Iranian Journal of English for Academic Purposes
Volume:9 Issue: 2, Spring 2020

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a new shaking educational development provide the scene for achieving social inclusion and dissemination of knowledge. Anyhow, facilitating network learning experiences through creating an adaptive learning environment can pave the way for this open and energetic way to learning. The present study aimed to explore the possible role of Dynamic Assessment (DA) as an evaluation tool for providing an adaptive learning to the diversity of online platforms. 453 Second Language (L2) learners participated in the course. Similar to the typical MOOCs, learners watched lecture videos, answered quizzes, posted responses to forums, and communicated with others. Dissimilar to the typical MOOCs, the quizzes were prepared and assessed based on DA tenets and the learners were required to take a listening comprehension test at the end of each module. Quantitative analyses were made to find out each individual's Zone of Actual Development (ZAD), Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), and Learning Potential Score (LPS). The findings of the study revealed that DA was promising for giving insight into the development of the learner’s listening comprehension and the assessment of listening ability in MOOC. The results of the study pinpointed that scores on what a learner could do alone and without assistance, ZAD scores, could not provide a clear picture of the learner’s listening ability, while mediation helped to reveal his/her potential abilities (ZPD) and diagnose his/her difficulties. It was also shown that DA brought to light the areas the learner needed more support and instruction, and consequently provided a profound feedback and evaluation on the learner’s learning and performance, the elements missed in MOOC.

As the individual and psychological constructs of teachers have gained momentum recently, a growing number of empirical studies have been carried out to investigate the relationships among teacher-related variables. In order to further explore the associations between teacher variables in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context, this research explored the significance of teachers’ sense of efficacy and their resilience in predicting teacher burnout among Iranian EFL teachers. To this end, a total number of 213 male and female practicing teachers filled out a battery of three measuring instruments for these constructs. Structural Equation Modeling was used to test the structural model of the constructs. The results demonstrated that teacher self-efficacy represented 20.1% of the burnout variance while teacher resilience explained 11.7% of the variance in teacher burnout. It was found that although either of the two variables had a unique contribution to burnout, teacher self-efficacy appeared to be a more powerful predictor of burnout than teacher resilience. The findings have significant implications for teacher education programs.

The main focus of this study was to investigate to what extent Iranian intermediate EFL learners were motivated to learn English. Besides, an attempt was made to find the differences between teachers and learners in terms of their perceptions of demotivation sources and the strategies used to reduce them. To that end, some two hundred Intermediate English learners doing their BA’s in different fields, one hundred experienced EFL teachers with at least three years of experience, and 80 novice EFL teacher with less than three years of experience were asked to participate in the survey and share their perceptions of demotivation sources as well as strategies to reduce demotivation. For this survey study, a quantitative approach was adopted. The results revealed that all the motivational constructs of Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) considerably decreased as the EFL learners were preceding along the course. Furthermore, Demotivation Sources Questionnaire (DSQ) and Demotivation Reduction Strategies Questionnaire (DRSQ) were distributed among the chosen participants, and one-Way ANOVA was run to examine any statistically significant difference between the three groups of participants’ perceptions or priorities of two constructs. The findings revealed that there was no remarkable difference between the perceptions and priorities of three groups. The study concluded with several suggestions for language teachers and

Translation and interpreting in the modern world of the 21st century are markedly different from the traditional practice. In recent decades, universities and institutions worldwide have moved toward modifying their curricula accordingly. One significant popular step taken so far is the adoption of a Competence-based Approach to teaching translation and interpreting. The present study, as a narrow part of a PhD dissertation on translation and interpreting competence, is a qualitative research using documentary analysis to figure out the components of translation and interpreting competence. To this end, this study investigated the major translation and interpreting competence models (47 translation and 35 interpreting models as the corpus or material) as structured texts. The descriptive content analysis of the data indicated distinct competences as well as common core competences between translation and interpreting, inductively suggesting that universities and institutions develop different curricula for the respective programs so they can train individuals based on the standards of the market.

The acquisition of passive voice in English was studied in this quasi-experimental research through the use of dictogloss technique as a focus on form approach. The participants, thirty-five male and female students, were English translation majors at BA level at University College of Nabi Akram in Tabriz. They were randomly assigned into two intact classes: the experimental and control groups. Nelson proficiency test indicated that they were at intermediate level of proficiency. The treatments were applied after conducting a proficiency test and a pretest in order to assure the learners' homogeneity in proficiency and their background knowledge in passive voice. The treatment and posttest tests were arranged in two forms, half of which were in multiple-choice format and the other half were supply type ones. The multiple-choice items were selected from Objective Tests (Orleans & Sealy, 1928) and the supply types were selected from two books named: Intermediate Language Practice by Vince (1998) and Oxford Living Grammar: Pre-intermediate. The dictogloss technique was used as a treatment on the experimental group (n=18). Nonetheless, the traditional method of focus on formS was used on the control group (n=17). The results of one-way ANOVA and post hoc test indicated the superiority of focus on form technique over the focus on formS. The findings revealed significant effect of the dictogloss treatment on the performance of the learners. The results showed a significant improvement in the treatment group in posttest over the pretest.

Although culture-oriented contents can be regarded as determining factors in the performance of EAP university students' receptive and productive tasks, a paucity of investigation on the impacts of culture-oriented materials on their receptive and productive tasks performance is strongly felt. To partly fill this gap, a culture-oriented English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP) course book was developed based on Tomlinson's (2001) materials development framework. A total of 180 participants were selected according to their language proficiency results, and were stratified into four receptive and productive EGAP task groups encompassing Lecture Presentation, Note-taking, Academic Writing, and Figure Drawing. Then, the developed course book was taught and practiced in each of the EGAP classes, and the treatments pertaining to each EGAP task were implemented separately in each group. Having passed twenty treatment sessions, the participants were administered a posttest including the main four skills. Then, through a modified version of Mukundan, Hajimohammadi, and Nimehchisalem's (2011) course book evaluation checklist, the students were shown to have positive attitudes towards the culture-oriented content. Furthermore, a one-way ANOVA test was used for analyzing task performance and indicated that culture-oriented content had a significant impact on the Iranian EAP university students' task performance. Similarly, a paired samples t-test revealed that culture-oriented content affected the EAP students' Lecture Presentation, Note-taking, Academic Writing, and Figure Drawing separately. It was further observed that Lecture Presentation as a productive task for enhancing the speaking skill was highly influenced by culture-oriented content in the EGAP classrooms. The findings suggest that the significance of the first culture as the determining yardstick for incorporating materials attributed to the second culture in EAP language teaching arenas should be taken into consideration. This can materialize by conducting receptive and productive EGAP tasks in general, and lecture presentation in particular.

Current trends in education reformed the classrooms as critical sites for promoting learners’ social identity, cognitive development, and critical skills. From this perspective, the classroom turned out to be an arena to raise students' critical consciousness to be the agent of change. In such a context, this paper examined (a) the extent to which implementing the principles of dialogic teaching (DT) can increase critical thinking (CT) mode of students’ writing, (b) the practicality of DT from EFL teachers’ perspective. To this end, a qualitative method was adopted and the data were collected from students’ dialogue journals (DJs) and teachers’ perceptions on a CT questionnaire (CTQ).  Notably, students were invited to write DJs to reflect on the class discussion. To quantify how DJs contribute to students' CT practice, Ada's (1988) four critical literacy (CL) modes in writing was employed. Analysis followed Heigham and Croker’s (2009) guidelines for generating meaning from DJs. An iterative analysis led to the identification of codes from students’ excerpts.  Next, a nationwide study was conducted to distribute CTQ among 200 EFL teachers to navigate their priority over the principles of DT. The results indicated that students' descriptive and personal mode of writing decreased in the last temporal session and it changed to be critical and creative mode. Although teachers were supportive of the principles, they reported implementing DT may not be practiced in reality due to some boundaries. The findings suggest that language policymakers and materials developers should move along with the new critical-oriented, self-directed learning and dialogic notion of teaching.