درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Following the COVID-19 outbreak, educational institutes around the world including Iran transitioned from the face-to-face method to an online modality to sustain education. Adapting to this abrupt transition was challenging for teachers, especially those working in remote and low-resource schools. To have a profounder understanding of Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) in rural secondary schools, in this qualitative study, the researchers explored the technological tools, teaching platforms, and assessment strategies employed by 12 Iranian English teachers during the pandemic. The analysis of the data, collected through semi-structured interviews and e-observations, revealed that the participants mostly, but not exclusively, used SHAD application as their online platform and used different technological tools for creating pedagogic content such as screen recorder, video editors, and PowerPoint. The teachers also adopted different methods for delivering teaching including flipped method, live broadcasts, pre-recorded teaching materials, voices, and images. They used Google forms, Digi forms, and video calls for evaluating the students; nevertheless, they chiefly deployed these tools for designing traditional exam types. The implications and limitations of the study are discussed.

Since the emphasis of the studies has shifted from a teacher-centered approach to a learner-centered one, researchers have discovered the significance of variables originating inside learners during the learning process. The present study was an attempt to focus on self-efficacy and strategy use as two learners’ variables. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there is any relationship between EFL learners’ self-efficacy, strategy use, and grammar performance. In addition, it aimed to find out whether there is any difference between high self-efficacious learners and low self-efficacious learners in strategy use and grammar performance. To conduct the study, a non-experimental correlational design was used and thirty-five participants consisting of males and females studying English language teaching were selected randomly out of all the sophomores. Two questionnaires and a test were the main instruments in gathering data. Based on the results of the questionnaire, they were divided into two groups of high and low by using a normal distribution curve. As a result of running several data analysis tests, the findings of the present study revealed a significant relationship between EFL learners’ self-efficacy, strategy use, and their performance on a grammar test. Furthermore, it was illustrated that high self-efficacious learners performed better than low self-efficacious ones on the grammar test and grammar strategy use questionnaire.

Since comics comprise images and texts, the relations between them should be a major concern of comics studies. However, few studies have focused on the intersemiotic interaction between images and texts in the meaning construction of Chinese classic comics. This study applies Martinec and Salway’s system to Tsai Chih-Chung's English comic version of The Analects of Confucius (The Analects), attempting to explore the image-text relations in Chinese classic comics. It is found that the image-text relations in Tsai Chih-Chung's English comic version of The Analects can be summarized as unequal-status and logico-semantics combined. Quantitative analysis shows that the images are always subordinate to the texts, and in terms of logico-semantic relations, all of subsystems but “image more general” are included. Besides, the distribution of the logico-semantic relations of image and text indicates that two different subsystems, namely expansion and projection, integrate and work together to create meanings in this version. Qualitative analysis shows that the tactful deployment of the combinations of image-text relation in The Analects makes it visually-verbally coherent. The intersemiotic interaction between images and texts also contributes a lot to the discourse meaning construction of Tsai Chih-Chung's English comic version. However, in The Analects, the image-text relation relies too much on the extension of the image by the text as well as the projection of locution. This study provides a case reference for the analysis of Chinese classic comic as multimodal discourse, and also contributes to promoting the overseas dissemination of traditional Chinese culture.

The global outbreak of COVID-19 necessitated a swift transition from conventional face-to-face (F2F) teaching to Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) in educational institutions worldwide. This sudden shift posed significant challenges for both teachers and students, particularly those in low-resource rural schools. This study sought to probe into this experience in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instruction, focusing on the perspectives of teachers and students in rural high schools within Iran. The study participants were 13 female EFL teachers and 15 female EFL students teaching and studying in rural high schools in different cities in Iran. Employing a qualitative approach, data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, online observation, and one of the researcher’s reflective journals. Thematic analysis was utilized to analyze the data, identifying several categories encompassing the hurdles encountered by the participants and the achievements they attained. The identified categories pertaining to hurdles encompassed technological, financial, educational, personal, professional, and well-being problems. Similarly, the categories pertaining to achievements comprised technological, educational, and professional progress, as well as enhanced convenience. Exploring the dilemmas and aspirations expressed by these participants can inform and better equip the educational system of Iran to effectively respond to similar crises in the future. Furthermore, this study offers insights to education authorities, aiding in the resolution of barriers to distance online education and facilitating enhanced preparedness for potential future emergencies.

The success of language teachers and learners is definitively pertinent to the emotions they experience in academic environments. Accordingly, the factors impacting language teachers’ and learners’ emotions must be recognized. Many scholars have scrutinized emotional variables in response to this necessity through various methodological approaches. The present study aims to evaluate some of the innovative approaches to assessing emotional factors to see how innovative they are and review their positive points and shortcomings. To do so, Q Methodology (Q), idiodynamic method, Latent Growth Curve Modeling (LGCM), Process Tracing Approach (PTA), Social Network Analysis (SNA), Nested Ecosystem Model (Ecological approach), and Retrodictive Qualitative Modeling (RQM) methods have been selected to be reviewed in this research. The findings highlight several strengths and weaknesses of each of the methodological approaches. It has also been reported that these approaches need to be context-specific and person-sensitive to generate more accurate data. Among the approaches, PTA and SNA have received scant attention in the investigation of emotional factors since the data in these two approaches cannot be reported precisely in narrative form. Our study would be conducive for all researchers, notably those working in the field of language teachers’ and learners’ psychology.  

The purpose of this study was twofold: (a) to explore pre-service EFL teachers’ conceptions and self-efficacy for effective online teaching and (b) to determine their instructors’ conceptions of online teaching effectiveness and their approaches to preparing them for effective online teaching. The participants were 100 MA students of TEFL and 6 teacher educators at Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST). The data collection instrument was a questionnaire with 40 principles of effective online teaching classified into 7 categories of facilitating learning, interaction, deep learning, relationship, resources, engagement, and organization followed by two open-ended questions. A semi-structured interview was also conducted to examine teacher educators’ conceptions of online teaching effectiveness. The results revealed that pre-service teachers considered themselves more self-efficacious in fostering relationship while less in maintaining organization in online English language classes. To be an effective online teacher, they also held the view that teachers need to establish a friendly atmosphere and relationship, provide useful materials, have adequate technological knowledge, give prompt feedback, and engage learners in their learning process. For teacher educators, effective online teaching was having adequate technological knowledge, providing appropriate content, establishing an online presence, successful classroom management, and having positive perceptions of online teaching.

Appraisal theory has provided researchers with a powerful analytical tool to explore how language users express their feelings, attitude and judgments in texts. The present study was conducted to explore the use of appraisals in Persian recounts with a focus on the attitude subsystem. Forty-eight online recounts were selected (22 female writers and 26 male writers). The analysis was conducted two times at a one-week interval using the UAM corpus tool software. The results indicated that women generally used more attitude resources in their recounts compared to men and they also used more affect than men, both men and women encoded their evaluation more explicitly rather than implicitly, and in both types of recounts, attitude subsystems appeared in a special order in terms of frequency. In conclusion, predominant use of attitude in Persian recounts can be considered as evidence of effectiveness and applicability of the appraisal theory.