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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 examined the effects of virtual English instruction via the Iranian Student Education Network (SHAD) on the speaking accuracy of Iranian high school English learners with varied personality traits during the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants (n = 54) completed the Quick Oxford Placement Test and the Eysenck Personality Inventory before taking a speaking test based on the Vision English for Schools Series. The participants' voice-recorded responses to the speaking test were then analyzed for accurate verb usage. After completing 18 online sessions with diverse speaking tasks on SHAD, the participants retook the speaking test, and their performances were analyzed. The results indicated significant effects on the speaking accuracy of both extroverts and introverts, with introversion showing the most positive impact. Semi-structured telephonic interviews were conducted to gather participants' perceptions of virtual education. The findings highlighted the challenges and opportunities faced by Iranian high school English learners in online classes, with implications for virtual language education and materials development. 

Several languages displayed in Language Landscape (LL) in tourism cities are foremost to be explored since they can depict the battle and position of each language. As China has a tight cooperation with Indonesia and other countries, Mandarin has begun to be utilized in the public sphere, such as in the LL. Thus, this present study intends to analyze the use and position of Mandarin, the underlying reasons for using Mandarin, society’s perspective, and its implication. The qualitative method was applied in which all data were explained descriptively by engaging documentation and a questionnaire for data collection. The former was done through the 831 signs displayed in tourism cities in East Java (27 Mandarin LL involved). The latter was conducted through the 127 responses from various backgrounds: old and younger generations. The results indicate that (1) Mandarin LL with top-down signs get a higher percentage than bottom-up signs in which Mandarin is in the fourth position, (2) the utilization of Mandarin in LL is to reveal their identity of the LL owner, (3) it is not vital to display Mandarin in LL due to the lack knowledge of it. Even if societies have negative perceptions of Mandarin, they confess that Mandarin is extensively spread due to its fast growth in any sector. Consequently, this study is crucial to give a wake-up call to the government and speakers of indigenous languages that they should take essential action to preserve the position of local-ethnic languages in LL.

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.

Language placement tests (LPTs) are used to assess students’ proficiency in a progressive manner in the target language. Based on their performance, students are assigned to stepped language courses. These tests are usually considered low stakes because they do not have significant consequences in students’ lives, which is perhaps the reason why studies conducted with LPTs are scarce. Nevertheless, tests should be regularly examined, and statistical analysis should be conducted to assess their functioning, particularly when they have a medium or high-stakes impact. In the case of LPTs administered on a large-scale, the logistic and administrative consequences of an ill-defined test may lead to an economic burden and unnecessary use of human resources which can also affect students negatively. This study was undertaken at one of the largest public institutions in Latin America. Nearly 1700 students sit an English LPT every academic semester. A diagnostic statistical analysis revealed a need for revision. To retrofit the test, a new test architecture and blueprints were designed in adherence to the new curriculum, and new items were developed and tried out gradually in several pilot studies. Item Response Theory (IRT) was used to examine the functioning of the new test items. The aim of this study is to show how the test was retrofitted, and to compare the functioning of the retrofitted version of the English LPT with the previous one. The results show that the quality of items was higher than that of the former English LPT.

Looking through the lens of forensic pragmatics, this study aims to critically analyze a typical textual sample of cyber-fraud correspondence as addressed to a candidate email-user. As such, the virtual correspondence which is written by a seemingly legitimate sender seems to be authorized in its claims to the extent that even the Gmail spam-identifying system has not report it as devious. Due to the questionable subject of such virtual correspondence(s) (VC) or cyberspace correspondence(s) (CC) being issued, that is the claim of offering a huge winning bid to the addressee and the significance of identifying the authenticity of such abrupt proposals, it can be hypothesized that such a text consists of fraudulent claims and therefore is subject to forensic cyber-crime examination. As such, the present study plans to provide a discursive analysis of an authentic sample based on a CDA procedure itself based on Fairclough’s (1989) formula presented in his influential book titled ‘Language and Power’. There are two main questions this study has aimed to answer: 1) How the text at hand lends itself to CDA analysis in terms of the main tenets of discursive manipulation proposed in Fairclough’s CDA formula? and 2) What manipulative patterns might be detected in a discursive piece of email correspondence allegedly presumed to be fraudulent. The main findings of this study are: 1) The lexical, sentential, and textual levels in the Fairclough’s CDA formula are applicable to the email-correspondence text at hand, though modified in accordance with the text’s discoursal specifications, 2) The outcome of the CDA analysis of the cyberspace correspondence sample under study provided definitive clues to support the existence of manipulative intention(s) hidden in the text at hand, 3) The results might be applied to similar pieces of discourse at different levels of lexical, sentential, and textual composition.

There is ample research evidence indicating that task implementation options and design features differentially affect the linguistic quality of second language (L2) oral output. The overarching aim of the current research was to add to the available body of research findings by investigating what effects the combination of two task implementation options, namely pre-task planning and post-task transcription, exerts on L2 learners’ focus on form. The study involved sixty Iranian L2 learners who were presented with a picture story to be narrated under one of the following four conditions: pre-task planning (PTP), post-task transcription (PTT), both pre-task planning and post-task transcription (PTP/PTT), and control. Findings showed that while pre-task planning increased fluency and complexity, the anticipation of post-task transcription enhanced focus on form as indicated by more accurate performance. More importantly, pre-task planning along with the foreknowledge of post-task transcription of performance made for an exponential increase in accuracy, a gain which was achieved to the detriment of complexity. The outcomes are of pedagogical significance in that they lend support to the efficacy of using pre-task planning opportunity along with the anticipation of post-task transcription to elicit the highest accuracy level while learners are primarily concerned with conveying meaning.

Delivering supervisory feedback to teachers is considered a challenge in teacher education and evaluation. This study analyzed the rhetorical features and effectiveness of the academic commentary that observers write at the end of observation forms. The study aimed to explore the qualitative section of an observation form that is filled out by observers during classroom observation and obtain an understanding of macro and micro features, and how they are perceived by observers and observees through a questionnaire. For this purpose and on account of the Swalesian approach (2004), we gleaned 200 commentaries written by different observers across the country, examined the recurring rhetorical patterns of structure, and subsequently developed a questionnaire to elicit the effectiveness of these features in academic commentaries. The result revealed that as a review genre the extracted framework enjoyed a rhetorical structure generically representative of a common practice in characterizing academic commentary in the Iranian context, and in terms of effectiveness, although there were discrepancies, the majority of observers and observees were found to have shared concepts of how to establish rapport, present evaluation, and finalize the academic commentary.  

Pinpointing the role of language, emotion, and culture in intercultural interactions as the three basic needs of intercultural interactions is one of the most important problems in the intercultural field. Therefore, this paper probed the role of language, emotion, and culture simultaneously in intercultural communication in Iran. By using convenience sampling, one hundred Iranian language teachers were chosen and their language proficiency and ICC levels were specified by using Oxford Placement Test (OPT) and intercultural communicative competence (ICC) questionnaire. Then, the researchers used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to classify ICC questions under language, emotion, and culture categories.  After classifying the questions, the researchers used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), standard solution coefficient, standard path coefficient, T value, and Sobel formula to analyze the collected data from the ICC questionnaire based on participants' answers. The results revealed that language, culture, and emotion were the main macro-elements of intercultural communication. Also, it was shown that language was the most important need and macro-element in intercultural communication and then the second and third place went to culture and emotion respectively.  It was found that emotion acted as a mediator variable between language and culture and there was a relationship among language, culture, and emotion, too. This study was of high importance for language teachers, curriculum designers, textbook writers, intercultural experts, and cultural psychologists

This study investigates the pragmastylistic features employed in English and Arabic religious texts, with a specific focus on the concept of rewarding. Drawing on Narmin Abbas Lutfi Baqqal's PhD dissertation, the research examines the pragmatic and stylistic characteristics of rewarding in Biblical and Prophetic Hadith texts. The study addresses two primary research questions: (1) What are the pragmastylistic features used in English and Arabic religious texts to convey rewarding? (2) Which pragmatic and stylistic features are more prevalent in these texts? By analyzing 20 Biblical verses and 20 Prophetic Hadiths, the paper identifies the linguistic and rhetorical devices used to express rewarding, highlighting both similarities and differences between the two languages. The findings reveal that both texts employ declarative and imperative speech acts, deixis, and figurative language, but with distinct stylistic preferences. This study contributes to the fields of pragmatics, stylistics, and religious discourse analysis, offering insights into how language shapes religious messages across different cultural and linguistic contexts.

Classroom assessment practices play an important role in increasing students' learning. These practices are also key to the success of curriculum reforms. In line with this importance, the current study aimed to explore Iranian EFL teachers' classroom assessment practices following the new curriculum reform introduced in 2011. It also examined whether there were differences in teachers' practices based on variables such as gender, teaching experience, and educational degree through qualitative and quantitative approaches. A total of 28 EFL teachers at public high schools from three provinces in Iran (Lorestan, Kermanshah, and Ilam) participated in the semi-structured interviews. After transcribing the interviews, recurrent themes were identified by thematic analysis. The results revealed that English teachers used primarily assessment for learning or formative assessment, yet their assessments were still exam-based. The frequency of assessment practices indicated that oral questioning during instruction (60.7%), test after each lesson or unit of lesson (50%), written exams (35.7%), and group activity (32.1%) were the most frequently used assessment practices among teachers. The findings revealed that there is a discrepancy between teachers' classroom assessment practices and the curriculum reform. Across gender, there was a significant difference between participants in terms of role play, assigning summaries of lessons, and playing audio files. Regarding teaching experience and academic degree, there was no significant difference between participants. The findings would have implications for teacher education programs and EFL teachers.Key Words: Classroom assessment; EFL teachers; Formative assessment; Practices

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.

Teachers may come across a point in their career at which they would ponder upon choosing to stay or withdraw from their job. Several conditions in their organization would lead them to the ultimate decision. This study aims at providing enhanced awareness of one of the components that might lead instructors to their determination with respect to withdraw from or stay at their teaching position at an institution. Consequently, the link between collective instructor efficacy and withdrawal intention was scrutinized. Data was gathered through an online survey to collect information from Iranian EFL teachers using two questionnaires. The findings of this analysis noted that there exists a negative association between instructors’ collective efficacy and withdrawal intention. As collaborative competence perceptions elevate in teachers, their withdrawal intent is likely to drop. Furthermore, another research question was whether it was possible for collective efficacy subscales to predict withdrawal intention or not. Instructional strategies and student discipline are subsets of collective efficacy. Student discipline was reported to predict to some extent variability in withdrawal intention. It was also concluded that headmasters and educational leaders need to focus on collective efficacy as an asset to diminish the unfavorable attrition of staff members.

The current quasi-experimental research aimed at exploring the influence of Lexically-Based Language Teaching (LBLT) on task response and coherence and cohesion aspects of the writing proficiency of Iranian university EFL learners. The research sample of the study included sixty male and female university students (N = 60) attending two university classes. They were selected by using a convenient sampling procedure and were assigned to experimental and control groups. To ascertain the groups' homogeneity at the beginning of the study, the researchers gave two groups the Key English Test (KET). Prior to starting treatment, two groups took the pretest writing task. While the participants comprising the experimental group were instructed consistent with the lexical approach's underlying practices and activities, those constituting the control group were instructed based on conventional techniques applied to present essay writing in universities. At the end of the experiment, the posttest writing, identical to the pretest, was given to both groups. To compare the two groups' mean scores with respect to coherence and cohesion and task response aspects of post-test writing, One-way Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and independent T-test were drawn upon. Version 20 th of the SPSS software was applied for this end. The attained results were indicative of a significantly positive influence of the lexically-based language teaching on both coherence and cohesion and task response aspects of writing proficiency. However, the attained improvement was greater in the task response aspect. The findings suggest some implications for English language teachers and university instructors.