javad gholami

Internationalization and globalization have gained popularity during the past 20 years in a variety of educational settings. English-Medium Instruction (EMI) has been one of the primary strategies for addressing these developments. Iraqi secondary schools appear to be falling behind in the face of these worldwide trends. Secondary schools are using Arabic as their practically universal language of teaching. Still, only a few numbers of studies have investigated the possible use of EMI and instructors' perspectives regarding its usage. This study adopted a mixed-methods approach to examine the current state of EMI in the Iraqi setting, providing more insight into the rising application of EMI. To learn more about the attitudes of 150 teachers concerning EMI, pertinent questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to gather the required data. The quantitative results demonstrated that educators' opinions of EMI were overwhelmingly favorable. Most instructors supported both bilingual education and EMI, despite being aware of the detrimental effects of EMI on common official languages and the opposition to its implementation. The participants' views about and preferences for EMI were significantly influenced by their educational background, English ability, and their academic degree. The qualitative analysis's findings showed that although EMI classes provided participants with many benefits, they also faced significant difficulties, the primary reason of which was their poor English ability. The findings also indicated that most of participants blamed administrators for the difficulties in the EMI courses..

Once perceived as a static entity, motivation is now regarded as an ever-changing dynamic construct which is constantly in a state of flux. Though recent years have witnessed an outgrowth of research on the nature of motivational fluctuations in language classes and different factors underlying such changes, it seems that scant research has tried to address the issue in online classes. Thus, informed by this gap, the researchers in the current study sought to find out how Iranian EFL learners’ motivation might fluctuate during different time intervals through the experience of online learning. In so doing, three different contexts of learning were explored, namely institute, high school and university settings. A total of thirty-four learners were selected from these three learning contexts. To gather data, the researchers made use of Motometers and retrospective thinking procedure. As the results indicated, different patterns of motivational fluctuations were identified for institute, high school and university students throughout different time intervals within a single session. Also, as the findings helped reveal, the mean motivational levels for university students were the highest, followed by institute learners and then high school students. The study findings offer fruitful implications for school and institute teachers and learners, as well as university professors and students, particularly as regards paying increased attention towards the oscillating nature of learners’ motivation.

Writing a thesis in English is a challenging requirement for most graduate students. Many non-native students may get assistance in crafting their theses. One of the most commonly used tools for this purpose is Google Translate (GT). To our knowledge, graduate students and their supervisors’ perceptions of using GT have not been investigated in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. This study aims to investigate the attitudes of supervisors and supervisees toward the use of GT in thesis writing. It also considers the possible reasons and purposes for the use of GT by students. In addition, it seeks to understand participants' perceptions toward the benefits, drawbacks, and ethicality of utilizing GT in writing theses. Using questionnaires and interviews, the researcher investigated the perceptions of 49 PhD and master students from different disciplines and 18 supervisors across universities of Iraqi Kurdistan. The results revealed that students employed GT for tasks such as translating sentences and text to aid in reading comprehension, integrating it into their assignments, and even incorporating it within their theses. Moreover, although both students and teachers perceived GT as an effective tool, they were concerned about its inaccuracy and unethicality. This research provides recommendations for the optimal utilization of machine translation tools such as GT in academic writing in general and thesis writing in particular.

This study strived to specify and particularize Iranian medical field specialists and EFL teachers’ predominant and overriding textual interventions, which fall within the ambit of convenience editing. To this end, we required 20 field specialists and 20 EFL instructors to edit the unedited versions of 80 published medical research articles in a way that rendered them apt for publication in quality medical journals. We categorized the obtained data of the edited articles using an editing strategy framework that distinguished four editing micro-strategies and five macro-strategies. The findings revealed that medical specialists and EFL teachers’ micro-editing strategies outnumbered their macro-editing ones. Furthermore, there were significant differences between the editing micro-strategy uses of the above-mentioned groups of the participants. The results highlighted the need for a synergic collaboration between the medical field specialists and the EFL teachers to ameliorate medical articles’ formal, stylistic, and genre-related features and to expedite their publication process.

The essence and nature of geopolitics is inextricably linked with power. All countries compete with each other in multiple systems crystallized from geopolitical theories for survival and promotion in the hierarchical structure of power. China since 2013. And following the rapid economic growth, in order to strengthen his position in the new world order, he launched an initiative called "New Silk Road" or "Belt and Road Initiative" and in the years after that, with maximum effort, he pursued the conquest of this project in It is a universal rule. The joining of many countries to this plan, along with the growing power of China, has caused the concern of other world powers as well. Therefore, to compete with this project, the European Union proposed the "World Gate Plan" and is looking for its planning and implementation. This issue has caused the formation of a geopolitical competition at the international level. The current research with an analytical-explanatory nature by studying the documents of the mentioned plans along with other Persian and Latin sources with a qualitative research method seeks to investigate the geopolitical competition between the mentioned plans. The findings of the research show that the creators of these geopolitical plans with global networking and focusing on ports and seas and the energy issue seek to develop their values on a global scale. After examining the differences and commonalities of the projects and the challenges ahead, it was determined that "the strategic depth of the geopolitical competition of both projects is the African continent".

Publishing research in English poses linguistic challenges for non-native English speaker scholars (NNSS). To prepare their manuscripts for submission, peer review, and post-acceptance stages, they may receive linguistic assistance and editing from different individuals, such as field specialists or EFL / ESL teachers, collectively called text-shapers. To the best of our knowledge, there is no recent comprehensive portrayal of text-shaping practices in the literature on English for research publication purposes (ERPP). This overview introduces the text-shaping community’s practices by reviewing the most significant and relevant studies on this realm in the leading journals on ESP / EAP and ERPP. We used the Web of Science database to make the review as inclusive as possible. Several search terms were used to compile the mainstream literature on the topic, including text shaper, literacy broker, language editor, author’s editor, convenience editor, editor, and copy editor. In this thematic review, we describe text-shapers' editing practices and strategies, outline their characteristics and techniques in providing linguistic services to NNES authors, and highlight the benefits and challenges text-shapers experience in the scholarly publishing industry. Moreover, text-shaping services in Asia, with mounting demand for publication in English, were examined explicitly along with other contexts to comprehensively depict its status quo geographically. As EFL teachers are one of the most active agents in delivering text-shaping services to the NNES authors, especially in contexts like Iran, this review could help the EFL community in Iran and similar contexts to get familiar with the bigger picture of text shaping and its dimensions.

In tandem with communicative approaches to language teaching, there is a growing understanding in SLA that assessment needs to be integrated into language learning. This contention has led to the development of the Learning-Oriented Assessment (LOA) approach for assessing language skills and aspects in language classrooms. To our knowledge, interventionist studies to improve EFL teachers' LOA-based assessment practices are in their infancy. The present study examined Iranian EFL teachers' perspectives on LOA in language teaching. To this end, the researchers selected 44 EFL teachers in four language institutes in Urmia (Iran) and provided them with tailor-made LOA-based training in 12 sessions for one month. The teachers were informed that LOA procedures are to be adopted and used in their classes. During the following semester, the researchers observed the participants' classes periodically and provided them with comments on their LOA procedures. Following the course, interviews were held with the participants to probe into their perspectives on LOA. Drawing upon thematic analysis, the researchers analyzed the recordings to develop a model for the participants' perspectives on LOA procedures. Development of teacher noticing skills in LOA procedure, its beneficial impact on language learning vis-à-vis traditional testing procedures, implementation challenges, widespread use at all proficiency levels, and the need to develop user-friendly LOA-compatible software and applications constituted the major themes based on the interview data. The findings demonstrate that the participants harbored favorable views on LOA and regarded it to be more efficacious than traditional testing procedures.

Writing a thesis is crucial in the master's or PhD study process. There is no denying the supervisor's responsibility in this situation. Therefore, this study attempts to investigate the Kurdish students` perceptions toward their supervisors at various universities in Iraqi Kurdistan. In this study, two groups of students took part: 13 master students and 11 PhD students. Students, both male and female, who were studying at different universities in Kurdistan were included. They were all in their last year of studies and writing their theses and dissertations. A questionnaire and interviews were conducted to collect the data. The results revealed that students perceived the supervisors as a supporter, a leader, and a knowledgeable person who give them continuing feedback. The major point regarding the characteristics of effective supervisors was their knowledge of students` research topics, requiring supervisors to acquire enough knowledge and information on the topics of students` theses.

The ever-growing needs for writing ability in English in the global context has given priority to finding more effective ways to teach L2 writing. A thorough analysis of the pertinent literature indicated a dearth of empirical research in ELT regarding the effect of applying the ENGAGE model on the writing skills of L2 learners. Therefore, the current study sought to ascertain how the ENGAGE Model and Task-based Language Teaching (TBLT) method affected the complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) of Iranian EFL learners' writing performance. Sixty-seven Iranian female EFL learners aged 18 to 25 at Urmia University language center were chosen for the quasi-experimental study based on their level of proficiency on the standard Oxford Quick Placement Test (OPT) in 2022. The participants were randomly divided into three groups and instructed based on the principles of the ENGAGE model (n = 22), TBLT model (n = 24), and control group (n = 21). Pretesting, intervention, and post-testing were all the processes that the study participants underwent. The null hypotheses were tested after the data were analyzed by applying multivariate ANCOVA (MANCOVA) measures. The study of the post-test data revealed that the ENGAGE model, as opposed to TBLT, had a more significant effect on the overall L2 CAF in Iranian EFL learners' ability to write essays. The results of the present study can be applied by ELT experts and curriculum designers in EFL and ESL settings. English learners and instructors can use the ENGAGE model to address linguistic and metalinguistic issues.

Although there is an increasing amount of research examining the efficacy of Witten Corrective Feedback (WCF) in enhancing the grammatical accuracy of EFL learners, only a few studies have explored the perspectives of EFL teachers regarding Formulaic-oriented Witten Corrective Feedback (FWCF) in EFL settings. Using a mixed-method approach, this interpretive exploratory study sought to understand the attitudes of Iranian EFL teachers toward FWCF. The analyses were based on quantitative data from a 13-item anonymous bespoke online survey, qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, and an open-ended question at the end of the survey. EFL teachers (n =137) responded to the online survey, and 7 participants participated in semi-structured interviews. The findings indicated that female teachers' favorable opinions about the effectiveness of WCF for improving EFL learners' writing performance resulted from their belief that the learners' capacity to use more formal and courteous language in their writing assignments was positively impacted by using these formulaic sequences. Moreover, the findings demonstrated that EFL teachers preferred direct WCF methods over indirect tactics. The most essential component that affected teachers' practices in the classroom was training designed to change their perspective of the valuelessness of WCF. The teachers' lack of satisfactory understanding of formulaic sequences stemmed from their lack of information. In addition, teachers' hesitancy to use them in the lower proficiency levels emanated from their misconceptions of their uselessness in the language learners' writing tasks.

The importance of "publish or perish" in academic contexts, especially for faculties and graduate students, is an undeniable problem because of its role in determining university achievement around the world. To deal with such problems, academic writers must be fluent in language repertoires (e.g., lexical bundles), which are an essential component of scholarly writing and necessary for creating publishable research articles (RAs).

Hence, the present study reviews 85 empirical RAs that have been done to extract highly frequent 4-word lexical bundles (LBs) published between 2008 and 2021 in ISI and Scopus-indexed journals across various hard sciences disciplines including medical sciences. Additionally, it offers a list of the general academic four-word LBs in the various sections of hard sciences RAs that can be used as a reference list of general LBs for scholarly writing in hard sciences.

The review revealed that in each discipline, the experts use discipline-specific bundles. The findings also revealed that academic writing structurally relies heavily on phrasal bundles and functionally on referential bundles.

The current study concludes that it is essential to explore disciplinary linguistic features such as LBs in academic writing to enhance academic success and RA literacy. The results may also be useful in developing appropriate educational materials and activities on LBs for academic writing in hard sciences such as medical sciences.

One of the issues that has prompted different views in the verse of mubāhila (mutual cursing) is determining the referent of anfusanā (our souls) in this verse; that is, which person(s) is meant by anfusanā. The identification of anfusanā in this verse is very important; because that person, whom Almighty God has considered to be the soul of the Apostle of Allah (S.A.W.), must enjoy the same virtues and excellences as the Apostle of Allah (S.A.W.). So, it denotes the superiority and Imamate of that person after the Apostle of Allah (S.A.W.). Since there are four important perspectives in this regard, which include 1. The Apostle of Allah (S.A.W.), 2. Ethnic groups and nomadic tribes, 3. The Apostle of Allah (S.A.W.) and the Commander of the Faithful, 4. Only the Commander of the Faithful, the purpose of this article is to study and explore the referent of this verse with a descriptive-analytical method. The basic question is, "Who is the real referent of the word anfusanā according to the Qur'anic verse?" By examining these viewpoints, we come to the conclusion that the Commander of the Faithful (A.S.) is the referent of anfusanā in this verse.

The researchers in the current study were pinpointing the factors contributing to teacher motivation. Among the myriad of variables which were deemed liable to influence teacher motivation, the researchers opted for teacher motivation, namely teacher burnout, self-efficacy, emotional intelligence, and teaching style as the main predictive variables for teacher motivation. To conduct the study, a total of 200 English language teachers were asked to fill the study questionnaires. The target group encompassed teachers from both public school and language school contexts. The teachers were from both genders and came from a variety of age groups, years of experience, and language backgrounds. The participants were recruited from 10 cities across West Azarbaijan. To facilitate the data collection process, the questionnaires were sent to participants via Google forms link. The obtained data were analyzed through SEM (Structural Equation Modeling) to find the exact interrelationships between the four variables considered as predictors and teacher motivation. The findings pointed toward the existence of significant paths from burnout, self-efficacy, emotional intelligence (EI), and teaching styles toward teaching motivation. Additionally, EI, self-efficacy, and teaching styles were depicted to be significant predictors for burnout. The path from EI to self-efficacy was also significant. Furthermore, teaching style was significantly predicted by EI and self-efficacy. Finally, the findings obtained via interview analysis demonstrated that teacher motivation can be influenced by a variety of factors including low income and lack of environmental/social support, which can, in turn, lead to increased levels of burnout and hence diminish teaching efficacy and hence motivation. The implications of the findings are discussed throughout the paper.

In recent times biomolecules engineered magnetically isolable nanoparticles have garnered significant attention in the nanocatalysis arena due to their outstanding features. Doping of rare earth metals over them brings further novelty to their properties. In this current work, we describe the successful synthesis of rare earth lanthanide (M = Pr, Dy) impregnated asparagine-adorned CoFe2O4 as two novel magnetically isolable nanocomposite catalysts following a post-functionalization approach. The synthesized materials were characterized using physicochemical techniques like FT-IR, SEM, EDX, elemental mapping, and ICP-OES analyses. Subsequently, the catalytic efficiency of the materials was investigated in the reduction of 4-Nitrophenol (4-NP), a well-known carcinogenic contaminant of water. The progress of the reaction and its kinetics were monitored over UV-Vis spectroscopy. Among the two variants, Dy anchored catalyst was found to be more efficient than the Pr which led the reaction to completion in just 8 min. Kinetically, also Dy catalyst exhibited higher rate constants. This is the first report of Pr and Dy-anchored heterogeneous catalysts in the reduction of 4-NP. The current methodology is advantageous in terms of cleanliness, simple procedure, excellent yields in short reaction time, easy magnetic retrieval, and reusability of catalysts following several runs without significant change in catalytic activity.

Multi-carrier energy systems play an important role in reconfigured power networks. According to the recent researches, only the energy carriers modeling and system optimization are taken into account, however the sensitivity analysis of output parameters due to input variables variations considering price risk, are being studied in this paper. The sensitivity analysis make the independent system operator (ISO) very precisionist to the carriers-based decisions. In other word, the ISO and the whole control system have to be able to determine each share of all energy carriers considering emergency conditions or passive defense, low consumption and high efficiency. This goal will be achieved through energy carriers sharing variations to compensate the lack of the other resources. All of thermal and electrical demand are procured and the energy not supplies will be calculated in each scenario. The risk modeling used in this study is formulated based on conditional value at risk (CVaR) in four weeks time horizon.

Despite widespread coverage of language policy in the literature, there has been scant research probing into English language education policy at tertiary levels in general and the higher education context of Iraqi Kurdistan in particular. The present qualitative study investigated EFL students' perceptions of English language education policy, current educational policies, and the purposes for learning in Kurdish contexts across genders and study fields. To this end, a version of Yang's (2012) questionnaire was adapted and administered to university EFL students majoring in soft and hard sciences (N=300, male 34%, female 67%) at two private and state universities in Iraqi Kurdistan. The statistical analysis of the obtained data revealed students' positive attitudes toward learning English as an international language in both soft and hard sciences. Notably, students stressed that all Iraqi Kurdish students should learn the English language in English- and Kurdish-medium classes. They also considered English competence as a significant academic accomplishment. However, some of them felt dissatisfied with the status quo of English education in their institutions. The findings of this study offer insights and recommendations for English education policymakers, administrators, and instructors at tertiary levels.

Today, security and development are two unstable components in the management of border areas. As Sistan and Baluchestan province in terms of growth and development in the country's development ranking indicators, is always at a low level and on the other hand, regional and spatial imbalances between the central and border areas of the province seems very obvious, this underdevelopment has created conditions for the creation and growth of the phenomenon of trafficking. Thus, instead of solving the problem of underdevelopment as one of the main reasons and underlying problems of the province, due to security problems, governments have considered the issue of increasing border security as a short-term solution for these areas. In this regard, the present study, which is analytical-explanatory in nature and has been obtained by collecting documents and the latest reports of government organizations in 2020 and 2021, documents and information in books and scientific documents and their content interpretation. , Has tried to analyze the effective factors and indicators in the research findings as well as the relationship between the three components of underdevelopment, trafficking and intensification of border security, as well as in Sistan and Baluchestan province. The findings of the study revealed that issues such as lack of social justice, instability of security, the phenomenon of smuggling of goods, spatial and geographical imbalances, instability of residence and population, reduced political participation and political development, increased political violence and terrorist activities, neighborhoods with underdeveloped and undeveloped countries. They have affected the development cycle and security of the region.

Research has demonstrated that many factors underlie foreign language classroom anxiety. This correlational study is an attempt to investigate the relationship between foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA), positive orientation, and perceived teacher and student emotional support among Iranian EFL learners and examine the predictive power of positivity and perceived teacher and student emotional support on FLCA of Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 213 Iranian teenage and adult beginner EFL learners (127 teenagers and 86 adults) filled out the FLCA scale (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986), the positivity scale (Caprara, Alessandri, Trommsdorff, Heikamp, Yamaguchi, & Suzuki, 2012), and the teacher and student emotional support scales (Johnson & Johnson, 1983). Afterward, the researchers examined the correlations among variables, and multiple regression was run to find out the predictive power of positive orientation and perceived teacher and student emotional support on classroom anxiety. The findings revealed that there were significant relationships among all variables. Further, positivity and perceived teacher and student emotional support significantly predicted FLCA levels of Iranian teenage and adult beginner EFL learners. It is noteworthy that EFL teachers require formal training to establish rapport and positive relationships with their students, minimize their FLCA, and create a friendly, supportive, and non-threatening learning environment in their EFL classes in Iranian language schools.

Teaching practices are believed to be a determining factor in educational systems. For over two decades, the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Iran has been organizing Top Model Teaching Festivals to address the changes required to promote English teachers' professional development. Considering the high amounts of investment in such programs and their impacts on teaching and sustainable learning, this study probed into how the award-winning teachers critically view and evaluate the efficacy of such nationwide festivals. To this end, ten award-winning EFL teachers in the festivals were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol to qualitatively elicit their attitudes towards the program. The results obtained from the content analysis of the interview transcripts revealed that such festivals have not adequately fulfilled their main objective, which is to improve the teaching quality and potential of teachers and promote their professional development. Thus, the study calls for a reassessment of the effectiveness of such programs to find alternative ways for empowering teachers.

The purpose of the present study is to explain the political and social values from the view of Imām Khomeyni. The method of research is descriptive-analytic and the results indicate that the Islamic revolution occurred relying on the beliefs and ideas that Imām Khomeyni extracted from the context of Islamic resources and actualized them in society. In reviving the political and social values, Imām Khomeyni had two approaches: One was introducing the political and social values, the most important of which self-belief and self-confidence, and they can be called the driving force behind the Islamic revolution in different issues. Imām Khomeyni attempted to actualize each of the above values through religious and social capacities and creating dialogue about them. Second was introducing anti-values or deviant values like alienation from oneself, identity loss, not recognizing the real enemy, lack of unity, and indifference towards the genuine aforementioned values in society. Thus, social groups without genuine values would be afflicted with disorder in their speech and act and get into a state of confusion.

Although supervision is an integral component of EFL teacher professional development, there have not been enough studies on language teacher supervision and EFL teachers’ attitudes toward supervision. The present study investigated EFL teachers’ attitudes toward supervision in Iranian language schools. To this end, 218 EFL teachers who received supervision were selected and asked to complete a teacher supervision questionnaire (Moradi, Sepehrifar, & Khadiv, 2014) to elicit their attitudes, feelings, and experiences toward supervision. The questionnaire consisted of five subcategories: teachers’ evaluation of supervision, their attitudes toward the mode of supervision, the contributions of teacher-supervision to their development, and the process before, during, and after supervision. The findings revealed that a great number of the participants harbored this view that the current supervision is useful for them and necessary for novice teachers. However, some held negative attitudes toward supervision as it puts them under pressure, creates anxiety, and damages their confidence and motivation. They found their supervisors’ feedback unsatisfactory mainly done for paperwork formalities. To improve the ongoing supervisory practices, they suggested the need for the development of transparent criteria and rubrics for supervision and called for discontinuation of unannounced and sudden supervisory observations.

Many L2 teachers baffle when it comes to classroom participation scoring(CPS) of their students. Through a researcher-made questionnaire, this study explored EFL teachers' perceptions of classroom participation scoring(CPS) in Iranian private language schools. Moreover, it investigated the participants' views on a newly-developed objective and analytic rubric as part of this study for CPS. To this end, 120 EFL teachers completed the questionnaire on the typical CPS framework they used in English classrooms. Detailed analysis of teachers' perceptions of CPS  indicated that most Iranian EFL teachers used holistic and subjective CPS approach and had little knowledge of the objective methods of CPS. After having been introduced to the proposed analytic CPS rubric, the participating teachers showed a positive attitude to the rubric and reported the rubric's applicability and flexibility in assessing EFL learners' classroom participation. The findings suggest adopting more objective assessment rubrics for  CPS.

The importance of incorporating graduate students' needs into academic writing courses has established a good reputation in EAP/ESP research. In addition, writing and publishing research articles (RA) is a universally established benchmark for students' academic flourish. The present study examines the status quo of academic writing courses in graduate programs to determine the extent academic writing needs of Applied Linguistics students, mainly RA writing needs, are addressed and practiced in the course. Drawing insights from the literature on academic writing, we developed two similar interview protocols for graduate students and course instructors to capture these key stakeholders' retrospective views on the course. We found that the course mainly focuses on proposal/thesis writing, not regarded as a critical need based on students' perspectives. Moreover, both students and instructors echoed the importance of RA writing as a significant area to be covered while emphasizing the need to integrate RA genre literacy into classroom practices. In this paper, we call for the reconsideration of students' primary needs in designing and running graduate writing programs and suggest that RA writing with a genre-based orientation become an instrumental component of academic writing courses in English as an Additional Language context (EAL).

This study was an attempt to evaluate the attitude of Iranian conference participants regarding the effect of ELT conferences on their professional development and teaching practices. To this end, an appropriate questionnaire was administered to 192 conference participants selected through convenience sampling. The collected data was statistically analyzed, and the obtained results revealed that the participants believed that ELT conferences in Iran have positive effects on the participants' professional development and teaching practices in terms of familiarity with the existing trends in the ELT, motivation for conducting further studies and application of conference materials in their teaching. The results also showed that the participants noted a number of drawbacks in such events, including the low quality of papers and presentations, attendance just for the sake of getting a certificate, and theoretical rather than practical orientation, which might be the cause of demotivation for teachers to attend upcoming conferences. To remove these drawbacks, the participants offered some suggestions such as providing guidelines for presentations and double-blind review papers, holding more workshops, internationalizing the conferences, and attracting more keynote speakers and foreign presenters.