فهرست مطالب

Teaching English Language - Volume:12 Issue: 29, Winter and Spring 2018

Teaching English Language
Volume:12 Issue: 29, Winter and Spring 2018

  • تاریخ انتشار: 1397/01/26
  • تعداد عناوین: 8
|
  • Zahra Shafiee *, Hassan Nejadghanbar, Seyyedeh Fahimeh Parsaiyan Pages 1-30
    This qualitative longitudinal case study investigated the transformative contribution of reflective inquiry to a language teacher's cognition underlying his provision of oral corrective feedback. The data were collected through semistructured interview, classroom observation, and reflective verbal recollection during an educational year. Thematic analysis of the data led to the emergence of four major themes guiding the teacher's oral error treatment, namely Theoretical and Pedagogical Knowledge, Informed Online Decision Making, Critical Reflection, and Expressing Beliefs and Philosophies. Further analysis of the data revealed instances of transformation in the teacher's cognition underlying error correction. Accordingly, the teacher's new approaches revealed an increased awareness towards his pedagogical knowledge and online decision making as informed by his theoretical knowledge regarding corrective feedback whereas his theoretical and pedagogical knowledge did not indicate remarkable changes. Moreover, this teacher’s critical reflection and evaluation of constraints influencing oral error treatment revealed a remarkable transformation, and his latest concerns illustrated his transformed beliefs and enhanced confidence. In addition to the researcher's suggestion for further inquiry and replication, the findings, imply that reflective inquiry has a transformative role in reconstruction of language teacher's cognition on oral corrective feedback.
    Keywords: Oral Corrective Feedback, Teacher's Cognition, Reflective Inquiry
  • Abbas Ali Zarei *, Zeinalabedin Ramezankhani Pages 31-60
    Different techniques and methods have been offered to improve the learning of idioms. The goal of the study was to compare the possible effects of Mnemonic keyword method, storytelling, and semantic organization on Second Language (L2) idiom learning. To this end, 90 male students with the age range of 16 to 18 in Shahid Beheshti high school in Avaj, Iran were selected through convenience sampling based on availability. To homogenize the participants, a version of the Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was used. Another pretest was used to minimize the effect of the student's prior knowledge of idioms. Then, the students were divided into three equal groups, and each group was randomly assigned to a different treatment condition. At the end of the treatment, which lasted for 10 one–hour sessions, three posttests were used to compare the effects of the three different methods. Three separate one-way ANOVA procedures were used to analyze the data. The results showed that the group taught through the keyword method outperformed the other two groups in L2 idiom comprehension, production, and retention. Also, the participants of the storytelling group had better performance in L2 idiom comprehension, production and retention than those in the semantic organization group.Thesefindings may have implications for learners, teachers and material designers.
    Keywords: Mnemonic Keyword Method, Storytelling, Semantic organization, Idiom
  • Bahareh Khazaeenezhad, Mansoor Tavakoli *, Zahra Amirian Pages 61-87
    This study was an attempt to examine the levels of teacher activity and reflection phases Iranian prospective language teachers go through in a way to put into practice the concepts and theories explored on campus within their workplace. To this end, Core Reflection Model was practiced by drawing on reflective journals, focus group discussions, and field notes collected over a four month period. The findings indicated that reflections on all six levels of the core reflection model took place mostly being on the level of convictions or beliefs, followed by competencies, behavior, environment, identity, and mission. Moreover, through the movement of reflection among the five phases, a shift from the second phase, looking back at action, to the third one, awareness of essential aspects, was observed and held on to the last phase; the reason could be the lack of mentorship and supervisory interventions for promoting guided reflection practice for prospective teachers in English language teacher education in Iran. In general, utilizing core reflection model in language teacher education for prospective teachers seems to be successful, because the model fostered the reflection of language teachers on all levels and phases and could empower them in their practice.
    Keywords: Core Reflection, Theoretical Knowledge, Pedagogical Practice, Reflection Levels, Reflection Phases, Teacher Education
  • Sajjad Askari Matin, Gholamreza Kiany *, Reza Ghafar Samar Pages 89-109
    Advancements in theory and practice of Teacher Evaluation maintain that effective teaching is the most important factor in realization of success or failure of an education system. Therefore, any attempt to explore the dynamic and complex nature of teacher's performance is considered critical. In the same vein, this paper is an attempt to introduce a Framework of Reference for Teaching English as a Foreign Language (FRTEFL) at the threshold of I.R. of Iran; a local model aligned with global perspectives. To this end, adapting a qualitative meta-synthesis approach, all possible dimensions of teacher's performance criteria reflected in 17 High-stake resources were explored; scrutinizing the twofold mapping of both curriculum and evaluation standards. For the application of meta-synthesis, grounded coding and thematic analysis was carried out by two research assistants also fifteen teacher training experts participated in validation analysis. The output of meta-synthesis resulted in emergence of overall 6293 Grounded Codes, 1655 Themes, and 218 Super-themes. Based on the results, the framework contains 8 Domains, 35 Key Areas, along with their validation measures: Planning and Preparation for General Pedagogy, Planning and Preparation for Language Pedagogy, Planning and Design for Learning, Management of Learning Environment, Effective Instruction, Organizational Responsibilityand Professionalism, Socio-cultural Capital and Social Agency, and Spirituality, Morality and Theism. The proposed framework is believed to represent a localized framework of teacher's practice in the context of an Islamic Education System, provide considerable implications for enhancement of teacher's professional development, and to be a major step in validation of local and large-scale Teacher Evaluation programs.
    Keywords: Professional Development, Qualitative Meta, synthesis, TEFL, Teacher Evaluation
  • Abdullah Sarani *, Somayeh Kord Pages 111-133
    This study is an attempt to interrogate different ways in which social actors are represented through two independent (linguistic & visual) modes of communication in EFL textbooks in light of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approaches. For the purpose of this study, gender related features were identified according to the categories introduced in Van Leeuwen's (2008) and Kress and Van Leeuwen's (2006) frameworks in Touchstone series. The results of this study indicate that male and female participants were represented differently through both visual and linguistic modes of representation. For the case of linguistic gender representations, it was found that a female oriented ideology has been practiced through this series. Visual gender representation results, on the other hand, showed that males were stereotypically represented as more salient and idealized participants than females. The findings of this research can provide teachers, learners, curriculum designers or course book developers with potential implications.
    Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis, Social Actors, Gender Representation, Gender Bias, Ideology
  • Mohsen Shirazizadeh *, Shahab Moradkhani Pages 135-154
    Teacher reflection has been recently promoted based on the claim that it positively affects various aspects of teaching and provides solutions to some of the challenges teachers encounter in their career. However, these arguments are mainly theory-driven with little empirical evidence indicating the constructive role of teacher's involvement in reflection. Inspired by this scarcity of research, the first objective of this mixed-methods study was to examine how English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher's engagement in reflective practice can be associated with their burnout. To this end, 223 Iranian EFL teachers completed reflection and burnout inventories. The results indicated that reflection is negatively correlated with burnout implying that involvement in reflective practice is associated with less burnout. Having found this, we conducted some interviews to explore the factors which impede teacher's reflection. Analysis of interview data revealed that impediments to reflection can be divided into the four categories of teacher related, job related, curriculum related and student related issues. Implications of this study for teacher education research and practice are discussed.
    Keywords: Reflection, Burnout, EFL teachers, Mixed Methods
  • Sayyed Rahim Moosavinia *, Mehrdad Jalali Pages 155-172
    By the fall of Colonialism in the mid-20th century, a plethora of writers and critics mostly from the excolonies started to write back to the Empire. Being categorized as Postcolonial, this group has used for the most part the language of the colonizers for their writing. Thus the latter has imposed its own criteria on the used language. This research has chosen Chinua Achebe's magnum opus, Things Fall Apart, as its language is English: the language imposed on Nigeria and many other colonized nations. He wrote this novel supposedly as a reaction against European novels that depicted Africans as uncivilized people who needed to be civilized by Europeans. Adopting Fairclough's approach to Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze the text for the ideological use of certain grammatical structures, the present paper argues that Achebe, despite his nationality, is virtually writing as a western literary figure who has set his fictions in Nigeria. This goes contrary to what the novelist has embarked on; it still perpetuates the same African stereotypes.
    Keywords: Achebe, Critical Discourse Analysis, Postcolonialism, Things Fall Apart, grammar
  • Reza Khany *, Mohammad Aliakbari, Anna Hajizadeh Pages 173-198
    Nearly 60 years after the initial declaration of language teacher's knowledge, evidence still seems unsatisfactory as little is generally agreed upon. This study followed Noblit and Hare's meta-ethnography approach to reconcile various researcher's interpretations of language teacher' knowledge through facilitating the accumulation of their substantive interpretations. A total number of 188 studies were chosen through meticulous search techniques and based on CASP quality criteria. The result of the meta-ethnography analysis yielded a reductionist yet inclusive account of language teacher's literacy named Content and Educational Literacy Threshold (CELT) with a two-tire construct taxonomy: Content Literacy consisting of six subthemes and Educational Literacy with four subthemes. Overarching a framework for demonstrating the key findings of the available literature on ELT literacy, the findings of the study can be used by many people in the field including language teaching policy makers, curriculum designers, material developers, teachers and learners and other practitioners.
    Keywords: ELT Literacy, Knowledge domains, Meta ethnography, Synthetic approach