جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « thematic analysis » در نشریات گروه « ادبیات و زبان ها »

While research on English for Academic Purposes (EAP) has extensively grown, little is known about EAP teachers’ professional work. The literature on EAP teachers is more under-developed in terms of their identity construction. The present study aims to fill this research gap and contribute to the EAP teacher education literature by discovering the factors that support or hinder EAP teachers’ professional identity in an online environment. To fulfill this purpose, 20 Iranian EAP teachers were interviewed and thematic analysis was conducted to extract the main codes and themes. The results showed the role of various personal, institutional, and sociocultural factors in EAP teacher professional identity construction in online contexts including global, societal, institutional, classroom and individual factors. While the status of English as the language of science dissemination is considered by teachers as a facilitating factor for EAP teachers' identity construction, the status of EAP is not established in academia which hinders EAP teachers' identity. The limitations of online tools and teaching platforms is a major source of hindering EAP teachers’ effective identity construction, which could be reduced with technology support provision by university managers. The findings may promise implications for EAP teacher educators in online contexts and offer suggestions for future research.

A challenging step in any qualitative research project is data coding and analysis. If the data coding is done appropriately, it will lead the researchers to develop patterns or themes and to make final inferences about the research problem. As such, qualitative researchers are supposed to take systematically informed steps and procedures to perform qualitative data coding and analysis. However, this is not as easy as it might be thought, and even published articles might fall short of providing a thorough explanation of their methods and procedures, making it difficult for other researchers, especially early career researchers, to aim for replication of the study. This article presents a review of the methods and data coding and analysis procedures in the field of L2 writing as a case in point. We scrutinized and analyzed all 168 articles with a qualitative orientation published in the Journal of Second Language Writing (JSLW) over its lifecycle. We present the results and discuss some articles to illustrate how L2 writing researchers handled qualitative data coding and analysis and showcase problematic areas. The outcomes of the review and analysis, including the showcase articles, provide some tips and guidelines for prospective L2 writing researchers and other stakeholders more broadly.

This study is a longitudinal mixed method design investigating Iranian English learners' perception of native-speaker English teachers (NSETS) and non-native-speaker English teachers (NNSETS) in New Zealand and Iran within the conceptual framework of Kumaravadivelu (2003), Rudolf (2018), and Benson el al. (2013). A semi-structured interview and a questionnaire (consisting of 21 Likert items and 3 open-ended questions) were used twice ten months apart in each context. An online narrative interview was employed in 2022 to supplement the data. Non-parametric data analyses were run on the Likert items. Several coding schemes were developed and a thematic analysis was employed. Findings revealed that NNSETS in New Zealand and NSETS in Iran were perceived by the learners as more effective in guiding their students toward developing a multilingual identity. This is interpreted as the "cross-actional influence of context in language learners' perception of teachers regarding L2 identity development in students" in this research. The findings also showed a shift in students' perception from NSETS to NNSETS in both contexts over time due to the better instructional strategies of NNSETS for teaching reading, listening, grammar, and their deeper understanding of the student's needs. This study informs language teachers, teacher educators, and education authorities on 1) the cross-actional influence of context on students' perception of teachers regarding L2 identity development as a normal procedure, 2) the pattern of a shift from NSETS to NNSETS due to the qualifications of NNSETS should be considered in teacher training programs to make the most proficient language teachers accordingly.

Cognitive Training (CT) refers to programs designed to enhance the efficiency of cognitive and brain mechanisms through practice and/or intentional instruction. A highly controversial issue in the field of Computerized Cognitive Training (CCT) is its possible transferability to non-trained areas; one untouched discipline is second language (L2) learning. Hence, due to the facilitative role of attention and the predictive strength of working memory in L2 development and comprehension, CCT seems necessary for English language learners. Furthermore, few studies have investigated users’ perceptions of potential improvements in their cognitive functioning. To fill such inherent gaps and overcome the imposed barriers of conducting intervention studies during the COVID-19 pandemic era, this study adopted an interdisciplinary approach to explore English language learners’ self-perceived Far Transfer (FT) effects of Remote Adaptive Multi-Domain Computerized Cognitive Training (RAMCCT) in general cognitive functioning and L2-specific cognitive functioning. Thus, online observations of L2 receptive skills courses (reading and listening) and synchronous semi-structured interviews were undertaken with a convenience sample of 11 intermediate EFL learners who completed eight weeks of RAMCCT. Thematic Analysis (TA) revealed perceived advances in working memory, attention, multitasking, processing speed, hand-eye/ear coordination in general cognitive functioning, and improvements in either one or both of the L2 receptive skills in terms of attention and comprehension and speed. The results are discussed by the corresponding links between attention, working memory, and multitasking, together with the automatization of the core cognitive processes. Implications address game designers, L2 teachers, teacher training programs, and researchers.

This study investigates the major themes that permeate the anthems of the three oldest and the three youngest public universities in Ghana and how the themes are conveyed linguistically and literarily. The University of Ghana, University of Cape Coast, and University of Education, Winneba are purposively sampled as representatives of the oldest public universities in Ghana. Representatives of the youngest universities sampled are University of Energy and Natural Resources, University of Health and Allied Sciences, and University of Mines. Findings reveal self-importance, knowledge, and religion as the major themes in the anthems of all six universities. These themes are projected linguistically by conscious content lexical items, namely, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Literarily, these themes are cast in such literary devices as metaphor, hyperbole, pleonasm, and personification.  There is a major difference between the presentation of the theme of self-importance between the two groups of universities in that generally, the oldest universities are more definite and categorical in projecting their self-importance while the youngest universities are rather indirect and less categorical in their presentation of the theme of self-importance. This may be as a result of conscious respect for the oldest universities.

Although extensive research has been conducted on successful technology integration, encompassing the readily available technology, providing a techno-based environment, and applying high-level technology in the classroom still seem to be very much in the minority. Besides, technology integration illustrates additional barriers, including teachers’ and students’ technology-based knowledge and schools’ financial problems. In contrast to earlier findings in EFL contexts, however, little evidence seems to be available about Iranian teachers' classroom uses of the technology. Therefore, this paper aims to present the Iranian teacher's conceptual pedagogical attitude to technology integration and illuminate how technology integration impacts teachers' classroom practice. To this end, 10 Iranian EFL teachers in private and public schools in Golestan Province were interviewed. The qualitative data of the interviews were recorded in English and transcribed; they were then coded and analyzed by employing thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) via NVivo 12 computer software to show the dimensions and components of the conceptual model of technology integration. One of the themes extracted from the thematic analysis of the Iranian teachers’ perceptions was the lack of technological knowledge. That is, a limited understanding of teachers about using technology in their teaching was viewed as a significant problem. Another theme referred to the limited use of technology which makes teachers use computers as a supplementary tool. In addition, it was found that the educational context does not create need-based technology conditions for them, leading to the teachers' ineffective use of technology.

In line with the technological advancement during the last few decades, virtual learning has been addressed more widely, which affected English language teaching and learning as well. Since Covid 19 pandemic, which has resulted in the long-lasting closure of educational settings worldwide, virtual learning as the alternative of traditional education has been developed unprecedentedly. An option for virtual learning specifically for language teaching is teaching on the phone which has been mostly neglected in educational research. The aim of this study was to analyse the lived experience of 16 adult English language learners who experienced learning English through one-to-one, audio call sessions. Due to the pandemic, semi-structured interviews were conducted on the phone, which were recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed with a phenomenological approach. Many times revisions of the statements driven from the transcriptions resulted in six themes namely: a) learning on-the-phone as a new, satisfying experience, b) advantages, and c) disadvantages of one-to-one audio sessions, d) the participants’ preferences, e) the requisites of on-the-phone-learning, and f) the expectations of on-the-phone teacher, According to the result of this study, some educational recommendations for improving on-the-phone teaching are: covering four language skills through developing individualised lesson plans based on each learner’s needs and English language proficiency level; holding group video sessions along with one-to-one audio sessions; and using the facilities of messengers like WhatsApp to send audio, video and textual files to learners based on their needs and learning objectives.

There have been some researches on the way teacher identities are (re)constructed; however, the study which investigatesthe improvement of the identity through the shift in language teaching has not been conducted. Thus the present qualitative study set out to investigate Iranian EFL teachers’ professional development who had been teaching either Arabic or Persian languages for more than six years prior to entering the English language teaching profession. Eleven Iranian in-service teachers took part in the study through purposeful sampling. For the purpose of the data collection, in-depth interviews, teachers’ narratives, and focus group interviews were used. The thematic analysis of the data through the Identity Theory (Burke & Stets, 2009) perspective revealedthree main themes: identity shift,identity development, and productive identity. The results indicate that teachers' professional learning requires rebuilding identity perception, and constructing a new identity will lead, in turn, to the professional development of teachers and their constructive learning. The present study contributes to the existing knowledge of teachers’ professional identity in that changes in the languages teachers teach will lead to reconstructing their professional identity in a positive wayand happen as a result of opportunities for professional development. The results have a number of implications for policymakers, teacher educators, and language teachers.

Workplace stress among employees has been known to impede work efficacy, a phenomenon usually referred to as burnout. Recently, there has been a growing research on this issue in educational contexts, particularly at pre-tertiary levels, giving rise to a need to do this kind of investigation at higher education level as well. As a response to this need, the present paper is a report of a case study aimed at examining the causes of burnout experienced by two Iranian EFL academics. The results of the thematic analysis of the interviews with the participants indicated five main conceptual categories associated with the subjects’ burnout experiences: Institutional demands, interpersonal problems, discordant outlooks, lack of student motivation, and lack of institutional supports. The discussion on each of these categories shed light on how these categories may contribute, in varying degrees of course, to the burnout among academics.

This paper investigates how the theme of uprising is conveyed in Bob Marley’s final music album by the name “Uprising”. Through the methodological lenses of multimodality, attention is focused on how the album cover design, lexical items, literary devices, and other aesthetic ways such as the titles of the ten songs of the album and their order of arrangement contribute to the overall theme of uprising of the album. Findings reveal that the album cover design is loaded with meaning in support of the theme of uprising. Moreover, Marley relies on content-lexical items, namely, nouns, verb, adjectives, and adverbs to project the uprising theme. Marley also employs figures of speech such as allusion parallelism, repetition, rhetorical questions, and rhythm to project the theme of uprising. Finally, the song titles and their order of arrangement tell a single well-linked story in conveying theme of uprising in Marley’s “Uprising” album.

This paper investigates major themes espoused in the national anthems of English West Africa. Further, it seeks to find out how these themes are projected linguistically and literarily. Five English-speaking countries in West Africa, namely, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia, were purposively sampled based on their colonial history, language and geographical location for this paper. Findings show that the major themes espoused in these national anthems are the themes of unity, religion, freedom and modesty. The themes are projected linguistically by conscious diction. Content lexical items – nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs – are preferred to non-content words in projecting these themes. Besides, literarily, these anthems employ figures of speech such as repetition, apostrophe, oxymoron, imagery, rhythm and metaphor to convey the various themes. These findings confirm the popular view in the study of national anthems that national anthems of countries which share colonial history, language and geographical location are similar in content and style.

The present study intends to probe the impediments for the practicality of Critical language pedagogy (CLP) in higher education system of Iran. To do this, 20 Iranian university instructors, holding Ph.D. degrees in TEFL, were asked to read a passage reflecting the main characteristics of transformative pedagogy. To explore the main obstacles, they were invited for a semi-structured interview. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. The data were analyzed using Thomas (2006) inductive approach including frequent, dominant, or significant themes. The results revealed a number of themes that illustrate macro and micro inhibiting factors Iranian EFL instructors encounter toward implementing the principles of CLP. The findings are discussed and suggestions are provided for teachers to transform transmission approaches into transformative and dialogic ones.