مطالب

This classroom-based study sets out to study the relationships that EFL learners would form in peer responses in an EFL writing class. It examines Storch’s (2002a) patterns of peer interaction when intermediate learners are paired with partners of different L2 proficiency levels. To discover the factors that could affect the nature of peer interactions, at first a proficiency test of TOEFL was administered and thus the participants were distinguished based on their scores, into the beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. Further, the participants were asked to choose a partner and review each other’s writing in pair while being audio recorded. To examine learners’ behaviors from the perspective of participants involved, they were interviewed individually after the recording session. As the focus was on intermediate partnership, the data of 12 intermediate students (i.e. 6 pairs) interacting with an advanced, intermediate or beginner partner were analyzed. The findings showed that although proficiency levels narrowly affected the participants’ performances in peer responses, they did not determine them. The study revealed that it is not just the actual proficiency levels but the relationships that learners form, the roles that they adopt, and their partner’s behaviors as the factors which shape the dyadic talk. It was further found that the partners’ roles are shaped by their positioning in relation to their peers and the issues on which learners focus during their engagement in the task. چکیده: این تحقیق بر آن بود تا چگونگی ایجاد رابطه بین افراد در پاسخگویی توسط  فراگیران خارجی زبان انگلیسی  را مورد بررسی قرار دهد. در واقع، این تحقیق بر اساس الگوی تعاملی استرچ (2002الف)، روابط فی مابین فراگیران سطح متوسط با طرفهای دارای توانش متفاوت زبانی را تحلیل می نماید. برای این منظور، ابتدا شرکت کنندگان در تحقیق، بر اساس آزمون توانش زبان به سه دسته مقدماتی، متوسط و پیشرفته تقسیم شدند. سپس از هرکدام از انها خواسته شد که با تعیین یک نفر نگارش های همدیگر را بررسی نمایند که در این مورد تعامل بین انها ضبط گردید.  پس از این مرحله، برای استخراج الگوهای تعاملی آنها، افراد شرکت کننده مورد مصاحبه قرار گرفتند. تحلیل اطلاعات گردآوری شده نشان داد که توانش زبان تاثیر جزیی و غیر تعیین کننده بر روی نوع تعاملات افراد دارد. به عبارت دیگر، عواملی دیگری به جر توانش زبان مثل رابطه شکل گرفته، نقش افراد، و رفتارهای افراد بر روی گفتار دو گانه تاثیر گذار      می باشد. از طرف دیگر، نتایج نشان داد نقش افراد تابع چگونگی رابطه بین افراد و موضوعات مورد توجه در بحث می باشد.  کلمات کلیدی: پاسخگویی هم گروهیان، الگوهای تعاملی، یادگیری مشارکتی، سطح توانش زبان، نگارش

Reconciliating the logics of Post-method Era, Critical Pedagogy, and Sociocultural Theory in its conceptual framework, this study postulated Iranian EFL teachers’ socio-pedagogical identity as comprising conformity, criticality, and conformity-criticality mediation in order to explore and model the different aspects of Iranian EFL teachers’ “transformative teaching self,” probably contributing to their pedagogical ZPD and sociocultural identity development. To this end, Systematic Reflexive Constructivist Grounded Theory was utilized as the methodology of this 63-participant study managing both the data collection procedures, i.e. interview, focus group, observation, field notes, and document analysis, and the data analysis procedures, i.e. tabulation, open coding, initial memoing, axial coding, intermediate memoing, selective coding, advanced memoing, and theoretical sampling. The findings of the study were put into a putative model, delineating Iranian EFL teachers’ transformative teaching self at its core, which can constantly stimulate the teachers’ three interactive triplex identity types, i.e. conformative, critical, and mediational identities. Finally, this study entailed some implications such as updating teachers’ knowledge of mediational identity, professional retraining about mediation, encouraging teachers to achieve an understanding of their transformative teaching self, and preparing them to be efficient transformative teaching learners and practitioners of the model in this study.

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses are currently well-established university programs. These courses are run independently by English Language Teaching (ELT) instructors and content instructors without any collaboration. However, ELT instructors and content instructors do not receive the same level of collegiality and social support from the organizations and students. This paper probed burnout among Iranian EAP teachers, including content instructors and ELT instructors in 28 state universities and its variations in relation to their demographic and organizational characteristics. To this aim, the Persian version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was administered to content instructors (N=185) and ELT instructors (N=86) in the state universities in Iran. The results of the study indicated that while most of EAP teachers, both content instructors and ELT instructors, had low burnout, a considerable number had mid-levels of emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment. The findings of the study also indicated that the ELT instructors had higher emotional exhaustion than the content instructors, and it was also found that the content instructors with more than 13 years of experience and the ELT instructors with more than 20 years of experience in teaching such courses had the lowest burnout. Based on the findings of the study, educational administrators are suggested to take remedial and preventive actions against EAP teachers’ burnout and enhance ELT instructors’ occupational well-being. It also seems necessary to assist EAP teachers in adapting to the requirements of teaching EAP courses through pre/in-service teacher training courses to obviate the need for extensive experience for gaining expertise in it.

This paper aimed at examining the Iranian EFL teachers and learners’ preferences for two types of direct oral corrective feedback, including explicit correction and metalinguistic clues, and two types of indirect oral corrective feedback, including recast and repetition. The participants included 39 teachers and 84 EFL learners, selected through purposive sampling. A scenario-based questionnaire was constructed based on Lyster and Ranta’s (1997) typology of corrective feedback (CF) for the purpose of collecting data on the teachers and learners’ preferences for the type of CF. Feedback scenarios were extracted from the literature on CF. The questionnaire was distributed to the participants by one of the researchers. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted in order to triangulate the data gathered through the questionnaire. The results of the study indicated that the EFL teachers and learners preferred direct CF more than indirect CF. The results also revealed significant differences among EFL teachers with differing levels of teaching experience (i.e., low, moderate and high). The present study drew attention to the fact that direct types of CF were preferred over others in EFL context. This study has implications for EFL teachers, learners, and material developers.

Russian military deployment in Syria should not be considered as the core goal of Moscow’s diplomacy but its instrument. It is also a serious mistake to present Russian efforts in the country as the result of a game of “chicken” between Moscow and the West. Moscow is playing a different type of game that could be characterized as “geostrategic poker”, where the Assad regime is logically considered Russia’s main stake. This stake allows the Russians to influence the situation on the ground and demonstrate their importance in the international arena by positioning Moscow as one of those players without whom the Syrian question cannot be solved. By increasing military support to the Syrian government the Russian authorities simply strengthened their stake. Now they are starting to reveal their hand. The latest developments also show that Russian stance on Syria is determined by the interplay of the complex factors among which the growing security concerns are of the main importance. The Kremlin is worried that the fall of Assad will inevitably bring radical Islamists to power in Syria. This, in turn, will lead to the further destabilisation of the situation in the Middle East inevitably affecting the Muslim regions of Russia. At the same time, this does not mean that Moscow supports Bashar Assad as a person. On the contrary, the Kremlin accepts the possibility of the post-Assad Syria and Russian contacts with the Syrian opposition also demonstrate that Moscow is open to the dialogue. By September 2015, on the eve of Russia’s dramatic military moves, the Kremlin feared that Assad’s regime was on the verge of collapse. The assessment was that the existing levels of military, technological, and financial assistance by Russia to the Syrian regime would only prolong its agony and not save it. Moscow could not afford losing its stake in the Middle East. Intervention was based on a choice between a “bad” and a “very bad” scenario: either a costly military operation to support Assad, or doing nothing as his power crumbled. The Russian leadership was also motivated in part by its perception of what had happened in Libya and Iraq, where—in its view—nothing good came of the complete destruction of the old regimes. It did not want to see the same happen to Syria as, from the Kremlin point of view, this would mean the turning of Syria into another regional source of instability and jihadist threat..

Dr. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republicof Iran, opened the Sixth Model United Nations (MUN) Simulation Exercise on24 August 2017 in Tehran. The theme of the UN Security Council Simulationthis year was the nuclear programme of the People’s Democratic Republic ofKorea (PDRK). In his speech, Dr. Zarif first applauded the Model UN simulations held by the International Studies Journal, and mentioned that he has missed teaching international relations in an academic setting. He also mentioned that it was heartwarming for him to see so many women participants in the room, and took pride in Iranian women being interested in international relations and world politics. Dr. Zarif also spoke about the significance of Cold War as well as the collapse of Soviet Union and the role that the UN played 30 years ago. He also emphasized that “We all need to arrive at a good, reliable,and convincing understanding of this period of transition, which was perceivedat a certain time in the past to be of a rather short period and expected – orsimply aspired to - arrive at a definitive position of unchallenged Americanglobal hegemony. Well, that hasn’t come to pass.” He also touched base on the issue of North Korea (DPRK) and mentioned that “it is not only states that areengaged in the drama, a much larger catalog of players and actors, inclusive ofnon-state actors – falling under the general rubric of civil society - are alsoinvolved and bear on the situation.” In addition, he talked about the significance of ‘change and power’ in international relations and iterated that “power couldbe defined as increasing influence and decreasing vulnerability.” Dr. Zarif mentioned a few historical and political events in which the issue of  power and gaining hegemony were involved. Lastly, he discussed how the Security Council failed Iran and watched in silence when Iraqis used chemical weapons on Iranians during the Iran-Iraq war. In the end, he wished the participants success and luck in the Model UN simulation and hoped that they could “move in the direction of - hopefully – political-diplomaticresolution of a regional tension with grave consequences for international peaceand security.”