محمدهادی محمودی

This study investigated the interrelationship among EFL learners' goal orientations, willingness to communicate (WTC), listening anxiety, and listening comprehension. Two-hundred participants, selected through convenience sampling procedure from private language institutes, completed the following questionnaires: Goal Orientation Questionnaire section of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (Pintrich et al., 1991), WTC Questionnaire (Cao & Philip, 2006), and Foreign Language Listening Anxiety Scale (Kim, 2000). The listening section of the IELTS exam was also utilized for measuring the participants’ listening comprehension ability. First, a hypothesized model was tested through the AMOS program. The results revealed that all the variables in the study were positively correlated with L2 listening comprehension except for L2 listening anxiety and performance goal orientation, which were negatively correlated with L2 listening comprehension. Moreover, it was found that mastery goal orientation was the strongest predictor of the dependent variable. Then, the revised model for the interrelationship among the variables was presented. The results showed that both psychological and cognitive variables could have crucial roles in EFL learners’ success in learning listening comprehension ability. The implications of the study are discussed in the text.

In the history of Islamic thought, there have been many discussions about the true science and the truth of science, especially through Sufism. Although the most famous example of these issues can be considered the book "Iḥyā′ ‘Ulūm al-Dīn" by Abu Hamid Mohammad Ghazali, such discussions are not limited to this book. Such discussions have been recurring themes in Shiite sources before and after Ghazali, to the extent that some Shiite scholars, such as Feyz Kashani, have considered the revival of science as originally a Shiite plan and have tried to return it to its Shiite sources. Imam Khomeini should also be considered among these scholars. Imam Khomeini has paid special attention to the issue of true science and the truth of science and has used the pattern of "revival of science" in criticizing the state of science and scholars of his time, at the same time he has presented his own reading of this model. Imam deals with the issue of reviving by two concepts: "official science" and "hijab" & criticizes both traditional sciences and modern sciences of his time. He also uses most of the effective teachings of the tradition of reviving science, such as "Zaher o Baten" and "Qalb", but accepts some prominent personalities of this tradition such as Sheikh Klini and Mulla Sadra, and rejects some like Ghazali. Imam Khomeini also has his own innovations and theories in this field, like the interpretation of the new term "humanities" in the framework of the tradition of reviving science and rearranging the traditional doctrine of Velayat in the framework of the theory of "Velayat-e-Faqih".

The issue of science is a central issue in many early and later Shiite texts, so much so that it can be said that the Shiites have their own plan of science. The "science plan" here refers to a set of topics that define science, distinguish real science from pseudo-science, determine its purpose and benefit, and make it the representative of human truth. There is a continuous tradition in the history of Islam, especially in Sufism, The most famous example of which is Ghazali's book "Revival of Religious Sciences". Such works have always seen the truth of science in danger of being forgotten and distorted by the scientists of the time and have tried to show that true science is something beyond the formal occupation of sciences, the way of being a scientist that manifests itself as his morals and behavior. In this article, we have shown that the early and late Shiite scholars have similarly important and prominent works in the discussion of the pattern of science and viewed it as a fundamental issue for the Shiites, As far as jurisprudential Shiism can be considered as a scientific Shiite. Although the method of this article is analytical rather than historical, the depth and breadth of these discussions in Shiite texts highlights the possibility of spreading science-related issues in Sufism from these Shiite texts, especially since some later Shiite scholars also have emphasized on the Shiite sources of a book such as "Revival of Religious sciences".

In recent years, teachers’ professional identity has been considered the core of their professional development. In line with this novel approach, this study aimed at constructing and validating a questionnaire to assess EFL prospective teachers’ professional identity. Through a comprehensive review of related literature and previously-validated scales, the most common subscales and items were carefully identified. After assuring reliability and content validity of the initial questionnaire, a convenience sample of of 186 prospective teachers majoring in teaching English as a foreign language filled out the questionnaire. The results of the confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses indicated that the professional identity of the target group consists of seven components, namely, task orientation (6 items), professional commitment (4 items), self-concept (7 items), self-efficacy (5 items), career motivation (9 items), job attachment (5 items) and collective identity (4 items). Therefore, the validated questionnaire can be used for assessing EFL prospective teachers’ professional identity. This questionnaire can be used as a suitable instrument to assess the professional identity of applicants to teacher education programs and assess the formation and evolution of the professional identity in the target group from admission to graduation.

Criticism is judging the merits and demerits of something and showing its weaknesses and strengths. Textbook evaluation, as a small step in learning and teaching process, can help teachers and learners find books that suit their needs and likes. In the present article, the book ‘Educational Psychology’ (the 13th global edition) authored by Anita Woolfolk (2016) is reviewed and evaluated.  This is a qualitative evaluation based on the writer’s experience in teaching this source in postgraduate classes for several years. To do so, the formal characteristics and the content of the book and the degree of its success in fulfilling the objectives, which are mentioned in the introduction of the book, are examined. Although this book, like any other book, is not flawless, it can surely be recommended to those who are interested in the learning-teaching process. It is hoped that, via this article, this book would be read and used by more people in the scientific community of Iran.

AbstractThe present study examined relationships among critical thinking, writing strategy use, second/foreign language (L2) writing anxiety, and L2 writing performance of Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. To this end, 100 homogenized EFL learners (57 female learners and 43 male learners) filled out Facione and Facione’s (1993) California Critical Thinking Skills Test-form B (CCRST), Petric and Czarl’s (2003) Writing Strategy Questionnaire (WSQ), Cheng’s (2004) Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI), and the second task of the academic version of IELTS exam. Multiple correlation analyses revealed a significant positive relationship between L2 writing performance and writing strategy use; and L2 writing performance and critical thinking. Results also revealed a significant negative relationship between L2 writing performance and L2 writing anxiety. Furthermore, it was found that L2 writing anxiety was a stronger predictor of L2 writing performance. Additionally, the results of one-way MANOVA showed a significant difference between Iranian male and female EFL learners regarding both their L2 writing performance and L2 writing anxiety. These results emphasize the inclusion of pre-planned writing sessions for Iranian EFL learners which can help foster critical thinking skills and writing strategy use, reduce L2 writing anxiety and hopefully, improve their L2 writing ability. Key words: Critical thinking, EFL learners, L2 writing anxiety, L2 writing performance, writing strategy use.

This study set out to provide empirical evidence on the relationship between EFL teachers' emotional intelligence, reflectivity, and autonomy, and their students' L2 performance. The participants of this study included 88 EFL teachers who taught English at different private English teaching institutes and their students (N = 1266). First, the teachers completed three validated questionnaires: Emotional Quotient Inventory (Bar-On, 1997), Teacher Reflectivity Questionnaire (Akbari, Behzadpour & Dadvand, 2010), and Teacher Work-Autonomy Scale (Friedman, 1999). Then, their learners’ scores on their final English proficiency exams were collected as indication of their L2 performance. The results of the study revealed that there was significant positive relationship between teachers' reflectivity, emotional intelligence and autonomy, on the one hand, and their students' L2 performance, on the other. The results of multiple regression analysis showed that from among the variables of this study, reflectivity was the stronger predictor of the learners' L2 performance. In addition, the findings indicated that EFL teachers' educational degree and gender significantly affect their levels of emotional intelligence and reflectivity. The findings of this study offer evidence to substantiate teachers’ emotional intelligence, reflectivity, and autonomy as important variables in L2 teaching and confirm their instructional nature.

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between foreign language causal attributions, metacognitive self-regulation and speaking performance of Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 202 intermediate EFL students, studying English at private language teaching institutes in three provinces of Hamedan, Golestan, and Khuzestan were selected based on the convenience sampling procedure. To collect data, Causal Dimension Scale II (CDS II) (McAuley, Duncan, & Russell, 1992) and Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) (Pintrich, Smith, Garcia & McKeachie, 1991) were employed. Moreover, the interview section of IELTS Exam was also used to measure speaking ability of the learners. The results of the study showed that there was a significant positive correlation between the participants’ L2 speaking ability and the locus of causality and the internal control dimensions of attribution theory. But, there was significant negative correlation between L2 speaking ability and the external control and the stability dimensions. There was also positive significant correlation between L2 speaking ability and metacognitive self-regulation. Moreover, it was found out that successful and unsuccessful EFL learners attributed their success and failure in L2 speaking performance mainly to internal factors. It was also found that among the independent variables of the study, meta-cognitive self-regulation was the stronger predictor of the participants' L2 speaking performance. The findings of this study are hoped to suggest a number of implications for EFL teachers, learners, syllabus designers, and parents.

Textbook evaluation is one of the important steps in developing instructional materials process. The present article evaluates and criticizes the book English for the students of engineering (Atai, Zare Alanagh, Nasiri, Taherkhani & Iranmehr, 2016), which belongs to the new generation of English for specific purposes (ESP) textbooks. To this end, the textbook evaluation model proposed by Mahmoodi and Ahmadisafa (2014) was used. This model is specifically designed for evaluating ESP books. This study showed that this book, in contrast to previous ESP books developed by SAMT, has higher technical qualities and conforms with scientific theories and experimental findings in the field of TEFL. However, besides its advantages, this book suffers from some weak points which are discussed below.

The present study was conducted to investigate how EFL learners with distinct levels of emotional intelligence might benefit from Critical Thinking-based instruction and use different language learning strategies. A further concern of this study was to investigate the relationship among critical thinking, language learning strategy, and emotional intelligence of EFL learners. To this end, 88 EFL learners studying at private English language institutes in Shiraz took 4 sets of instruments:Oxford Placement Test, California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST), Bar-On Emotional Quotient inventory (EQ-i), and the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL).The results of the statistical analysis revealed that teaching CT skills had a significant effect on the LLS use of EFL learners across different EQ levels. However, no significant difference was found between LLS scores of students with high and low EQ levels. Moreover, a significant positive relationship was found between critical thinking and emotional intelligence, and overall language learning strategy and critical thinking. The results of the present study might give insight to EFL teachers so as to make them aware of the higher order thinking skills required for a successful application of language learning strategies in foreign language learning context.The present study was conducted to investigate how EFL learners with distinct levels of emotional intelligence might benefit from Critical Thinking-based instruction and use different language learning strategies. A further concern of this study was to investigate the relationship among critical thinking, language learning strategy, and emotional intelligence of EFL learners. To this end, 88 EFL learners studying at private English language institutes in Shiraz took 4 sets of instruments:Oxford Placement Test, California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST), Bar-On Emotional Quotient inventory (EQ-i), and the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL).The results of the statistical analysis revealed that teaching CT skills had a significant effect on the LLS use of EFL learners across different EQ levels. However, no significant difference was found between LLS scores of students with high and low EQ levels. Moreover, a significant positive relationship was found between critical thinking and emotional intelligence, and overall language learning strategy and critical thinking. The results of the present study might give insight to EFL teachers so as to make them aware of the higher order thinking skills required for a successful application of language learning strategies in foreign language learning context.

Learning any language has its own specific constraints and problems; English language learning is not an exception. One of the most important problems in learning English language is the quality of textbooks. Since “Prospect 1” is Iranian students’ first formal contact with English language in their schooling programs, designing and developing this book is of crucial significance and logically requires the authors’ more sophistication and precision. Therefore, evaluating and analyzing the content of this book can be an effectual undertaking in diagnosing the strengths and weaknesses where of. The main objective of the present study was to evaluate and analyze this textbook qualitatively on the basis of scientific criteria and eventually identify its merits and demerits especially with regard to the methodology of teaching a foreign language. To do so, 18 EFL teachers and 25 students were interviewed. Then, using content-analysis of the interviewees’ responses and also the analysis and inspection of the book’s content, the most important strong and weak points were discussed in the article.

The present study was conducted to investigate the relationship among three important teacher variables and students’ L2 achievement. To this end, 105 high school EFL teachers from Shiraz and Hamadan were asked to fill out three sets of instruments: the reflective teaching instrument, (Akbari, Behzadpour & Dadvand, 2010), the Attitudes and Beliefs on Classroom Control Inventory (Martin, Yin, & Baldwin, 1998), and the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (Ardasheva & Tretter, 2013). Also, the scores of the English final exams of 2673 third-grade high school students were collected. The results of Pearson Product Moment Correlations revealed that there was a significant correlation between the above-mentioned three teachers’ variables and their students’ L2 achievement. The results also showed a significant difference between male and female teachers in the degree of perceptions of LLSs, while no significant differences were found between the two genders regarding their classroom management orientations and reflection. Moreover, running multiple regression analysis, it was revealed that among the teachers’ variables, reflection was the strongest predicator of students’ L2 achievement. Finally, based on the results of this study, some practical implications for maximizing students’ L2 achievement in English language classrooms are presented.

Nowadays, teachers` stress has become a global concern as one of their commonproblems and about as many as a third of the teachers, investigated through different studies around the world, reported that they consider teaching as a stressful job (Borg, 1990). A great deal of chronic stress might lead to burnout. Although reasons of stress are different among teachers, some of teachers are less prone to burnout. Therefore, there is an important question that why some teachers are more successful in dealing with occupational stress (Vaezi & Fallah, 2011). It seems that one of the factors which help teachers to deal with occupational stress is emotional intelligence (Vaezi & Fallah, 2011). Another important factor, which may contribute to teacher's burnout, can be teachers’ reflectivity which is “the active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it” (Dewey, 1933, p. 9). Inan educational system, teachers` burnout can waste occupational investments and decrease teachers` efficiency. Therefore, recognizing teachers who are susceptible to burnout and finding solutions in order to prevent burnout is necessary. To this end, this study was conducted to bridge this gap in the Iranian EFL context and to examine the relationships among teachers’ emotional intelligence, reflectivity, and burnout and their components on the one hand, and to investigate probable differences among their level of burnout, emotional intelligence, and reflectivity and the components of these variables with respect to their educational degree on the other hand.
The participants of this study were 125 EFL teachers within the age range of 20-47. Teachers` educational degree swere B.A. and M.A. in TEFL and English Translation. The participants were selected randomly from 7 private language institutes in Kurdistan and Hamedan, Iran. To answer the research questions, the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey (Maslach, Jackson, & Leiter, 1996), Teacher reflectivity (Akbari, Behzadpour ,& Dadvand, 2010) and Bar-On EQ-I (1997) were used and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation and MANOVA analyses were utilized to test the hypotheses.
The results of the current study revealed that there were negative correlations between EFL teachers’ emotional intelligence and reflectivity on the one hand, andtheir burnout, on the other. Jude and Grace (2011) mention that emotionally intelligent teachers can understand and control emotions of themselves and others and can also use coping strategies in different situations. Therefore, they can control prolonged stress, which leads to job burnout. Regarding the negative relationship between teachers` reflectivity and burnout, Larrivee and Cooper (2006) believe that reflective teachers free themselves from “routine and impulsive acts, enabling them to act in a more deliberative and intentional manner” (p. 1). When teachers engage in a routine action continuously, they eventually feel powerless in affecting their future jobs and this can in turn lead to burnout (Larrivee & Cooper, 2006). In addition, negative correlations between all the components of emotional intelligence and emotional exhaustion and depersonalization as the components of burnout and also negative significant correlations between interpersonal and general mood with lack of personal accomplishment were found. High adaptability can help teachers to adjust themselves to different situations and find useful solutions for solving difficult problems in their work environment easily and ultimately makes them less susceptible to depersonalization or emotional exhaustion. Moreover, interpersonal and intrapersonal components of emotional intelligence can help teachers to increase their personal accomplishment and decrease their level of depersonalization and emotional exhaustion. Interpersonal component is also related to social relationship and awareness of involvement and accomplishment of rules. Therefore, this component is necessary for job resistance, and it can increase personal accomplishment (Pishghadam & Sahebjam, 2012). There were negative correlations among some of the components of reflectivity and components of burnout. Akbari (2007) believes that, teachers` reflection on their own personal characteristics can lead to shaping and changing teachers` beliefs, values, and their personality and can finally improve their performance. Teachers` reflection can help them to recognize their own capabilities and can ultimately lead to an increase in their personal accomplishment. Moreover, teachers can reflect on their interaction with learners to improve their interpersonal relationship. This can finally help them to reduce their working environment stress. In addition, significant differences were found in teachers’ emotional intelligence regarding their educational degree. However, there were no significant differences in the level of teachers’ burnout and reflectivity with respect to their educational degree. On the part of components, it was revealed that intrapersonal, stress management, and general mood of emotional intelligence along with the critical component of reflectivity were different among teachers holding different educational degrees.
It can be concluded that level of emotional intelligence and reflectivity in EFL teachers were negatively correlated with their degree of burnout. Moreover, there were negative and significant relationships among most of the components of emotional intelligence and reflectivity and those of burnout. Based on the results of this study, it can be recommended that reflection and emotional learning programs be incorporated into teacher training courses. These programs can help teachers to develop their awareness of emotional intelligence and reflectivity skills and increase their skills in each of the components of these variables. Therefore, they can develop their interpersonal and intrapersonal abilities to become aware of their own and others emotions and increase their relationship with people. In addition, they can be more optimistic toward their life, job, students and people who are involved with them emotionally. Developing each of these components can help teachers to decrease their level of burnout. Moreover, these programs can increase teachers’ skills in each of the components of teachers` reflectivity. Therefore they can increase their motivation to take part in different workshops, seminars and conferences related to their teaching methods. Consequently, they can develop their teaching quality and decrease their level of stress which may lead to burnout.

English، besides other things، is the language of science. In the academic system of the countries in which English is not the mother tongue of people، teaching English for specific purposes (ESP) is very important. Therefore، development and evaluation of effective instructional materials for teaching English and improving their quality is crucially important. On the other hand، evaluation of different instructional materials including books، which are the most frequently used type of materials، requires appropriate models and frameworks. In this paper، the authors have first critically examined some of the well-known textbook evaluation models.

The major aim of this study was to examine the effect of teaching critical thinking skills on Iranian EFL learners’ reading comprehension across different EQ levels. To this end, 104 students were selected. Then the participants were randomly divided into two groups. In the next step, Bar-On Emotional Intelligences test was administered to measure the participants EQ level and based on their scores on this test, the subjects of each group were divided into two subgroups. During 14 sessions, critical thinking skills were taught to the students of the experimental group along with their ordinary English courses. Finally, another version of the reading comprehension test was given to the participants to test the effect of the treatment. The obtained data were analyzed using t-test and one-way ANOVA. The results revealed that teaching critical thinking skills had a significant positive effect on reading comprehension of the students. The second purpose of the study was to find out if there was any relationship between the learners’ EQ and their reading comprehension. The results revealed no meaningful relationship between EQ and reading comprehension. The final purpose of the study investigated that if the subjects’ EQ level had any significant effect on using critical thinking skills in the class or not. The results showed that students with higher EQ levels could benefit from critical thinking skills in their reading comprehension more effectively than the lower EQ group.

The present paper narrates the general outlines of Henry Carbon and Seyyed Ahmad Fardid views of comparative study of Islamic mysticism and German philosophy، and also carries out a comparison between the two thinkers. There are similarities between them in many aspects، for example both start the comparative study with a criticism of historicism and engaging with phenomenology and both are trying to overcome the crisis of the western thought history. In spite of these harmonies، there are some important separations; while Carbon is concerned with meta-history، Fardid with his own special attitude toward history، highlights the historical aspects of the ideas and makes prominent studies constantly in the context of the history. Also while Carbon with a linguistic look follows the formation of a conceptual network in two side study، Fardid concentrates on Etiology with an inspiration by Heidegger.

Zimmerman and Risemberg (1997) define self- regulated learning (SRL) as self-initiated actions, which include goal setting, and regulating effort to reach the goal, self-monitoring, time management, and physical and social regulation. The present study attempted to find the relationship between self-regulated learning and L2 achievement. Furthermore, the difference among elementary, intermediate, and advanced Iranian EFL learners in terms of self-regulated learning strategies, as well as the effect of gender on self-regulated learning strategies use was investigated. The subjects of the study were 130 (77 males and 53 females) EFL learners studying at three proficiency levels including 57 elementary, 36 intermediate, and 37advanced from two language institutes in Hamedan and Sanandaj. They were given a Five-digit Likert-scale questionnaire including 20 items assessing self-regulated learning. The results of Chronbach’s Alpha and factor analysis showed that the questionnaire had acceptable reliability and validity rates respectively. Also, students’ scores on the final exam were obtained from the institutes as their language achievement measure. Further, applying Pearson Product- moment correlation coefficient showed no significant relationship between self-regulated learning and language achievement. Moreover, running one-way ANOVA, it was shown that there is a significant difference among elementary, intermediate, and advanced Iranian EFL learners with regard to SLR. Also the results of the Post hoc tests revealed a significant difference between elementary and advanced levels. Additionally, significant difference was found between males and females in respect to self-regulate learning. The implications of the study are discussed in details in the paper.

Vocabulary is an important component in all four skills of language. Issue of vocabulary retention has great importance to EFL teachers in instructional contexts because they always observe students forget the words which are taught to them after a short period of time. The current study investigates whether the use of an interactive web-based tool referred to as „Wordsift‟ can result in a significant improvement in long-term vocabulary retention of EFL students. 60 participants were selected to take part in the study.The participants‟ age ranged from 17 to 24. They were taught 100 words in six contextualized texts. The main experiment consisted of twelve sessions, which were followed by an additional meeting designed to check the treatment effect on the long-term vocabulary retention. The results of T-test and ANOVA analyses indicated that word cloud (Wordsift) does have positive significant effect on EFL learners‟ long-term vocabulary retention.

Second language learners often develop grammatical competence in the absence of concomitant pragmatic competence (Kasper & Roever, 2005) and the exact nature of the relationship between the two competences is still indistinct and in need of inquiries (Bardovi-Harlig, 1999; Khatib & Ahmadisafa, 2011). This study is a partial attempt to address the lacuna and aims to see if any relationship can be found between English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ lexico-grammatical and interlanguage pragmatic competences and if such a relationship is found, whether the gender variable affects it or not. A group of 110 male/female senior university EFL students took a standardized lexico-grammatical proficiency test and a researcher made and validated multiple choice pragmatic discourse completion task test including four speech acts of disagreement, scolding, request and complaint at four levels of formality and familiarity. The results indicate that there is a positive correlation between the learner's lexico-grammatical and pragmatic competences. Furthermore, the correlation is stronger for female EFL learners than the male participants though the pragmatic competence level of the male and female participants was not significantly different. The results imply that grammatical competence is not in itself sufficient for the EFL learner's pragmatic competence but it can definitely constrain the development of interlanguage pragmatic competence.

Mulla Sadra has studied angles with a religious approach in detail in some of his works like mafatih ul-gheib and al-mabda` wa al-ma`ad. As he believes, the essence of an angle is a spiritual entity created by God to deliver grace and to cause man to attain awareness and discover the truth and recommend what is good. Carrying message, closeness to God, obeying Divine orders, much ability, be afraid of God, permanent praise, lack of sexuality and marriage, and infallibility. In some cases such as the last property, he presents his proofs. Furthermore, in many cases, he has tried to show that angles are the same as sphere souls and intellects. In this way, a kind of harmony can be seen between his philosophy and religious thought.