جستجوی مقالات مرتبط با کلیدواژه « تربیت معلم » در نشریات گروه « ادبیات و زبان ها »

This qualitative study aimed to explore Iranian EFL teachers’ cognition of corrective feedback as one of the elements of classroom management in the EFL context of Iran’s language institutes. Participants of the study were 12 in-service Iranian EFL teachers who taught adult EFL learners. The participants were selected through purposeful sampling, and the sample size was determined based on saturation. The main instrument of the study was a semi-structured one-to-one in-person interview, which aimed to elicit the participants’ cognition of corrective feedback. These individual interviews were audio-recorded and then they were transcribed. Thematic analysis of the data indicated that the participants considered corrective feedback an important element of classroom management in EFL classes. Moreover, the participants believed that corrective feedback should be provided for common errors and errors related to lesson objectives. They classified EFL learners’ errors in terms of the purpose of activities (communication vs. form, and fluency vs. accuracy). In addition, they knew about different timings for the provision of corrective feedback (delayed vs. immediate/on-the-spot). Furthermore, they highlighted the inclusion of teacher correction, peer correction, and self-correction for sufficiently providing corrective feedback in EFL classes. They also foregrounded EFL learners’ proficiency level and their affective factors for appropriate provision of corrective feedback. On the whole, the participants had a sound cognition of corrective feedback as one of the elements of classroom management in EFL classes in Iran. The findings of the present study have implications for language teacher educators, EFL teachers, and language institute supervisors.

Language assessment literacy has been addressed in a wealth of research. However, many studies have attempted to measure teachers’ assessment literacy, there is still a gap that prompted us to investigate the area from the EFL teachers' assessment literacy needs perspective. To accomplish the purpose, in line with the changes in classroom assessment over the past decades, this study was an attempt to develop and validate an inventory on Teachers Assessment Literacy Needs (TALNs). As the first stage, a set of items was generated through an extensive review of the relevant studies. In the quantitative phase, the developed inventory was administered to 159 English as a foreign language teachers selected through convenience sampling. An inventory construction and validation framework consisting of exploratory analyses was used to examine the construct validity of the proposed inventory. The results indicated that the inventory can be best explained by four components which are knowledge of language assessment literacy, consequences of language assessment literacy, processes of language assessment literacy and teachers’ expectations of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programs. The TALNs inventory developed in this study aimed to help practitioners and researchers to investigate teachers’ needs in assessment literacy. Fulcher’s (2012) assessment literacy framework was drawn on as the analytic model guiding the study.

The empirically-validated link between teachers’ professional role identity and explicit manifestations of teacher efficacy has resulted in a burgeoning literature on educational programs/settings influential in teacher identity formation. In an attempt to expand on this strand of research, the present study explored how taking part in an academic multi-faceted teaching practicum may contribute to professional role identity construction/reconstruction among Iranian EFL student teachers. To this end, 45 third-year undergraduates majoring in teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) were traced throughout a two-year (four-semester) teaching practicum held by Farhangian University, Iran. Based on a concurrent triangulation mixed methods design, the participants’ identity was gauged at five different time points: At the outset of the practicum and after every practicum semester. The quantitative data were gathered through the repetitive administration of a standard Likert-scale questionnaire developed based on Farrell’s (2011) tripartite model of professional role identity. Coincident with the surveying process, the qualitative data were gathered through a semi-structured interview held at the beginning of the practicum and four integrative reports developed by the participants at the end of every practicum semester. Within-group comparison of the survey data in tandem with content analysis of the qualitative data based on the focus framework revealed that the multi-faceted practicum helped the student teachers strike a balance in their identity as a manager and a professional. Additionally, the results called into question the contribution of the practicum to acculturator identity development. The influential role of a multi-faceted practicum in promoting professional role identity among student teachers calls for an investment of cost and time to exploit the full potential of practicums of the same quality.

Although the importance of intercultural competence (IC) training has been increasingly recognized in recent scholarly reviews, home-based approaches invite further investigation in this paradigm. This study aims to make a contribution by exposing a domestic context to assess IC development through using qualitative and quantitative methods. To do so, sixty two undergraduate EFL student-teachers were guided to conduct two either on-line or face to face reflective ethnographic interviews over a sixteen-week course of cross-cultural communication. The quantitative findings obtained from the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) questionnaire showed significant increase in participants’ Perceived Orientation (PO) and Developmental Orientation (DO) after the course. Qualitative findings also revealed significant growth, provoking some new perceptions, and emphasizing the student-teachers’ positive responses to both IDI assessment and the intercultural interactions. The exploratory analysis of the participants’ reports on the ethnographic interviews resulted in seven emerged themes which conceptually matched the traditional IC model. Therefore, the study shows that using reflective ethnographic interviews in a mixed methods design is helpful in developing and assessing student-teachers’ IC.

Globalized approaches to teaching are developing in extent, notifying the idea for educational alterations, improving present teaching activities, and considering the paradigm shift in teaching towards learner-centered pedagogy.  Although this new paradigm of teaching has long been presented to language teaching, it is believed that scarce attention has been given to its implementation in Iranian EFL context. The present investigation is an attempt to reveal the extent to which assessment procedures correspond to learner-centered pedagogy regarding Iranian TEFL instructors’ and students’ attitudes. To this end, a sample of 378 teacher training students, and 196 instructors were selected based on convenience sampling. Data were gathered through the validated and reliable scales of assessing learner-centered pedagogy implementation. The collected data were analysed using one-sample and independent samples t-tests. The results of the analysis demonstrated that according to the students’ and teachers' attitudes, assessment procedures do not correspond to learner-centered pedagogy in teacher training program at universities of Iran. Therefore, it is concluded that assessment procedures relating to learner-centered pedagogy are still behind the standards of learner-centered pedagogy. The results provide insights into considering the new paradigm of education in teaching to promote teacher training courses. Besides, they can be useful for material developers, and syllabus planners.

Adopting a qualitative design, the present study investigated Iranian EFL teachers’ attitudes toward critical thinking as well as its role in language teaching. To meet these objectives, 36 EFL teachers were selected through purposeful sampling as the participants of the study. For the purpose of the data collection, in-depth interviews, focus group interviews, and teachers’ narratives were utilized. To assure the trustworthiness of the data, several measures have been taken. The lead author conducted the in-depth as well as focus group interviews and elicited teachers’ narratives. The interviews were conducted in Persian language and the whole procedures were audiotaped. The data were transcribed verbatim and after member checking the data with the participants, they were translated into English. The data were analyzed through thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). To assure inter coder reliability, coding the data was done by the second and third authors independently. The third and fourth authors were involved in finding the potential themes and sub-themes. Finally, five themes of efficiency, intelligence, change, success and initiation were generated as a result of the data analysis. The present study revealed that the participants emphasized some fundamental building blocks of critical thinking. The participant teachers also advocated critical thinking - focused programs in teacher education as well as its application in language teaching. The study has a number of implications for language pedagogy, teacher education and policy makers.

Action research is an efficient tool for the teachers to tackle the problems in their classes and enhance teaching and learning process. This study explored EFL teachers' perceptions about the effect of conducting action research on their professional development. It also probed into the challenges and problems that teachers experienced during the conduction of their action research as well as the support structures which are needed in this regard. Ten EFL teachers were involved in doing classroom-based action research for one semester. Qualitative data were gathered through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and diaries. Findings revealed that action research contributed to teachers' professional growth through increasing their awareness of their role as teachers and of their students’ needs, providing opportunities for self-reflection on practice, increasing professional confidence, developing a sense of leadership and autonomy, and creating a positive classroom atmosphere. Nevertheless, the participants struggled with three major challenges during the conduction of their action research: lack of time, lack of academic research knowledge and lack of institutional support. It is concluded that contrary to the existing professional development programs, action research can act as a cost-effective, contextualized and efficient professional development instrument tailored to individual teachers’ specific teaching circumstances and classroom peculiarities. Finally, suggestions are made for promoting action research engagement in language education contexts.

Teacher education programs, and more specifically practicum courses, play a vital role in pre-service teachers’ lives since these programs are opportunities for them to get perspective on the reality of their future career. With no doubt, the most important objective of any teacher education courses is to help teachers become reflective. That is why there have been numerous studies to investigate the effect of ref- lectivity on teachers’ success and to propose methods and technique to enhance this skill. This study pro- poses a three-dimensional reflectivity model considering three different aspects of a teaching context. These interwoven factors are pedagogical, psychological, and socio-cultural aspects. These aspects are extracted from a semi-structured interview with 21 experts. Testing this model on group of student- teachers and analyzing their teaching portfolios both qualitatively and quantitatively reveals that applying the model in designing the tasks and projects of teacher education programs can increase teachers’ reflec- tivity and give them insight into how to deal with any shortcomings in their future classes. This model can reshape the teacher education programs and provide the student-teachers with an opportunity to practice something more than pedagogical concerns in these courses.

Professionalism has been generally linked to nations’ economic, industrial, and technological developments. Therefore, having a professionally and ethically competent workforce is a necessity in today's changing world. More specifically, L2 teacher professionalism plays a crucial role in economic development too.  Given its utmost importance in language teaching, this study intended to investigate how Iranian English teachers would perceive professionalism defined in terms of competence and performance. The participants were comprised of 281 English teachers at junior and senior high schools, language institutes, and universities in Tehran, Fars, Khuzestan, and Qazvin Provinces. The data were obtained through a researcher-made questionnaire, initially consisting of 44 items. However, the final version contained 40 items since four problematic items were deleted.  Structural equation modeling was used to develop a three-factor model which lends support to Richards’ perspective (2010) derived from his article “Competence and Performance in Language Teaching”. The model found three factors, namely competence, performance, and techno-pedagogical competence that matched the components of professionalism proposed by Richards mostly in theoretical terms. The findings indicated that most of the participants endorsed Richards’ perspective at least in theoretical terms. The insights from this study can be used to bridge the gap between competence and performance and improve teachers’ practice in the classroom context.

This paper deals with the contributions of a language teacher education model by Kumaravadivelu (2012) known as KARDS (knowing, analyzing, recognizing, doing, and seeing) to Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) university teachers‟ professional identity reconstruction. The researchers used purposive sampling to select participants. A KARDS questionnaire designed, constructed, and validated by the researchers was used to group twenty teachers into a more KARDS-oriented group and a less-KARDS oriented group. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that the questionnaire was both reliable and valid. Pre-course interview, post-course interview, teacher educator‟s and teachers‟ reflective journals, and class discussions were used to collect data. After the pre-course interview, there was a treatment during which teachers were familiarized with KARDS. Then, Grounded Theory was used to analyze the data. Findings indicated that there were two big shifts from “uncertainty of practice to certainty of practice” and “the use of fewer macro-strategies to the use of more macro-strategies” in teachers‟ professional identities in both groups. The changes were similar and/or the same in nature but not in quantity, and they should be emphasized and included in teacher education programs. The findings may drive teacher education programs, teacher educators, and teachers to welcome and embrace uncertainty and confusion in classrooms. Suggestions to reduce “uncertainty of practice” by teacher education programs and teacher educators are presented in this paper.

The short-term in-service EFL teacher education programs are assumed to be of crucial importance in upgrading teachers' methodologies and gearing their teaching more closely to the students' needs. Therefore, a dynamic in-service program for EFL teachers is needed to keep abreast of the time.The present study aims to investigate the role of experience in EFL teachers' satisfaction of the in-service teacher education programs in Zanjan city. 200 EFL teachers from Zanjan province (1 &2 districts) were participated in this study.The data collected through the Course-evaluation questionnaire with “five-level Likert scale”. The results were analyzed through both descriptive and inferential statistics.The findings showed that There is a significant difference between teachers’ experience and their satisfaction of in-service programs.Thus novice teachers and experienced teachers have different expectation of the in-service teacher education programs.This production of significant difference about the relationship between the EFL teachers' experience and their satisfaction of the in-service teacher education programs can be contributed to different perceptions of the teachers on the relationship between the EFL teachers' experience and their satisfaction of the in-service teacher education programs

This investigation set out to look into the issue of teachers’ exercise of agency in the Iranian EFL context. More specifically, as part of a larger study, it reports on the ways two Iranian Ministry of Education teachers make sense of and operate in the country’s educational setting under the demands of a centralist system of education. Priestley, Biesta, & Robinson’s (2013) framework of teacher agency formed the conceptual backbone of the present study as well as guiding the data collection/analysis of the study. Qualitative data, from semi-structured interviews as well as follow-up data collection procedures, were gleaned from the participants over the course of an academic year and were subjected to analytical interpretation in the light of the said framework. The researchers came up with findings which, in the main, gave more weight to the well-roundedness of Priestly, Biesta, & Robinson’s model of teacher agency. The results also pointed to the highly situated nature of teacher responsiveness and action, thereby undermining the still prevalent views of the essentialist and idealized character of (teacher) agency. The results of the study are liable to be of use, among others, to case-based teacher education programs.