درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Teacher cognition, as a chief area within teacher education, is concerned with what teachers think, know, and do (Borg, 2003). One of the knotty strands emerging out of the past 50 or so years of research on teacher cognition is the misalignment between teachers’ cognition and practice. This study adopted a critical interpretative synthesis framework to identify factors generating such incongruence by dissecting 12 studies reporting on teachers’ cognition vis-à-vis their practice. The emerging themes were translated into each other and synthesised to form two lines of argument. The first one describes sources of teachers’ cognition and practice as ontological, epistemological, and contextual. Teachers’ apprenticeship of observation was found to exert the highest influence in fashioning their cognition and practice by sifting professional learning experiences and granting admission to only those commensurate with personal learning experiences. The second line of argument propounds that connate, personal, and contextual factors breed (mis)alignment into teachers’ cognition and practice. Furthermore, Cartesian dualism (Descartes, 1596-1650) and Heideggerianhermeneutic phenomenology (Heidegger, 1889-1976) were utilised to critically de- and re-territorialise the developed lines of argument. This interpretive conceptualisation of teacher cognition is rooted in but patently transcends the original studies in that it invites a fresh demarcation of the territory intensely occupied by contextual factors to allow teachers to practice ‘cogito, ergo I teach’. Finally, some suggestions are offered for the relevance of the results to teacher cognition research and teacher education and policy.

This study aims to investigate the effect of implementing self-reflection training on Iranian in-service EFL teachers’ beliefs and performance development. From all available participants teaching at the International College of Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, 20 in-service EFL teachers were involved in this study. The teacher’s belief questionnaire, observation checklist, and Skype app were used as the instruments to collect data. Before the training phase, the pre-tests, i.e., observation checklist and teacher’s belief questionnaire, were used for all the participants. The researchers utilized Skype App to instruct the participants in an online setting. During the training phase, participants were exposed to self-reflection practice. The instruction was done in 16 sessions twice a week for two months. After the training phase, the post-tests were run, i.e., the observation checklist and teachers’ belief questionnaire. The data analysis revealed that implementing the principles of self-reflective instruction had a statistically significant effect on Iranian in-service EFL teachers’ beliefs about their teaching practice efficacy and teaching performance development. This study has some implications that may help language teacher educators, English instructors, EFL/ESL learners, students, language curriculum program policymakers, and educational syllabus designers.

 On the Elaboration of Contexts of Situation with Special Reference toRequesting Strategies in BaliI Made Netra  , I Made Suastra  , & I Putu SutamaAbstractOver the last two decades, the study of meaning has been done utilizing context of situation. It has been practiced in determining the speaker’s meanings in languages around the world. However, this research attempts to develop an elaborated form of context of situation in a culture-specific Balinese language and to explicate the speaker’s meaning bound by the elaborated context. To this end, an approach of participatory observation was applied which  was qualitative and  descriptive in nature. The data were collected from respondents and informants of Buleleng and Gianyar regencies,considering that although they share the same language, their understanding on requesting strategies, however, might be different. Requesting strategies in Balinese is contextually bound by a given and elaborated context of situation, which is referred to as Desa Kala Patra functioning both as a context of situation and an adjustment for language effectiveness.  The elaborated context is immensely applicable to different requests. The requests are articulated based on the Balinese cultural scripts. Again, as an elaborated context of situation, Desa Kala Patra can bind the requesting strategies.  As an adjustment for language effectiveness, Desa Kala Patra can mostly shift the direct strategies into indirect ones. Indirect requests can be expressed by asking, tag-questioning, giving information, giving advice, providing alternative points, offering, complaining, greeting, and inviting. The practices of requesting are configured by low-level scripts using exponents of philosophical aspects, Desa Kala Patra itself, “ if/then” condition, mechanism, results, and concluding statement.

This mixed methods nationwide research aimed to examine the relationships between three variables; namely, self-efficacy (S-E), emotional intelligence (EI), autonomy (A), their sub-constructs and reading comprehension ability of Persian second language (PSL) students. Participants were 141 PSL students from 28 different countries studying at 12 universities across Iran. Data were collected through S-E, EI, A scales, and a reading comprehension test and were analyzed using Pearson correlation. The results revealed that there were significant links between the variables and their sub-constructs and reading comprehension ability. Also, structured interviews were administrated with 45 participants, the results of which confirmed those obtained from quantitative instruments. Moreover, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to access more in-depth perception of the variables and explore the strengths of the causal relationships. The three independent variables strongly predicted reading comprehension, with S-E being the strongest predictor. Also, three out of four sub-constructs of EI, and two out of three sub-constructs of A were powerful predictors of reading comprehension. In terms of the increasing number of PSL learners, the findings of the present study could be helpful for L2 (particularly PSL) teachers, learners, and academic policymakers.

This study aimed to explore the combined impacts of critical thinking and dynamic Assessment on enhancing the writing performance of Iranian EFL learners, specifically focusing on teaching writing strategies. We selected 80 intermediate-level participants from a pool of approximately 200 language learners at an accredited institute (Gooyesh). These participants were divided equally into two experimental and control groups. The experimental group (EG) received writing strategies through the application of critical thinking principles and dynamic assessment. The control group (CG) received writing strategies through traditional methods without receiving critical thinking or dynamic assessment principles. The two groups underwent a writing pre-test to assess their initial writing skills, and after the treatment, to measure their writing improvement, they took a post-test using the same evaluation criteria as those of the pre-test. Then, appropriate statistical tools were employed to gauge the participants' writing progress as a result of the instructional methods. The results indicated that integrating dynamic assessment and critical thinking strategies significantly improved participants' written communication skills. These findings hold promise for EFL instructors, curriculum designers, and material developers.

Pronunciation is one of the sub-skills which has significant effect on improving the communication competency and linguistic performance. Moreover, Pronunciation is one of the most difficult parts of teaching a foreign language to adults. It seems that the sub-skill of pronunciation is not taught in the form of a well-rounded program in communicative approaches and interactive conversations in Persian language classes, and that learners pronounce Persian under the influence of the phonemes of their mother tongue. This study is an attempt to provide an answer for the question of what strategies foreign learners use in their learning process by examining pronunciation learning strategies. The current research is the application and collection of research data using the field research approach and the descriptive method is used for the data analysis. The research instrument in data collection is a questionnaire composed of 43 items, each question containing a pronunciation strategy. After verifying validity and reliability, it was randomly distributed among foreign Persian learners. Based on the findings, they make significant use of cognitive, social, metacognitive and compensatory strategies. Commonly, mother tongue does not have a significant effect on the use of these strategies, but Chinese speakers use the group of cognitive strategies significantly more than Arabic speakers do.

Many aspects of EFL teaching are negatively influenced by professional identity challenges which are not effectively responded to by EFL teachers. Considering this, few studies, however, have been conducted on EFL teachers’ professional identity challenges, and especially on their gender-specific challenges, and factors which can facilitate their professional identity construction. Therefore, this study, benefitting from a narrative inquiry method and using semi-structured interviews, aimed to examine the professional identity gender-specific challenges of six institute EFL teachers. The findings of this study showed that EFL male and female teachers were different in relation to the professional challenges they faced and a number of factors had caused this. Based on the overall findings, it is recommended that EFL teacher educators become aware of the challenges faced by teachers and factors which can affect their professional identity construction. Additionally, they need to help EFL teachers reduce the destructive effects of professional identity challenges by facing them and turning them into opportunities for learning. 

The current study was an effort to investigate the role of participatory structure and output modality in enhancing Iranian EFL learners’ speaking, and examine their perceptions toward participating in speaking activities. The population of this study included all female EFL learners (90 language learners of English) at intermediate level studying at Avayeh Daneshvaran Language Institute in Tabriz and the sampling procedure was convenience sampling. From among these language learners, 63 learners, in four intact classes, were selected as the sample group after conducting a sample of the PET. The instruments that were used in this study included two samples of the English language proficiency test of PET, the speaking section of which was conducted as the pre-test and posttest of the study, and an open-ended questionnaire. The data which were collected were analyzed through one-way ANOVA and two-way ANCOVA. The researchers analyzed the responses of the intended participants to the open-ended questionnaire qualitatively. The findings revealed that output modality was effective in improving speaking skill and that participatory structure and the interaction of these two had no significant effect on this skill. Regarding the qualitative section, the findings presented that the participants had optimistic attitude toward the use of podcasts and summary telling and writing in improving their speaking. The findings of the present study are valuable for teachers, English language learners, teacher educators, curriculum designers and researchers.