Iranian Journal of English for Academic Purposes
Volume:10 Issue: 1, Winter 2021

The current study investigated the language assessment literacy of two groups of Iranian medical ESP practitioners while teaching reading comprehension under formative assessment lens. To do so, 21 ESP instructors, 8 content and 13 ELT instructors, from five universities in Iran were recruited to participate in the study. A 40-item questionnaire, semi-structured interview, and non-participatory observations were employed by the researchers to collect the required data. The descriptive results of both quantitative and qualitative data indicated that the ELT and content teachers’ reading assessment performances were almost the same. The results also revealed that the content teachers had limited knowledge about formative classroom assessment (FCA). Although the ELT instructors were in broader agreement on the knowledge category, in practice, little trace of it was found. In terms of the principles, both the ELT and content instructors agreed that assessment principles were necessary for measuring students’ achievement. For the skill category, contrary to the content teachers, the ELT instructors were on the belief that this category was crucial; however, they did not implement it in their assessment activities.

This qualitative study explored EFL teacher-supervisors’ attitudes toward supervision in Iranian language schools. Based on a researcher-developed protocol, semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven supervisors from Iranian language schools to identify their attitudes, experiences, and challenges regarding supervision. The interviews drew upon emergent methodology to categorize the interviewees’ value-laden comments into four major attitudinal themes, namely becoming a supervisor, with five subthemes of characteristics of a good and ideal supervisor, change in supervision style over the time, missing their teaching job, supervision training, and supervisors’ reasons to choose this line of work; supervisors’ responsibilities, with three subthemes of challenges regarding teacher supervision, organizational conflicts within the school, and supervisors’ difficult decisions; observation procedure and protocol, with one subtheme of keeping required logs and documentation; and rapport and positive relationship with teachers and administrative staff. The findings revealed that the teacher-supervisors are promoted to supervisory roles most often due to their outstanding teaching performance and academic credentials with no formal training on supervision. They also voiced some ethical conflicts they face in this position such as firing teachers or critically commenting on their friends’ performance. Supervisors highlighted the fact that their workload is too demanding with many other presumably non-supervisory responsibilities. The results of the current study provide some pedagogical implications that can be of benefit for EFL teachers, educators, teacher-supervisors and managers in Iranian language schools.

The use of different types of creative teaching techniques such as mind-mapping has drawn the attention of teachers. In this regard, the present research aimed to investigate the effect of implementing mind mapping technique on the improvement of EFL learners’ speaking skill in traditional and flipped classes. It also took a further step and examined the personality of the learners into account. To this end, 80 homogenous elementary EFL students who were studying English language teaching at Payam-e-Noor University, were divided into four equal groups based on their personality type and were assigned into the traditional and flipped classes. Before the treatment, a speaking pretest was taken and the results indicated that the groups were homogenous in terms of their speaking ability prior to the administration of the treatments. After the pre-test, the groups received treatment. The participants of the traditional groups drew mind maps about each speaking topic, and the participants of the flipped groups used digital mind mapping technique to brainstorm about the topic. After the twelve treatment sessions, the groups participated in a post-test. The findings indicated that in the post-test, there was a significant difference between the participants’ speaking scores in terms of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. The findings showed that the introverts had better gains in the flipped classes, while the extroverts benefited from the treatment in the traditional classes. Moreover, the positive effects of mind mapping technique were observed in all four groups. These results can provide both teachers and students with valuable insights into the application of mind mapping technique in flipped and traditional classrooms for both introverted and extroverted personalities.

Needs analysis can be regarded as the cornerstone of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) since designing courses based on the wants and wishes of different stakeholders addresses their needs and considers time and resources constraints. Moreover, paying close attention to EAP assessment in general, and EAP assessment needs in particular, sounds vital since they have not been considered sufficiently. The present study, thus, scrutinized Iranian university students’ and teachers’ needs in EAP classes. Additionally, it sought the learners’ satisfaction degree toward EAP teaching and assessment. Moreover, the study investigated the materials and teaching and assessment methods employed in Iranian EAP classes. To this end, 436 university students and 50 EAP teachers were selected according to convenience sampling. Needs analysis questionnaires and observations were used to collect the data. The collected data were subjected to frequency and Chi-square analyses, the results of which showed that there were significant differences between the students’ and the teachers’ needs mostly in listening and grammar and that they had fairly similar perceptions of needs in reading, speaking, and writing. Nearly half of the students were not satisfied with the teaching and assessment methods. Besides, 50% of the students used SAMT (Saazman-e-Motale'e va Tadvin-e-kotob oloum-e-ensani-e-daneshgah ha in Persian) books, while 35.7% of them used handouts. Furthermore, 93% of the EAP teachers employed the principles of the Grammar-Translation Method (GTM) in their instruction. The findings of the present study can bring the Iranian EAP students’ perceptions of needs into focus and help the teachers incorporate them into their syllabus. Moreover, taking students' and teachers' viewpoints of needs into account and considering the results obtained from the observations can help the EAP education improve.

Results from some previous L2 studies have pointed to the positive correlation between psychological variables and L2 proficiency, fluency, and academic success. Such research findings have contributed considerably to our knowledge of the field. However, the extent of such psychological factors as conscientiousness, and their relation with teacher ratings is still unknown. The ultimate goal of the present study was to examine the predictive power of five psychological variables, known as big five traits, on the ratings Iranian EFL teachers awarded to student essays. To that end, 150 teacher raters were asked to rate ten randomly selected five-paragraph essays (once analytically and once holistically) students of English had written in their essay writing classes using analytic and holistic rating scales. Two separate standard multiple regression procedures, as implemented in SPSS (version 25), were used to analyse the data for the present study. Results from regression analyses showed big five traits, including extroversion, conscientiousness, openness to experience, neuroticism, and agreeability, did not predict analytic and holistic ratings. The findings suggest that such psychological variables do not statistically contribute to the ratings awarded to expository text types.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of flashcard and wordlist strategies with regard to concrete vs. abstract words on vocabulary development of Iranian intermediate EFL learners. The current study had a quasi-experimental design and consisted of two experimental groups and one control group. Ninety Iranian intermediate university students participated in this study. The participants were determined on the basis of Quick Placement Test (QPT). Eighty vocabulary items were selected from the wordlists presented on Paul Nation’s website for the treatment, and they were applied via two different strategies (flashcard/wordlist), and two different kinds of words (concrete/abstract). A pretest, an immediate test and a posttest were administered. To analyze the results, the SPSS software was employed. The experimental groups using flashcards and wordlists were found to outperform the control group. However, no statistically difference was observed between flashcard vs. wordlist strategies. Also, the findings showed that students will probably remember the concrete words for a longer period of time in comparison to abstract words. These findings will probably give insights into language pedagogy by encouraging English teachers to choose the teaching materials which can facilitate the process of teaching and learning.

Expressing doubt and certainty is a significant feature of academic writing where the authors have to distinguish opinion from factual information and evaluate the force of their statements in an acceptable and persuasive way. Hedging and boosting markers are two interactional metadiscourse strategies employed for this purpose. The present cross-cultural study aimed therefore at analysing the type and frequency of hedges and boosters in English research articles by native (AngloAmerican) and non-native (Iranian and Burundi) authors in the field of Applied Linguistics. Based on a corpus of thirty research articles and adopting the taxonomies of Hyland (1998a, 2005a) and Hinkel (2005), the overall rhetorical and categorical distribution of hedges and boosters were analysed across two rhetorical sections (Introduction and Discussion) of the texts under investigation. To calculate their frequencies, AntConc, a concordance programme was used. Moreover, using SPSS version 22, chi-square tests were run to check whether there were statistically significant differences in the use of hedges and boosters in the three sub-corpora. The results of data analysis showed statistically significant differences in the use of both hedges and boosters and their types throughout the two rhetorical sections among the three groups of authors. In the light of the results, pedagogical implications are provided and discussed in detail.

Publishing a research article (RA) is highly significant to postgraduate TEFL students worldwide, particularly for doctorate students in Iran in order to graduate. Meeting the demands of publishing can be tremendously challenging to postgraduate students. In this study, Iranian postgraduate TEFL students' perceptions of the essentials of publishing their RAs were investigated through a questionnaire given to 30 Ph.D. students and M.A. graduates. Besides, the researchers conducted a focus group interview among 12 of the participants to seek concerns and challenges they face during the process of publishing their RAs. The results of the data analysis of the questionnaire indicated a rather high perception towards the essentials required for publishing a RA. However, the results of the analysis of the interview revealed multifaceted challenges students practically face while publishing their RAs, which suggests pertinent implications to practitioners to deal effectively with students’ challenges in publication.