Literacy

Abstract Objective: Health literacy is the capacity to get, process and realize basic information and services necessary to make proper decisions in the field of health. This study was conducted aimed at determining the relationship between health literacy and demographic variables of Yazd city citizens. Method: This study was a descriptive (cross-sectional) one the population included 385 people living in Yazd city. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire whose validity and reliability were confirmed. After completing the questionnaires, the data analysis was performed using SPSS statistical software, Pearson correlation coefficient and Chi-square test. Results: the results indicate that there is a significant relationship between health literacy and age, gender and marital status. The highest correlation coefficient was observed in the relationship between health literacy and age. Conclusion: Due to the effective demographic variables, it seems that demographic characteristics-based interventions should be designed and implemented in order to improve the health literacy of citizens.

Visual literacy (VL), despite its significance, has not received deserved attention in EFL classes in Iran. Addressing this pedagogic and research lacuna, the researchers integrated VL practices into a General English course attended by female university learners, and examined the vision competencies developed by them. The analysis of the data collected through class observation, learner documents, and semi-structured interviews revealed that the learners developed the vision competencies regarding compositional, affective, and critical dimensions of visuals. It is hoped that the findings of this small-scale study encourage language planners, materials developers, and English teachers to pay heightened attention to the visuals’ potential and open more spaces for VL development in their curricula, materials, and language teaching practices. 

This analysis identifies the problem of the media saturation of people’s lives as a reason for developing programs teaching media literacy. It argues that the basic or foundational disciplines found in cultural studies, such as applied semiotics, psychoanalytic theory, sociological theory, and Marxist analysis, are the proper way to teach media criticism and media literacy (See Berger, A.A., Media Analysis Techniques, 6th edition, 2019). The methods by themselves are not adequate, which means that teaching media literacy also involves providing exercises and learning games that show students how to apply the theories they learn to their analyses of media texts (See Berger, A.A., Games and Activities for Media, Communication, and Cultural Studies Students,2004). Finally, it is suggested that media literacy should be taught at all educational levels. 

Teachers play a pivotal role in the instruction-assessment process. Knowing EFL teachers’ conceptualizations of the role of assessment as well as their own role in the implementation of assessment is very critical. Accordingly, the current study aimed to compare Iranian EFL public high school teachers’ literacy and perceptions of dynamic assessment with those of English language institute teachers. In so doing, 45 (23 high school, 22 institute) English teachers, teaching in Lahijan, Iran were selected according to convenience sampling method. The teachers were invited to cooperate and participate in the study and fill out the questionnaire sent via social network like WhatsApp and Telegram. In addition, nine teachers (five high school, four institute teachers) were selected through purposive sampling to participate in a semi-structured interview with five questions posed through the above-mentioned social networks. A researcher-adapted questionnaire with 23 items in a Likert-type scale was utilized to collect data. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire were achieved through experts’ opinion and Cronbach Alpha, respectively. Having collected the data, descriptive and inferential statistics of the findings showed that although both groups of teachers had a realistic view about the application of dynamic assessment due to its practicality and social acceptance, the teachers in two different contexts of teaching had different rates of literacy and perceptions of dynamic assessment. Furthermore, the difference in the two groups of teachers’ perceptions of dynamic assessment practicality was significantly different. The institute teachers enjoyed a higher average of both literacy and perceptions of dynamic assessment practicality in their classrooms. This study echoes the teachers’ voices, and as in the wake of new forms of curricular policy in many parts of the world, teachers are increasingly required to be agents of change that would hopefully encourage change at the discipline and in the institutional level.

Reading is the main language skill in English as a Foreign Language (EFL)contexts, and the key to the reading skill is the knowledge of the alphabet. Although there are various approaches to teaching early reading and the alphabet in L1, such as whole language, language experience, literature-based, whole word, alphabetic method, and analytic and synthetic phonics, the topic of teaching alphabet and early reading is almost missing in language teaching methodology textbooks, and the few sources which deal with the subject seem to be mainly concerned with English as a Second Language (ESL) contexts where the learners’ mother tongue also uses a Latin alphabet. Early reading and alphabet teaching in EFL contexts has also received little research attention, and many aspects of literacy teaching in these contexts such as the effectiveness of different approaches for different age groups are still a mystery. ELT community, hence, needs to pay more heed to the needs of teachers and learners in EFL contexts. This paper intends to sensitize the international ELT community, including the researchers, teachers, and publishers to the importance and necessity of taking early literacy in EFL contexts into account.

Objective : Given the growing elderly population in Iran and the relationship between physical literacy and health, assessing physical literacy in this population is important. However, there are limited studies on the assessment of physical literacy in the elderly. The present study aimed to examine the cross-cultural validity of the Persian version of Senior Perceived Physical Literacy Instrument (SPPLI). Method: At first, the translation/back translation process and content validity were carried out through the Content Validity Index (CVI) with opinion of five experts. Subsequently, concurrent and construct (age differences and convergent) validity, and internal consistency were examined in a sample of 78 older adults (aged 60–90 years) randomly selected from nursing homes and physiotherapy centers in Qazvin. Construct validity of the SPPLI was assessed by comparing age-related differences and its correlation with age and its convergent validity with the Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly (PASE) and the short-form Falls Efficacy Scale-International (FES-I) and concurrent validity was evaluated through the its relationship with the Senior Fitness Test (SFT) as a measure of actual physical literacy. Results : The CVI results confirmed the content validity of all SPPLI items. The results of Mann-Whitney U test revealed no significant difference in perceived physical literacy between the two age groups (p = 0.42). Spearman’s correlation between total scores of SPPLI and age was weak and non-significant (r (78) = 0.123). The Spearman correlation coefficients of SPPLI with total scores of SFT, PASE, and short FES-I were 0.501, 0.452, and -0.001, respectively. Conclusions : The content and concurrent validity of the SPPLI was confirmed, and its internal consistency was good. However, convergent validity was moderate with the PASE and very weak with the short FES-I, while construct validity based on age differences was not confirmed. In conclusion, the Persian SPPLI exhibits appropriate cross-cultural validity.