workplace

In a scholarly convention, ESP has bilaterally focused on “academic” and “occupational” arenas leaving the symbiosis between the two almost untouched. The present study, thus, aims to weigh the concordance between what is taught in universities as EAP courses for B.A. students in Business and Economics and what English skills and abilities are, actually, required from them on the job. Altogether, 120 university teachers and 30 business managers were asked for their opinions about the existing curricula from one side and occupation-related English expectations from the graduates from the other. Triangulation of instruments using questionnaire, interview, teacher-assessment, and participant observation was applied. The results narrated not good news: considerable mismatch between the aforementioned arenas (education and occupation) and complete ignorance of oral skills (listening and speaking) in the academia, despite their vital importance at the workplace. The participants mainly emphasized equipping students with various skills required from them at work after their general English proficiency development and empowering EAP teachers with the needed content knowledge to potentially tailor university education and market. Implications of the study can include creating more practical opportunities such as simulated classes based on workshops and on-the-job training (OJT) with cooperation of the professionals in business. The findings can help educational policy-makers shift their focus to the graduates’ professional-future literacy, modify the EAP curricula with regard to real needs of the workplace and contribute to decreasing the gap between academia and labor market.

The study investigated EFL teachers’ current level of critical consciousness as well as their beliefs about the educational context where they taught. The study also explored how gender, teaching experience, workplace, and academic degree differentiated the participants with regard to their critical consciousness. Drawing upon the related literature and the existing questionnaires in the field, we designed and validated a questionnaire applying technical statistical procedures (e.g., confirmatory factor analysis). The questionnaire was then completed by 310 English teachers teaching in different language institutions across the country. The findings revealed that, in general, EFL teachers’ current level of critical consciousness was above average. However, they believed that the educational context did not encourage and cultivate in them critical consciousness. It was also found that, contrary to expectations, the academic degree did not differentiate teachers in this regard. Moreover, male and female teachers were found not to be significantly different in their critical consciousness. The theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed in the paper.

Sexual harassment at workplace is a phenomenon that has many implications for women. Also, organizations and other employees are not immune to the devastating consequences of sexual harassment against women. Victimized women respond to harassment differently, such as silence, tolerance, bullying and aggression, leaving the workplace and even positive responding to sexual demands. In this article, in-depth interviews with victims will address the reactions and effects of harassment. We have also used the same tool to analyze the consequences of sexual harassment in organizations. The main questions of the study were the type of victim response to the harasser, the impact of the harassment on the victim, and the organization or other staff. The findings are obtained from interpretation and classification of in-depth and semi-structured interviews with 25 women in 23-47 age groups. They were selected from those with bachelor and doctoral degrees and working in government and private sectors. In order to obtain data, 5 open-ended and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 5 managers and administrative and financial assistants of public and private companies. The results of qualitative content analysis of interviews with victims, focused group, and the organizational management panel showed that women's responses differed by education, age, public or workplace privacy, from fear and silence to aggressive responses and complaints. And even retreats toward harassers were different. From individual perspective, harassment causes depression, morbid fears, prolonged anxiety, pessimism and suspicion, physical illness, labeling and social isolation. From an organizational point of view, there is virtually no protection mechanism for victims, which results in the abandonment of work, unwanted displacements, harassing dismissals, and even harassment and reduced organizational productivity.