رامین اکبری

The quality of the teacher is deemed to be an essential component of any education system. In view of this, over the past decade, performance assessments have gained momentum in teacher education context and in assessing pre-service teachers’ professional competencies. In Iran, Farhanghian University, having put performance assessment in its educational agenda, has recently set up a national project named Evaluation of Teachers' Professional Competencies aiming to assess the attainment of professional competencies by student teachers as part of its teacher licensing requirements. Taking this issue into account, this study intends to design and validate a framework of teacher competencies to be used in Farhanghian University. To this end, the researchers conducted a thorough analysis of relevant studies on teacher education, effective teaching, teacher competence, and teacher evaluation. Following this, they examined pertinent national documents, and explored teacher educators’ and curriculum developers’ perspectives via in-depth interviews. Analyses of the collected data yielded a performance assessment rubric with six domains to be utilized in evaluating the EFL student teachers’ professional competencies.

Metaphors are central to academic writing and scientific theorizing. To create awareness about the features of metaphor in English academic writing, this study investigated frequency, types, and key categories of metaphor in published articles of non-native speakers and compared them with those of native speakers. The data have been collected from 50 research articles with the topic of cancer and gene silencing. For description of frequency and types of metaphors, a sample section of articles was coded with manual metaphor identification procedure and for identification of key categories, a semi-automatic procedure including of software and manual analysis was conducted. Findings suggested that similar to the writing of native speakers, metaphor was a highly pervasive phenomenon in 2nd language academic writing of non-native speakers and indirect metaphor in comparison to direct and implicit metaphors led the rank type of metaphoricity. The results, however featured more number of key metaphor categories with higher variety of metaphorical words in the written discourse of non-native speakers.

Reflective teaching has proved to be one of the most important and influential approaches to teaching in second language teacher education. Although this approach has been the subject of numerous studies, in the majority of cases, such studies have been carried out cross-sectionally rather than longitudinally. To address this major problem, the present study, adopting a qualitative research tradition, investigated the development of the reflective practice among four novice English language teachers. The teachers were instructed in strategies employed for journal writing. Reflective journals were collected from each teacher within the time span of one year and were content analyzed. The results of the content analysis indicated that the participants' teaching practice improved gradually and developmentally in terms of both the type and depth of reflection. The findings urge the integration of the reflective practice, along with its tools and procedures, into teacher education courses/programs in different Iranian educational context.

Damask Rose (Rosa damascene Mill.) is one of the most important aromatic roses that used in perfume, essence and medicinal products. This study was conducted to survey the effects of the plant growth regulators on proliferation and rooting capability of Damask rose. The collected samples were disinfected using 10% concentrations of sodium hypochlorite for 15 minute and 70% Alcohol. The treatments which used in this study were two kinds of cytokinin hormones (BA and BAP) in three concentrations (0, 0.5 and 1) for establishment stage and four concentrations of same hormones (0, 1, 2 and 3) for Proliferation stage and auxin hormone IBA in three concentrations (0, 0.5 and 1) for rooting stage. All of the samples were cultured in modified MS media with three replications, in a way that every replication included 3 explants that were based on randomized complete design (CRD). Results of data analysis showed that the highest establishment percentage was 88/89 percent which obtained at 0.5 mg/li BA and the lowest establishment percentage was 20 percent which obtained at 0.0 mg/li BAP. The mean comparison showed that the highest proliferation (3.83) and length of branch (5.34 cm) were achieved at 3 mg (BA), and the lowest proliferation percentage and length of branch were seen, respectively (1.96) at non hormone treatments. The highest rooting percentage was 85% that obtained in 1/2 MS medium containing 0.5 mg/li (IBA) and the lowest rooting percentage (%36) was seen at non hormone treatment.

Teacher education is deemed to play a critical role in revolutionizing any education system. As a result, pre-service teacher education has received considerable attention in education systems world over. In the context of Iran, the process of teacher education has not been properly implemented and following their being recruited teachers would go directly to classes, without possessing adequate professional competencies. Hence, the present study intends to provide a comparative account of EFL pre-service teacher education in Iran and five other countries attempting to address applicable issues, criticisms, and constructive lessons to be learned from the relevant experiences of such countries. To this end, the study examines recruitment requiremnets, EFL teacher professional preparation and evaluation, and teaching practice in the Iranian context and those of other countries.In so doing, this study analyzed the existing documents and reports published by international and governmental organizations and previous research done relevant to the countries included in the study. The results indicated that almost all the five countries bear some resemblance to one another in pre-service teacher recruitment requirements. Iran and Japan, however, seem to have a more sensitive stance on teachers and conducting interviews with candidates than other countries. Moreover, Germany and the U.S. appear to have built up a more sophisticated teacher education system compared to other countries. The results further revealed that the TEP program in Iran has made arrangements to keep up with the new trends in teacher education and has partly been successful in following in developed countries’ footsteps.

In psycholinguistic studies, with regard to cognitive models, conceptual preparation, lexical concepts, lemmas, morphemes, phonological words and phonetic patterns have been proposed as different levels of lexical processing. Concerning previous studies, some theories have suggested the sequencing and the simultaneity of the processing modules; however, the contribution of each specific processing level has not been determined. In this study, with the participation of eighty six BA students of English Literature, picture naming task as a cognitive measure was used to determine the differences in contribution of lexical processing levels in L2 noun and verb processing. According to this research, in L2, noun processing is mostly under the influence of conceptualization stage and verb processing is mostly under the influence of formulation stage. Therefore, it can be concluded that in language teaching emphasizing the visual codes of concrete nouns and the morphological features of verbs specifically facilitate learning. Moreover, with respect to the findings of this research, it can be proposed that nouns have longer retention in comparison with verbs; however, verbs are more subject to incidental learning.

Burnout is one of the potential threats to teachers which can negatively influence their performance and bring about many side effects such as poor health conditions, depression, absenteeism, etc. It has, however, been found teachers who use effective coping strategies to deal with stressful job conditions can resist burnout. This qualitative design study aimed to investigate the coping strategies of 15 Iranian high school EFL teachers who did not show burnout on Maslach Burnout Inventory. The participants were interviewed and observed in classrooms and they were asked to keep journals for 8 sessions. The data were content analyzed and results show that establishment of rapport with students, discussing problems with principals and colleagues, class management, reflection, ongoing learning, adherence to moral principles and adopting a traditional teaching style are among the coping strategies these teachers used. The low frequency of these strategies, however, implies that EFL teachers, even those who resist burnout, need to be trained on different burnout coping strategies.

One of the most important issues in the realm of education is assurance regarding the quality and effectiveness of teaching and teachers. In this regard, it is essential that models and instruments be developed in order to describe and assess them. It is one of the subjects creating a lot of interest in learners is English. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a model as well as a measuring instrument for describing quality of teachers and teaching in English. The present study was an attempt to develop such a model and instrument in a qualitative and a quantitative phase. In the qualitative phase, seven factors were identified as the underlying structure of teacher quality on which basis a 48-item questionnaire was developed. Then, in the quantitative phase, using Exploratory and Confirmatory factor Analyses, the reliability, and the validity of the model and the questionnaire were obtained. Based on the findings, both the model and the questionnaire are acceptable and valid and can be utilized.

The present study aimed at investigating the initial and final attitudes of Iranian EFL learners in two different age groups (8 and 11 year olds) during one year of inquiry and seek to witness whether the language learners’ age of starting foreign language learning can influence their attitudes or not. The participants’ attitudes were measured via questionnaires and interviews. The modified AMTB (Attitude Motivation Testing Battery) used in this study was designed in such a way as to measure the learners’ attitude in eight different domains (Learners’ interests in foreign language, Attitudes toward English speaking people, Attitudes toward learning English, National identity, Integrative orientation, Instrumental orientation, English class anxiety and parental encouragement). Our focus in the present study was on the participants’ performance on the first four attitudinal domains and also their performance on the whole questionnaire so the participants’ answer to these relevant items on the questionnaire (items related to the first four domains) and also the whole questionnaire was subject to statistical analysis .For the first four domains, results of the study showed that our participants hold positive attitudes towards foreign language learning and learning English both at the beginning and also at the end of inspection. For their attitudes towards English culture and its speakers and also their national identities, our learners in different age groups revealed different patterns. Taking the total attitude picture into consideration (the questionnaire as whole with all its 8 domains) however, there was not any significant difference between the attitudinal behaviors of participants of two different age groups of this study.

In this qualitative study, through studying the thought patterns of two master candidates of the International Relations discipline, the process of development in their disciplinary genre awareness has been investigated. In so doing, academic writing skills were taught to the two cases of the study in a period of 18 months. In this period, one of the researchers held regular training sessions. The theoretical framework used for this study was the interaction model of Hyland (2005) and the methodology in the phase one to three of the study was descriptive ethnography and in phase four it was analytical and quantitative. Several rounds of interviews, stimulated recall sessions, field notes, and document analysis were used to collect the data. Based on the definitions provided by IELTS organization, the two cases improved from the level of limited user (band score 4) to the level of good user (band score 7). Finally, the result of the investigation of the stages of development in the disciplinary genre awareness of the participants was presented in a model of development. This study can shed light on the future perspective of curriculum design for academic and ESP writing courses.

Assessment of the English proficiency of applicants of entry into postgraduate studies, undeniably, is of utmost importance. Nationally speaking, the current status of the English test administered by the National Organization of Educational Testing (NOET) in Iran has been a topic of heated contention in recent years. This study purports to investigate the validity of the Iranian English proficiency test for Ph.D. admission purposes adopting the assessment use argument as the main framework for its validation research. To this end, the required data were collected from the relevant stakeholders of the test, namely applicants of the test, experts in educational assessment and language testing, and test readiness instructors. Structured interviews and focus groups were conducted and the acquired data were analyzed using the qualitative content analysis approach. Most prominent themes that emerged from the data in addition to a number of relevant representative quotes constituted the major findings of this study. The results revealed that the test is in need of major revisions in some parts, and further modifications are deemed as necessary. In the final section, summary of the results along with suggestions for optimization of the test are put forth.

In lexical processing studies، nouns and verbs processing differences have always been investigated with respect to different lexical features in nouns and verbs and the activation of different cortical locations fundamental to noun and verb representations. Such investigations on bilinguals in particular، are of primary importance due to the mediation of L1 words to process L2 words. In this research، a comparative analysis between a first and a second language، by considering the lexical processing levels in Persian-English bilinguals and by participation of eighty six BA students of English literature has been done. Picture naming task was used as the main cognitive measure and the latencies in naming object and action pictures in either of Persian and English languages were recorded in milli-second. With regard to the findings of this research، in both languages morphological features in comparison with semantic features are more influential in nouns and verbs processing differences and nouns have longer retention in comparison with verbs. In addition، acquiring a language (L1) or learning a language consciously (L2) does not influence the significant contribution of processing levels in bilinguals.

The present research sought to investigate how expert EFL teachers manage their class and keep its discipline. To this aim, the existing prior ELT (English Language Teaching) research on exemplary teachers’ practices were reviewed and the typical class management strategies used were extracted. Moreover, 20 ELT specialists including teacher educators, university professors of applied linguistics, mentor teachers and language institute supervisors were selected through purposive snowball and convenience sampling methods, and were interviewed. Since they were directly dealing with teachers as trainers, supervisors, and mentors, they were considered as qualified informants. There were finally 4 themes and 3 sub-themes extracted from the qualitative content analysis of the interviews, which were presented in this paper along with sample extracts of the actual interview content. The themes included: expert teachers’ identification power, use of external control, use of preventive management strategies and monitoring student behavior. The 3 sub-themes of the second theme were: clarification of expectations, use of body language and establishing rules and routines. Knowledge of these themes and sub-themes can shed light on a key behavioral aspect of expert English language teachers in class. These strategies, if followed properly, can set good examples for novice teachers and those who have problem managing their classes.

Performance evaluation is one of the important components of each organization، and educational organizations are not exceptions. According to the results of many studies، the single most important factor in determining student academic success or failure is the classroom teacher. Therefore، teachers are at the center of attempts to improve or reform the educational system of any country. Because of their importance، educational systems need to be assured that teachers perform their best to enhance student learning and try to improve teachers’ performance by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of their performance for further professional development. Both of these aims can be achieved by developing a research-based teacher evaluation system. With due consideration of the requirements of developing an evaluation procedure، the present study aims at proposing a new model for EFL teacher performance appraisal. For so doing، a number of relevant studies on teacher evaluation and effective teaching، relevant national documents، and EFL teachers’ and experts’ views were investigated. Then، for making decision regarding the components of the assessment procedure، Delphi technique was used. The decisions made about the components of proposed model are discussed and the requirements for its implementation are explained.

Performance evaluation is one of the important components of each organization, and educational organizations are not the exceptions. Teachers are believed by many researchers as the single most important factor influencing student academic success or failure. Therefore, they need to be at the center of attempts to improve or reform the educational system of any country. Considering the pivotal role of teachers, educational systems need to be assured that teachers perform their best to enhance student learning, and also they should try to improve by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of teachers'' practice for further professional development. The present study tries to examine the effectiveness of the current teacher evaluation system in Iran from EFL teachers’ perspectives. For that matter, a survey consisting of both Likert-scaled and open-ended questions was developed based on theoretical underpinnings of purposes for teacher evaluation, experts’ views, and the purposes of foreign language education as stated by the National Curriculum. 423 English language teachers were asked to answer the questions included in the survey. The results indicated the current teacher evaluation system did not contribute to teacher professional development nor could it assure teacher accountability. The results of the study as well as the requirements for developing an alternative model for EFL teacher evaluation are discussed

This research reflects upon English education as a foreign language in two different contexts. The main aim is to investigate and compare the status quo of Iranian and Swedish English language curriculum. Based on data derived from international and comparative studies, The Swedish curriculum has been considered as a successful one in field of educating English in schools. For evaluation of two systems, the main curriculum elements (e.g. Rationale, Goals and Approach, Contents, Learning Materials, Time, and Assessment) have been compared. The results indicate that the Iranian curriculum, compared to Swedish one, has some problems and shortcomings such as: accepting old and ineffective goals and approach; focusing on sub-skills (mainly vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and dictation) instead of fundamental skills like listening, speaking, writing and reading; teaching textbooks which are narrow-inclusive, un-varied, un-attractive, and out-of-date; allocating limited hours to English subject-matter in school timetable; and implementing national tests that do not cover communicative skills.

The significance of research article (RA) abstract as a key academic genre has recently motivated analysts to focus on this neglected area. Considering a summary function for abstracts، most genre researchers have adopted the conventionally proposed Introduction- Method- Results- Discussion (or Conclusion) (IMRD) model for analysis. However، the problems reported، especially for Results and Discussion sections، question the vitality of such accounts and prompt further scrutiny. Moreover، in spite of claims about disciplinary and cultural variations which can affect communication within and across discourse communities، sufficient contrastive studies which address the Iranian academics'' need to communicate with and participate efficiently in the international discourse communities are scarce. Inspired by English for Specific/Academic Purposes tradition of genre analysis، this paper tries to fill these gaps presenting a comparative generic analysis of soft sciences abstracts to see what the characterizing features of the texts of Iranian scholars and their international peers are. The macro-structure، micro-structure، and some features of 100 experimental RA abstracts taken from a number of reputable Iranian (Persian) and international (English) journals were analyzed and explained drawing upon some existing rigorous models. The results revealed similarities in the presence of Introduction، Method، and concluding units، while there were also differences in the realization of units، Moves، and Steps. It is argued that the differences can point to the varying cultural norms and values of the two groups. Plus، considering the inadequacy of the four-way macro-model، an alternative three-way model was suggested، instead. Some implications of the study are discussed، too

During the last two decades, in psycholinguistic studies, particular attention has been focused on bilingual speakers in order to understand the cognitive relation between the two languages, especially in terms of their activation and retrieval. One of the most important reasons is that language processing and the speed of word retrieval are different between bilinguals and monolinguals. In this study, the speed of language processing and noun-verb retrieval in either of L1 and L2 and between L1 and L2 (Persian and English) were investigated through picture naming task in 42 BA students of English Language and Literature of Allameh Tabatabaee University. According to the results of this study, in inter-languages mode, the speed of verb processing and retrieval in English is significantly more than that in Persian. Moreover, in intra-languages mode, in Persian, the speed of noun processing and retrieval is significantly more than the speed of verb processing and retrieval. In the next stage, the results were analyzed by considering the gender variable. With respect to the purposes of this research in investigating the cognitive differences in the speed of word processing and retrieval in L1 and L2, a superior cognitive performance can be concluded in females.

This survey study was conducted to explore the place of L1 (Farsi) in teaching and using English in Iran. The participants were 150 students of Translation Studies at Islamic Azad University of Karaj. To collect the required data a questionnaire was developed; the content validity of which was established by a panel of experts of ELT. Cronbach's alpha was employed to determine the reliability of the instrument (α= 0.74). In addition, the construct validity of the instrument was established by conducting factor analysis. The 22 items of the questionnaire were loaded under 6 factors which explained 61.66% of the total variance. The first resultant factor was attributed to apparent negative effects of using Farsi in English classes on the quality and quantity of English learning in general and learning speaking and pronunciation in particular which explained 20.311% of the total variance. After investigating the priorities of the participants regarding the items and resultant factors, suggestions for conducting further comprehensive studies were provided.

As an integral componet of discourse competence and professional expertise، generic competence is intervowen with the concept of multi-litracies، which in turn highlights the role of technology and multimodality. Conefernce PowerPoint presentations are among the research-process genres، which rely substantially on the textual and visual generic competences of discourse community members. In spite of their significant role for the membership in a community of practice، they are underexplored even in the «English for Specific/ Academic Purposes» tradition of genre analysis، where static versus dynamic nature of genres has been a controversial issue. The present genereic study utilized a typology of visuals along with a framework for description and explanation of their characteristics and features to analyze more than 400 conference slides by two groups of non-native applied linguists (a representative of soft scientists) in light of the definition of genre، its functions، and the influence of Microsoft software on its features. Apart from highlighting the importance of visuals and the dominance of scriptuals in soft sciences، the reported similarities and differences between the two groups and the obtained patterns revealed that PowerPoint presentation can be considered a genre، which would manifest a variety of identity expressions. Moreover، in the absence of disoursal and metadiscoursal elements، many slide characteristics and features can fulfill their fuctions. Sheding some light on the undeniable role of the software and its implications for methods of reasoning and argumentation، genre integrity، and definition of metadiscourse and genre along with some applied suggestions are among the main aims of the study.