مطالب

Lorestan’s Balageriveh, is a lowland passage area, located in between two rivers, Dez and Kashkan in South Central Zagros; the area itself is divided into three parts, northern, southern and central. In previous studies in Lorestan, a form of complete shift was depicted from sedentary lifestyle to a mobile one, in transition between the Late Chalcolithic and the Middle Bronze Age. Central Balageriveh is important to be studied on this matter due to its central position among Susiana (Elam), Central Zagros, Bakhtiyari region, Posht Kouh and Mesopotamia, as well as paleoclimatology and archaeological studies conducted over there. Due to the above reasons, the present study has taken into account paleoclimatology and archaeological data, the transition process from Chalcolithic Cultures to the Bronze Age, a change in settlement patterns and the role of socio-economic and environmental changes in this pattern alteration. The findings indicated that long-time climatic change which occurred in the middle of 4th millennium B.C. in the region cannot be regarded as the cause of the complete cultural gap and the change of settlement pattern at the time. Instead, it seems that with the collapse of the Uruk System and its commercial organization, the areas like Balageriveh which were intermediary in this commercial network, lost their charm. When people like Kura-Araxes, on whom some would put the blame of the Uruk collapse as they were mobile pastoralists, settled in some areas which the previous power had lived, the commercial paths withered and Balageriveh’s intermediary role diminished and instead due to socio-political reasons, the lowland characteristics of the area became highlighted and the change in settlement pattern occurred.

Transmission-based teacher education programs have mostly dominated the field of teaching English as a foreign language. Considering the prominent position of critical pedagogical principles in prospective teachers’ perceptions of their professional roles and responsibilities, there is a need for detailed investigations of teacher education programs informed by the tenets of critical pedagogy in prospective teachers’ professional identity. There has been a paucity of research that addresses the impact of such programs on prospective teachers’ professional identity in an EFL context; therefore, this study intends to address the gap. This qualitative study was conducted to examine the role of a critical-informed teacher education program in influencing prospective EFL teachers’ professional identity construction. Participants were 19 prospective teachers whose process of professional identity construction were analysed through reflective journals, class discussions, and semi-structured interviews before and after the program. Results of the study revealed three major shifts in prospective teachers’ professional identity: “from a student’s voice to a teacher’s voice”, “from an uncritical attitude to developing agency”, “from a narrow view of ELT to a broad view”. To foster critical ideas in EFL prospective teachers, the study recommends the use of dialogic discussions and written reflective tasks in teacher education programs.

Autolycus’ On the Moving Sphere is among the earliest Greek mathematical works to reach us and was considered a staple of the middle books, to be studied between the Elements and the Almagest. This was among the many mathematical works translated to Arabic in the 3rd/9th century and it was the subject of several translations, redactions, and recensions. Analyzing the available copies of al-Kura al-mutaḥarrika, five different versions were identified. In this paper, we analyze these five versions, with a focus on the seventh proposition, in order to characterize their relations to each other and to the extant Greek text.