To this end, 190 Iranian EFL teachers, including university lecturers and language institute teachers, participated in this study. As for data collection, the Teacher Autonomy Questionnaire (TAQ), the Teacher Professional Identity Scale (TPIS), and the Characteristics of Successful Language Teachers Questionnaire (CSLTQ) were distributed among the respondents. Using Cronbach’s alpha estimates and correlational analyses, the reliability of the questionnaires and the associations among the TAQ, TPIS, and CSLTQ were examined, respectively. The results of Pearson correlations revealed that there were significant positive correlations among all three teacher factors. These findings were also confirmed by Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) results; teacher success was predicted positively and significantly by both professional identity and autonomy. Outcomes of this research suggest that teachers’ professional identity and autonomy are highly beneficial to their success. This study also outlined the elements of teachers’ professional identity that could be more useful for their success. In the end, relevant pedagogical implications are discussed.

Over the past decades, education took a critical-oriented shift. This perspective changed the role of teachers, students, and classrooms. A teacher's role changes from an instructor to a reflective practitioner, a student is considered an active agent of his/her learning, and a classroom is a place for identity endeavor. The assumption underlying such an approach conceptualizes education as a means for social control, not separated from social and cultural influences. This study sought to examine the impediments overshadowing the practicality of critical language pedagogy (CLP) and to explore English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' attitudes toward the dynamicity of transformative L2 materials preparation (TLMP) model. To undertake the study, the model was used in an M.A. language teaching methodology course with 40 prospective teachers. They were asked to write reflective journals (RJs) on several topics, followed by two class-assessments and two self-assessments, all focusing on the course procedure as well as learners' progress in attaining the intended outcomes of the course. Notably, they were requested to report their personal beliefs towards the dynamicity and functional efficacy of the proposed model and the extent to which it contributed to promoting their critical thinking skills and intellectual development. Qualitative data analysis included an in-depth content analysis of written data derived from RJs. The results attested that the participants positively appraised the practicality of the model.

The present study examined whether the advantage of females on L2 vocabulary recall and acquisition is partly as a result of estrogen secretion or not. In this regard, through volunteer and convenience sampling 15 intermediate EFL female participants aged between 23-31 were selected from the subject pool of 55 participants. The participants were studying at Iranian Language Center located in Bandar-e Anzali, Iran. To ensure the homogeneity among the participants, Babel English Placement test was used. In the course of study, the participants were taught two series of 42 lexical items in each phase of menstrual cycles (i.e., follicular and luteal). The treatment period was held six sessions at each phase. Each session took 30 minutes. To compare the performance of the participants, immediately after the sixth session, a piloted teacher-made vocabulary recall test was administered at each phase. Finally, the mean scores of participants' performance in the two phases were contrasted through a paired samples t test. The results indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between the participants' recall scores in the follicular and luteal phases. Moreover, to investigate the impact of estrogen secretion on participants' L2 vocabulary acquisition, two months after the treatment, the participants took a piloted teacher-made vocabulary acquisition test at each phase of menstrual cycle. The results of paired samples t test indicated a significant difference between the participants' vocabulary acquisition scores in the two phases.

This study intended to explore Iranian EFL teachers’ life satisfaction as well as their empathy levels. Furthermore, the relationship between Iranian EFL teacher’s life satisfaction and their empathy was investigated. To achieve these objectives, a group of 245 male and female Iranian EFL teachers with the age range of 20 to 55 years old participated. Data were collected through Life Satisfaction and Empathy Questionnaires. Results revealed that EFL teachers were satisfied with their life and were empathic teachers. Moreover, a significant relationship was found between these two variables. The main conclusion is that life satisfaction can have positive impacts on certain aspects of life; hence, it is recommended that proper conditions be provided for the EFL teachers. Additionally, having empathy with students may create happiness in both students and the teacher. Such happiness can presumably make the student bear a positive perspective towards language learning, thereby making them more motivated to learn English.