Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics
Volume:15 Issue: 1, Winter-Spring 2024

The current research explores the underlying factors affecting Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) institute teacher identity reconstruction in online courses. It also investigates the combination of roles that constitute Iranian EFL teacher identity in the context of language teaching institutes. Fifteen Iranian EFL teachers from 3 private foreign language institutes in Shiraz were interviewed through semistructured interviews for their narratives. The data were analyzed utilizing the grounded theory to extract the themes. Results indicated that 2 main sets of factors: (a) Individual factors and (b) context-based factors were responsible for the reconstruction of Iranian EFL institute teacher identity. Individual factors include educational background, professional background, emotions, beliefs, and attitudes. Context-based factors encompass classroom management, time management, communicative issues, course design issues, and teacher identity subfactors. Findings can be helpful for teachers, preservice teachers, institution managers, course designers, and program developers.

With the rapid growth of technology, face-to-face education has been overshadowed by virtual or online education. The increasing popularity of this educational mode has inspired a huge number of researchers worldwide to study its potential challenges and opportunities in different educational contexts. Nonetheless, the benefits and obstacles of online English courses in school contexts have rarely been explored, which warrants further empirical investigations into this subject. In an endeavor to narrow this lacuna, the present inquiry scrutinized the opportunities and challenges of implementing online English courses in Iranian middle schools. In doing this, the electronic version of a researcher-developed questionnaire was distributed among a sample (N = 315) of administrators, teachers, students, and parents recruited from different public and private schools in Iran. Respondents’ answers to the open-ended questionnaire were analyzed using MAXQDA. The data analysis resulted in 3 higher-order themes and 17 subthemes. The examination of the generated themes revealed that virtual education’s challenges outweighed its benefits. The study outcomes displayed the majority of participants perceived pedagogical and technical factors as the most important challenges of virtual courses. The outcomes also demonstrated that most respondents mentioned the possibility of reviewing the course content and accessibility of educational tools and resources as 2 major benefits of virtual courses. The study’s implications for administrators, teachers, students, and parents are also discussed.

The current review mapped the trajectory of empirical research in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) journal since its inception (1980) until 2020, overall and across four time periods. In doing so, we analyzed 617 empirical articles with respect to the main themes of authors, context, and research foci, together with pedagogical implications offered in the studies. Each of these broad themes had more specific subthemes. Our review suggested that empirical articles in this journal were typified by single-authorship and contributions by an increasing number of female writers. The empirical publications in this journal addressed almost exclusively English as a focal language. There was also substantial, yet disproportionate, focus on writing while speaking garnered only modest attention. A majority of the empirical studies included pedagogical implications either short or extended. Along with these research trends, we also provided a detailed picture of the changes across and within the time spans. This review of the research trend and discussion of the findings, we believe, offer the story of the journal from within, helping both experienced and novice researchers to gain an overview of the field and identify the mainstay publishing domains in a flagship journal of ESP.

This research aimed to investigate how children (aged 8 to 12 years) interpret and understand narratives depicting a foreign culture. The sample comprises narratives written in English by popular contemporary Pakistani writers, ensuring a representation of Pakistani culture. Using a deductive coding technique and a thematic analytical approach, data from 10 individual semistructured interviews were analyzed. Participants' profiles were crafted, taking into account demographic factors that could influence their interpretation, such as cultural, ethnic, religious, or linguistic backgrounds. The interviews were video/audiotaped, transcribed, and subsequently coded to identify relevant themes. Findings reveal that transmodal communication, intertwining visual and verbal modes, facilitates the conveyance of cultural concepts across diverse spaces. Material objects and the decentering of human characters played central roles in enriching children's understanding of the narratives. Moreover, the study highlights how differing cultural contexts influence the participants' interpretations, fostering cross-cultural awareness and empathy. The study underscores the importance of encouraging open dialogue and embracing diversity to cultivate empathetic and culturally sensitive individuals in our increasingly interconnected world.

The present study sought to determine the factors of native and nonnative English teachers that predicted their teacher immunity. To this end, the researchers first selected 281 native and 274 nonnative English teachers in different private language institutes in Australia and Iran, respectively, as the participants. Secondly, they used 7 reliable and valid questionnaires to assess the participants’ teacher immunity, age, experience, income, working hours, emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence, perfectionism, professional development, reflective teaching, and job satisfaction. Finally, they used the standard multiple regression test to analyze the data. Results showed differences between the factors that predicted native and nonnative teachers’ immunity. In addition, the teacher immunity of native teachers was found to be more productive than that of nonnative teachers in their relevant settings. Results can provide English teachers and teacher educators with guiding principles regarding teacher factors in second and foreign language contexts.

The present experimental research was designed to explore the impact of a problem-based learning (PBL) methodology on EFL learners’ speaking proficiency and its features of communicative success, pronunciation, grammatical accuracy, and lexical choice. Ninety preintermediate EFL learners were randomly distributed into 3 distinct groups: an online PBL group, a face-to-face PBL group, and a control group. The 2 experimental groups received instruction based on PBL (one conventional and one online PBL). They were offered speaking lessons according to the model of PBL introduced by Ansarian and Lin (2018) during 10 sessions. The control group was taught using the current conventions without any problem-based activities. Pre and posttests of speaking proficiency were administered at the beginning and at the end of the course. Data underwent analysis through ANCOVA. Findings showed that whereas the 2 forms of PBL significantly and positively affected the EFL learners’ speaking proficiency, pronunciation, and grammatical accuracy, online PBL was significantly more effective than conventional PBL. Results also showed that the online PBL group performed significantly better than both the conventional PBL and the control groups in communicative success and lexical choice, whereas the difference between the latter 2 groups was insignificant. Findings can have pedagogical implications for English language teachers, especially for those who teach speaking skills and wish to implement PBL in language teaching classes, following a model of PBL exclusively for EFL classes.

This article explores visual English on the storefronts of commercial fashion businesses in Souq Al-Sultan in Amman, Jordan. A corpus of 120 signs displaying various types of commercial fashion businesses (i.e., clothing, beauty tools, accessories, bags, and footwear) was obtained. Drawing on a multilayered analysis model which includes the distributional analysis of linguistic landscape (Ben-Rafael et al., 2006), geosemiotics (Scollon & Scollon, 2003), and the degrees of multilingual writings (Reh, 2004), the study analyses and discusses the extensive use of English and the minimal display of Arabic on fashion storefronts. To provide some ethnographic context for the data, 10 interviews were also conducted. Results suggest that English largely serves as the lingua franca of Jordan’s visual fashion discourse, and the overwhelming visibility of English on fashion signs is significantly attributed to economic and global considerations. Other foreign languages, particularly Turkish, French, and Italian, have featured several signs, but to a lesser degree than Arabic, which can be explained for Turkish and European stereotyping.

This article focuses on the discursive features of the US securitization of cyberspace in Obama administration. Relying on the Copenhagen school’s definition of securitization and using Fairclough’s dialectical relational approach to critical discourse analysis, this study is an attempt to see how discourse making was done as part of a securitization process whereby cyber threats were moved to national security arena and led to discoursal militarization of cyberspace. Assuming that discourse making prepares a ground for elite influence, the current study looks into how the US political leaders contributed to militarization of cyberspace between 2009 and 2017 through discourse making which, in turn, paved the way for actual policy initiatives to militarize cyberspace.

Language shaming is a prevalent issue in Malaysia, particularly in the online sphere, where English language speakers often face targeted discrimination due to linguistic imperialism and misconceptions. This study aimed to identify the linguistic features and themes underlying language shaming practices and assess the awareness of Malaysian adults and YouTube users regarding this issue. The study combined content analysis of 240 YouTube comments exported using YouTube API and a survey of 100 respondents using qualitative and quantitative approaches. The statements were categorized based on speech acts by Searle and were, further, classified according to Rezvan et al.’s (2018) 5 types of Internet harassment. Findings reveal a significant number of statements classified as expressive speech acts, primarily falling into categories such as intellectual harassment, followed by racial harassment, appearance-related harassment, and political harassment. The analysis also uncovers instances of offensive language shaming directed at public figures in YouTube comments, whereas responses from the survey revealed that a number of Malaysians engage in shaming other YouTube users using derogatory terms and phrases. The study suggests that promoting awareness and a sense of responsibility among Malaysians can help overcome this social issue. Addressing language shaming can create a more inclusive society and prevent individuals from being marginalized based on their language proficiency.