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Washback refers to the effect of testing on teaching and learning. The university entrance exam for Iranian MA candidates of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (hereinafter TEFL MA UEE) is a nationwide high-stakes test administered every year, and significant decisions will be made based on the examinees’ performance on this exam; therefore, it is prone to bring about degrees of washback at the micro and macro levels. This study was an attempt to examine the washback effect of TEFL MA UEE on Iranian lecturers’ classroom activities. Therefore, a mixed-method approach was used to collect, analyze, and integrate both quantitative and qualitative data in order to obtain a better grasp of the research topic and to enhance validity and reliability of the information. Based on a sequential design, two phases of data collection were conducted with a two-week interval. In the first phase, a valid and reliable researcher-made questionnaire was administered to a sample of 16 Iranian university lecturers. In the second phase, five lecturers agreed to be interviewed. For this purpose, an interview protocol was developed and it was checked for the validity and reliability. The findings showed that TEFL MA UEE did not induce a high level of washback on the lecturers’ classroom activities and their teaching methodology. The findings could have practical implications for TEFL MA UEE constructors and policymakers in Iran and could also be of use to the researchers in the field of washback studies by providing some guidelines for this complicated phenomenon.

Grounded on Hofstede's (1986) dichotomous model of collectivism/individualism, this study explored Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' cultural identity. A sequential mixed methods procedure was adopted to examine their cultural orientation and the impact of length of experience on their degree of propensity to absorb the target language culture. A total of 120 female and male teachers of private English institutes with varying years of teaching record contributed to this research. Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions model was developed into a Likert-scale questionnaire, along with a number of complementary demographic questions. To gain a deeper understanding of the teachers' standpoints, six of the teachers were randomly selected to participate, and elaborate on their responses, in a semi-structured interview. The analysis of the findings revealed that Iranian EFL teachers were primarily identified as being individualist, irrespective of the span of their professional experience. The finding tends to contradict Hofstede's survey where Iranians had been identified as collectivists as a whole. Even though career length did not statistically disclose their degree of cultural affiliation, teachers' responses at the interview revealed some underlying trends accounting for their identity shifts. It seems to be the case that exposure to and contact with the English language covertly transformed non-native teachers' cultural identity over time. By extension, it may well be that foreign language teachers apart from their indigenous cultural persuasions, seem to grow into the target culture they are exposed to, without even being physically present in the target community environment.

Transitioning smoothly from traditional learning of language to independent learning and consequently, moving from teacher-assessment to self-assessment faces teachers with a dilemma of deciding on learners’ final improvement. To assist to eliminate this dilemma and to compare learners’ self-assessment of reading comprehension skills with those of teacher assessment, the present study was set out. To this end, 190 B.S. Iranian engineering students were selected based on intact classes. The participants’ proficiency was determined by the Oxford Quick Placement Test. Prior to the instruction, the participants’ ability to use two reading skills, i.e. scanning and skimming was assessed by their instructor and by themselves through using a Likert Scale questionnaire. After instructing each skill, the participants received post-tests, both self-assessment and teacher assessment. Following the post-self-assessment, the participants answered an open-ended questionnaire to reflect on their assessment. To analyze the data and understand the differences and correlations between the two types of assessments, SPSS was performed. Intriguingly, the results from self- and teacher-assessment were pro-self-assessment. Besides, the outcomes of the open-ended questionnaire indicated that it is time to trust learners and allow them to assess their own learning and decide on their learning process.

  This paper investigates the use of ‘lexical bundles’ in two broad corpora of journalistic writing. The aim of this study is to compare the use of lexical bundles in the two domains, one consisted of newspaper articles written in English and published in England and the other one comprised of newspaper articles written in Persian from Iranian publications. For this purpose, the frequency of occurrence and distribution of different functional taxonomies of lexical bundles across the subject matter were investigated. More than 2.5 million words of different English and Persian-produced online newspapers were collected and they were identified by the help of two computer programs, then their functionswere analyzed. Consistent with similar research on lexical bundles, the analysis indicates that most bundles perform a referential function in journalistic register. These findings may be particularly useful to translators and also EFL practitioners, as they seem to give new insights into the development of learner language.  

Textbook evaluation seems to be inevitable where textbooks are the main source of teaching and learning processes. This study aimed to investigate to what extent ''Vision 3'' (the last volume of the English book series entitled “English for schools”) has the characteristics of a CLT syllabus based on teachers’ points of view. To fulfill the objectives of this study, 60 male and female high school English teachers, teaching at different high schools answered an online questionnaire adapted from AbdelWahab (2013) which is a 3-point Likert scale checklist (i.e. poor, satisfactory, & good). The design of the scale enabled the researchers to evaluate the book in terms of four main criteria including; (1) physical and utilitarian attributes, (2) efficient outlay of objectives and supplementary materials, (3) learning/teaching content, and (4) language skills. The analysis of the data indicated that EFL teachers had a positive attitude towards the English textbook based on the CLT principles except for cultural considerations. The conclusion indicates that the book needs to be modified to include some aspects of cultural values about the target language culture. The results can guide the teachers, syllabus designers, textbook writers, evaluators, and curriculum designers in their planning and designing of future textbooks.

The Online Interaction Learning Model was founded on constructivist learning theory. It is an input-process-output model based on moderating variables, the inputs, which includes all of the characteristics of the courses, the instructors, EFL learners, and the technology. Due to the fact that the studies considering the pivotal role of the Online Interaction Learning Model are scarce in number, this study was conducted to validate a newly-designed questionnaire via exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Two hundred fifty-nine Iranian university and higher education institutes EFL learners were asked to participate. The newly-developed questionnaire consisted of 35 items measuring the five constructs of the Online Interaction Learning Model (Course materials, Instructor performance, Learning practices, Student-to-student interaction, and Access to technology). The results from EFA, CFA, and reliability analyses revealed that the new questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument measuring Online Interaction Learning Model. Moreover, there was a significant positive correlation between each component of the Online Interaction Learning Model and EFL learners’ GPA as well as between the total Online Interaction Learning Model and student academic achievement. Male and female EFL learners’ scores on the online interaction learning model were quite different from each other.

This study is aimed at examining the role of gender, and years of teaching experience in Iranian EFL teachers’ awareness of the code of ethics in research. 272 Iranian EFL teachers were chosen based on convenience sampling and were assessed through the Iranian EFL teachers’ awareness of the code of ethics in research scale inventory. After gathering the questionnaires, data was analysed by SPSS. An independent-samples t-test was performed to examine whether the teachers' awareness of the code of ethics in research differs significantly between genders. In addition, Pearson correlation was performed to find the connection between years of teaching experience and the aforementioned factor. The findings showed substantial positive relationships between all five sub-constructs of the code of ethics and experience. Besides, the findings revealed that there were considerable differences in the degree of knowledge among EFL teachers of research codes of ethics and its sub-constructs between male and female teachers. The mean score of the female teachers in all sub-constructs was higher than the male teachers. This study may be the only piece of research that has investigated the EFL teachers’ knowledge regarding factors affecting their awareness of the code of ethics in research in Iran.

Linguistic and semantic differences are some of the main problems of translating the Holy Qur’an into English. The present study highlights the problem of lexical gap and examines a number of terms- totally 117 in 110 verses- of the Holy Qur’an, including the referential meaning of ‘sin’ and their English translations. The researcher aimed to find the strategies applied by three translators and three machine translation systems (MSTs) and to compare them.  In this regard, five frequent and common terms – ‘اثم’, ‘جناح’, ‘سیئه’, ‘ذنب’, and ‘وزر’-were selected. The strategies proposed by Mollanazar (2009) were employed to fill the gap.  To do so, the English translations produced by three machine translation systems (MTSs), namely Google Translate, SDL Free Translation and Systranet were compared with three human translation by M.H. Shakir, A.Qaraei and T.B.Irving. The results revealed that in most verses, almost in six English translations, a generic term was used without any additional information to make the sense clearer. There was no noticeable difference between human and machine translations in applying the proposed strategies to fill the gap and make the English version more meaningful in terms of these apparently similar but contextually different terms. Thus, it seems that these differences were not focused on, while rendering these given verses to English.