Iranian

Purpose: The main purpose of this research was to study the challenges, opportunities and solutions of the championship sports for Iranian women. Method: The research method was mixed,and different methods were applied to serve the purpose of this research. The research sample was selected from the main population (N=172) following Morgan’s sample size determination (118). Open and closed questionnaires were used to measure the effect of each of the challenges and opportunities with a Likert's five-item scale. Results: The findings showed that 9 opportunities and 19 challenges exist regarding Iranian women’s championship sports. Conclusions: Though investigations of women’s sports in internal and external fields show progress in Iranian women’s sports, they do not show any desirable growth compared to male sports, which isdue to social restrictions and other factors.

As far as teaching English as a foreign language is concerned, the role of literature as a medium to enhance language learning or to promote other cognitive and affective variables has been quite contentious. Over the last three decades, however, some practitioners and second language scholars have resurrected literature as an effective vehicle to teach the second or foreign language. As an attempt to shed more light on the use of literature in English Language Teaching (ELT), the present study investigated the role of literature as a medium to foster critical thinking among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students. In so doing, a sample of 39 intermediate Iranian EFL students who were the students of two intact classes were recruited. They were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group (n=18) were required to read unabridged, authentic short stories written by literary figures whereas control group students were provided with abridged and simplified texts and short stories. A validated scale of critical thinking was administered as the pre-test and the post-test before and after the treatment. The results of a one way ANCOVA revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group on the post-test of critical thinking, suggesting that use of literary texts has been effective in enhancing the level of critical thinking among Iranian EFL students. The findings of the study have pedagogical implications for ELT theorizers and practitioners.

This study investigated the relationship between five teaching styles and emotional intelligence among 102 Iranian English instructors from different universities in Tehran, Iran. To this end, the data were obtained through two phases of quantitative and qualitative data collection. To achieve quantitative data, the participants were asked to fill in two questionnaires, including the Teaching Styles Inventory (version 3.0) and the Emotional Intelligence Scale. The second phase of data collection was performed through collecting qualitative data by conducting a semi-structured interview on 10 English instructors. To analyze quantitative data, multiple regression analyses were run. Likewise, the qualitative data was analyzed through data reduction process in order to realize the instructors’ attitudes toward the different aspects of teaching styles and to find out to what extent their attitudes were similar to one another. The results demonstrated that among various teaching styles, including expert, formal authority, personal model, facilitator, and delegator, merely the delegator style had statistically significant association with emotional intelligence. Furthermore, the relationship between personal model style and emotional intelligence was considerable, though not statistically significant. The findings and their implications are fully discussed.