Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research
Volume:11 Issue: 1, Jan 2023

To deal with the harmful consequences of teachers’ stress and burnout, there has been a growing call for the development of resilience in teacher preparation programs. Despite the importance of teachers’ resilience, it seems that insufficient studies have been done on Iranian EFL teachers’ resilience resources and strategies that make them immune to the difficulties and challenges that might lead to their burnout. To this end, a mixed-method study was conducted. The participants of the quantitative phase of the study were 79 EFL teachers who filled in the questionnaire, and only 65 questionnaires were completed. Out of 65 teachers, 36 Iranian EFL teachers who showed low and high scores on the Multidimensional Teachers’ Resilience Scale (MTRS) accepted to participate in the qualitative section of the study. A series of semi-structured, one-on-one interviews were conducted. To ensure data validity, other data collection tools, including journal keeping and classroom observation, were also applied. Data analysis, guided by the grounded theory approach, resulted in a multi-dimensional approach involving interrelated aspects of personal, professional, organizational, social, and economic dimensions. The study may offer helpful resources and strategies to address some of the challenges faced by teachers in the profession.

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.

The quality of mixing methods has been widely debated in the field of applied linguistics (AL) and the integration of data from both quantitative and qualitative research paradigms has always been open to controversy. The present study was aimed at recognizing the status quo of MMR in AL, investigating the nature of various sections of MMR studies, and specifying the way the pattern of employing MMR has changed over the past few years.  From a total of 1,314 articles in seven peer-reviewed accredited AL journals, 220 articles were finally identified to be mixed in method which were subsequently scrutinized based on already-established frameworks regarding their research questions, research designs, sampling designs, and inference quality to explore the status quo of mixed methods research (MMR) in AL. We went through two phases of screening to identify the articles which met the principles of MMR and analyzed the selected articles qualitatively based on a coding scheme. The findings revealed (a) only a few research questions were hybrid, (b) both concurrent research designs and concurrent sampling designs were employed more frequently than their sequential counterparts, and (c) only a few articles made their inferences mixed in a principled manner. The findings of several extracts and an open-ended questionnaire showed a growing interest in MMR and the challenges and problems of conducting MMR, respectively. The results might imply that the new paradigms of research favor mixing methods and that the researchers employ it more due to its strengths.

Due to the spread of COVID-19, all face-to-face speaking courses were discontinued for a while, which inevitably impaired assessment results. E-portfolios are typically an appropriate evaluation technique for universities that implement fully synchronous online learning in pandemic situations. However, little is known about how this alternative assessment technique influences student speaking performance and self-efficacy. As a response, this study explored the impacts of e-portfolios on students' speaking performance and self-efficacy when studying from home, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. A mixed-methods experimental design was used, with 55 university students (experimental = 28, control = 27) aged 18–20 years. Data were gathered via pre- and post-speaking tests, pre- and post-self-efficacy questionnaires, and an interview guide. The statistical analysis revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group regarding speaking performance and self-efficacy. Furthermore, the interview findings indicated that the activities in e-portfolios were crucial for these improvements. This article suggests innovative approaches for teaching online speaking courses with e-portfolios.

The present study examined peer feedback accuracy in synchronous and asynchronous peer feedback conditions. Employing a counterbalanced repeated-measures design, the researchers examined the accuracy of 2327 comments provided by 96 intermediate EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners in synchronous and asynchronous computer-mediated conditions. In the synchronous condition, the learners exchanged comments using the desktop version of WhatsApp, and the participants in the asynchronous condition created weblogs and provided feedback in the comment box. All students provided peer feedback in both conditions, and the accuracy of their comments in these computer-mediated environments was compared. Findings showed that the asynchronous condition yielded significantly more accurate comments and fewer missed erroneous items. The data analysis also indicated that low-intermediate students provided more accurate comments in the asynchronous condition. Further, the findings revealed that EFL learners provided comments supported by references to external sources, including textbooks, online sources, teachers’ lectures (referentially-justified peer feedback), which were significantly more accurate than those comments not accompanied by references. The findings of this study suggest that when the accuracy of peer feedback is of paramount importance, asynchronous peer feedback design should be implemented.

Research has indicated the importance of vocabulary knowledge and background knowledge in second/foreign language (L2) listening comprehension. However, previous studies treated these two factors separately, and no study has examined the simultaneous contribution of these two factors to L2 listening comprehension. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine whether background knowledge moderates the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and L2 listening comprehension. To this end, one-hundred and fifty-one L2 learners participated in this study and completed instruments measuring constructs of vocabulary knowledge (breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge), background knowledge, and listening comprehension. Results of the study indicated that, first, measures of both breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge contributed to the listening comprehension while vocabulary breadth was a stronger predictor. Second, findings of the moderation analysis revealed that background knowledge moderated the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension. These findings suggest that background knowledge can help language learners to have a better performance in listening comprehension tests only if they have high levels of vocabulary knowledge.

Rapid and continuous changes in digital technologies have changed both classroom practices and teacher profiles in education. It can be argued that a new context of teaching may lead some teachers to develop a different teacher identity in order to meet the needs of the era. Within this perspective, this case study attempts to explore the impacts of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) revolution in education on teachers’ professional identity through the lens of three English instructors from three different contexts in Turkey. The study particularly focuses on reflections of teachers during the pandemic. As a theoretical framework, the study adopts Wenger’s (1997) social theory of learning and, within this framework, it discusses these teachers’ professional identities in relation to their ICT usage. In particular, three modes of belonging, Engagement, Imagination and Alignment, are underlined. A qualitative approach is employed based on the written history documents of the participants and semi-structured interviews as data collection tools. The findings are gathered with a deductive thematic analysis, and they illustrate that teachers have some external and internal difficulties regarding their ICT usage, and they form a new shape of professional identity mainly through collaboration, community expertise and contributing new ideas in their school contexts. Although the use of new digital technologies mostly enables them to adopt a positive and modern teacher identity in their teaching contexts, it also leads some of them to sometimes question their teacher identity due to their limited ICT knowledge and competence. Thus, the study suggests some implications both for language teachers to invest in their digital identities, and for school administrations to create a friendly atmosphere where the community of expertise can be shared freely among teachers.

Although studying the actual use of L2 materials has gained momentum over the past few years, little is known about its synergy with teachers’ beliefs. This study addressed this gap by exploring teachers’ stated and enacted beliefs about (effective) materials use in L2 classroom discourse. To this effect, naturally-occurring interactions within 10 Iranian EFL classes were videotaped for three consecutive sessions. Then, the teachers were interviewed where they reflected on their transformations of textbooks. The data were analysed through document analysis of the textbooks, discourse analysis of the classroom interactions, and content analysis of the interviews. The findings showed that sheer convergence between what teachers think about materials (use) and what they actually do in the classrooms cannot guarantee the attainment of the intended and emergent goals of the lessons and/or activities. In-depth analyses indicated that there exist complex interrelationships between teachers’ stated and enacted beliefs. Teachers’ levels of understanding of their talk were found to mediate this interplay in classroom discourse. The findings can inform teaching process and teacher education programs by raising teachers’ awareness about their actual use of materials and students’ engagement in L2 classroom discourse.

During my work as an English teacher in Beijing, students asked me (the first author) tricky questions about learning English as a second language (L2). Some of these tricky questions included “Should I learn the phonetics or vocabulary first?”, and “How many hours should I spend on learning English if I want to communicate fluently with native speakers?”. A father even asked me if his 7-year-old daughter would get confused if she studied two languages simultaneously. Some of them I could manage to answer, but oftentimes I was struggling to give plausible explanations which I would be doubtful about either. Even if I tried my best to reassure these students based on my own experience, truths about language learning eluded me. I could not help but think if Sadeghi’s book was out back then and I happened to read it, I might have given more satisfactory answers to these knotty questions concerning second language acquisition (SLA).

In recent years, English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP) has turned into a hot debate among scholars. Flowerdew’s (2015) seminal work on the significance of English in scholarly publication prepared the grounds for considering ERPP an independent field. The challenges and intricacies of publication in English-medium high-indexed journals have induced ERPP as a prioritized concern in non-Anglophone communities. This 10-chapter volume (entitled Introducing ERPP) is a timely attempt, yet surprisingly the first, by John Flowerdew and Pejman Habibie on the significance of ERPP in provoking equal opportunities for Anglophone and non-Anglophone scholars to disseminate knowledge. The book adheres to a neat structure with an informative introduction and an insightful conclusion. Other chapters deal with ERPP background (chapter two), the notion of publish or perish (chapter three), English discourses and perspectives (chapter four), theoretical and research grounds of ERPP (chapters five and six), gatekeeping issues (chapter seven), ERPP and digitalization (chapter eight), and ERPP pedagogical directions (chapter nine).