درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The epistemological tenets of sociocultural theory view teacher professional development as a continuous and reflective analysis of pedagogical practices and learner development. Accordingly, inquiry-based approaches to teacher professional development and specifically reflective journals can be an asset for teachers, in their endeavor for self-empowerment, by creating a mediational space in which they can exercise their agency and achieve more productive instructional practices. The purpose of this longitudinal study was to investigate the professional development of ten Iranian EFL student teachers through narrative inquiry, “which is conducted for and by the teacher” during one year of attending practicum. To this end, 100 reflective writings of 10 EFL student teachers, which were written during one year, were analyzed based on three functions of narratives as “externalization”, “verbalization” and “systematic examination” (Johnson & Golombek, 2011). The results indicated the importance of narrative inquiry in the development of the professional identity of student teachers. The results also implied the value of responsive mediation in L2 teacher education. 

Language teaching and language training are integral parts of the educational curriculum in every language centers around the world. Offices, companies, and educational centers should update themselves to keep the current progression and try to help their employees to refresh their minds based on educational development. Hence, this study explored the effectiveness of different in-service training programs on EFL teachers' empowerment concerning two factors: self-efficacy and innovation and creativity held in Khuzestan- Iran. To this end, 30 EFL teachers were selected through convenient sampling related to their experiences in each of the programs- E-learning, Class-based, and Blended ones. The participants were divided into three groups of 10 – Class-based, group A., E-learning, group B., and the experiences of the two classes (A & B), group C.  An interview with 8 open-ended questions was conducted. First, all interviews were transcribed, summarized, categorized, and analyzed. Then, the derived themes were coded and analyzed through content analysis. The findings uncovered that about 80% of the participants leaned to participate in Traditional in-service class (class-based) since it had a great impact on teachers to develop and fortify their educational empowerment. Therefore, policymakers and educational centers should raise their awareness on the notion of teachers' empowerment while emphasizing on, at least, Traditional programs instead of the current E-learning and the blended ones.

A key aspect of effective communication is the use of appropriate speech acts.   This study investigated the difference between Persian native speakers, Iranian EFL learners, and English native speakers in terms of the speech act realization of refusal and uncovered the reasons for which, each group of participants produced the refusal speech act regarding the Rapport Management Approach. To this end, 100 (male and female) intermediate EFL learners were chosen based on their performance on the Oxford Placement Test. 100 Persian native speakers among 140 students studying Persian literature at Najafabad Azad University were randomly chosen and they were asked to fill out a Discourse Completion Test (DCT), consisting of 12 situations realizing the refusal of four types of eliciting acts. Additionally, 12 English native speakers (6 males and 6 females) were also contacted through emails to participate in the study. The English DCT was given to two groups of participants and the Persian DCT was given to Persian native speakers. The politeness model proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) was adopted to show the differences between Iranian EFL learners, English native speakers, and Persian native speakers who were participants in this study. By using the SPSS software program, the results indicated 'negative' strategies as the most frequent ones and highlighted the significant role of face, social rights, and obligations in interaction. The findings revealed that among politeness strategies 'negative' strategies are the most frequent ones. The results also indicated that English native speakers use negative politeness strategies more than Iranian EFL learners. Therefore, English native participants regard themselves as having rights and obligations about other people more than Iranian EFL learners. The results of this study highlighted the importance of pragmatic knowledge in international communications.       

This study was an attempt to investigate the impact of elementary learners’ L1 in consciousness-raising tasks on their L2 writing accuracy. To achieve this end, 32 male and female elementary EFL learners, aged 17 to 26, participated in this study. They were assigned to two experimental groups (L1 and L2 groups) using the intact group sampling technique. The treatment was 13 two-hour sessions in which the participants of L1 group were exposed to consciousness-raising tasks through their L1, but the L2 group experienced the same tasks in English. At the end, a writing test was administered for both groups and the data collected through the pre-test and post-test were analyzed using paired-samples t test and one-way analysis of covariance. The results of the data analysis showed that L1 group significantly outperformed the L2 group in writing accuracy. This finding verifies the rejection of the ideological dogma of using first language in foreign language classes.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, universities around the world faced closure because of social distancing and lockdown, therefore, unprecedently, education had to move online and universities in Iran were not exceptional. This sudden and abrupt shift required teachers to rethink their attitudes and beliefs. This study has been conducted to explore English Language Teachers’ attitudes toward their practices concerning the effects of social distancing and the maximized use of technology in the teaching profession. Having adopted a qualitative method to investigate teachers’ experiences, the data of this study were collected through interviews with nine English language university teachers, and their reflective journals. Generally, the results communicate considerable appreciation for integrating technology in English language courses. To be more detailed, this study revealed three main categories for positive attitudes (pedagogical innovation, instructional support, and professional identity formation) each with some subcategories. Also, the analysis highlights three concerns (technology-related challenges, classroom management, and inflexibility in behavior) for online teaching. The implications of the study mainly provide a welcoming environment for utilizing technology in teaching, especially in English language teaching.

There are two different trends for the study of metadiscourse, including interactive and reflexive. The reflexive model suggested by (Mauranen, 1993) and (Ädel, 2010) cares about reflexivity in language. As reflexivity plays a pivotal role in spoken genres, this study aimed to study the frequency and functions of reflexive metadiscourse markers in academic interviews. Hence, this study focused on a corpus of three academic interviews carried out in English native academic context that was taken from “The Michigan Corpus of Academe Spoken English” (MICASE). The corpus was analyzed using the model by Ädel that includes four functional categories of metalinguistic comments, discourse organization, speech act labels, and references to the audiences . The results showed that about one-quarter of the personal pronouns were metadiscourse. Besides, among the personal pronouns that perform metadiscourse function, singular first-person pronoun was the most frequent while plural first-person pronoun was very rare. It was also found that among the four functions, the interviewees and interviewers paid more attention to metalinguistic comments and references to the audience . The results of this study could add to the knowledge of those participating in interviews in general and in the academic context in particular.

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of using online peer and teacher feedback on Iranian EFL learners writing performance. To this end, a group of 28 homogenous learners were selected to participate in this study. They were divided into two equal sets; the first group received online peer feedback and the second group received online teacher feedback. In order to obtain the results of the treatments, two types of t-tests were run. First, to check the effectiveness of the two types of online feedback, paired sample t-tests and to make the comparison between the TF and PF independent sample t-test was run. Results of the study indicated that both types of online corrective feedback are effective. However, the TF group outperformed the PF one. Therefore, technology integration in L2 classrooms and, more specifically, providing learners with online corrective feedback will lead to more progress in EFL learners' writing performance.

This study aims to report on the literature related to the barriers to ICT (Information Communications Technology) integration into ESP (English for Specific Purposes) instruction that hinder promoting ESP instruction through this integration. The literature review has also shed light upon ways of addressing these barriers. To meet this end, the paper begins with discussing a review of some of the important Iranian and international studies on barriers to ICT integration in ESP instruction and then the paper highlights a number of first-order, second-order barriers, and ways of addressing them to help in promoting and changing traditional ESP instruction and materials. It is suggested that this review could be useful for those who make decisions about the ESP courses, for ESP material developers, and for ESP teachers to change from traditional ESP instruction, which is teacher-centered and text-based, to a new ESP instruction through ICT integration. This review has also implications for practice. Change is mostly challenging; reporting a review of previous studies on barriers to ICT integration at the tertiary level and proposing ways of addressing them may help defeat the barriers and may enhance acceptance of new ESP teaching and learning methods.