Journal of New Trends in English Language Learning
Volume:2 Issue: 3, Sep 2023

Rooted in Assistive Technology Theory (AST), this qualitative study examined Virtual Reality (VR) as an assistive technology among EFL learners with Expressive Language Disorder (ELD) concerning its effectiveness, feasibility, and risks. Following a purposive sampling, 18 Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners with mild to moderate levels of ELD were selected and experienced a fully-immersive VR learning environment through Virtual-Reality Head-Mounted Displays (VR-HMDs) in which a series of learning nuggets focusing on speaking skills were VR-authored for 20 seventy-minute sessions. The data were thematically analyzed by Max Weber Qualitative Data Analysis (MAXQDA). The findings showed the factors constituting VR assistive technology concerning (A) effectiveness (ICT literacy, prejudgments, technophobia or technostress, motivation, and quality of VR equipment); (B) feasibility (academic infrastructure, equipment price, customization features, types of content or context, and training), and (C) risks (various VR-induced physical and mental symptoms). The outcomes may benefit TEFL, assistive and educational technology, and therapeutic education.

Writing has a unique position in language teaching since its acquisition involves the practice and knowledge of the other three language skills. One of the best ways to attract students to writing is to let them write at the beginning of the learning process as freely as possible and evoke in them the feeling of creativity. Creative writing obviously can play a crucial role in the development of writing skills. This study is an inquiry into the role grammar-based stylistic imitation plays in learning how to write in English classes. To this end, the researcher, taking advantage of qualitative and action research to collect and analyze the data, attempted to teach paragraph writing to EFL in-service teachers using the grammar-based stylistic imitation. Fourteen non-native English teachers from the Gooyesh language institute in Shahrood were asked to do a close and free imitation. The researcher made use of semi-structured interviews to explain if and when they would use it in their own classes. The results showed grammar-based stylistic imitation could be of tremendous help to novice learners in their classes in that it can alleviate the burden they feel trying to master writing. However, a few teachers argued against it stating concerns about voices getting lost and styles getting killed. The results from the present inquiry can raise awareness of the way imitation, grammar-based stylistic imitation to be more specific, can find its way back into the classroom, which can help curriculum designers, stakeholders, policymakers, and administrators.

Possible selves of teachers are not formed overnight, but it is a continuous process on which different factors such as teaching experience may have a significant impact. This study aimed at investigating EFL teachers’ defining their possible selves in the future with a focus on their teaching experience. In so doing, a survey design was used. A total number of 180 (90 males and 90 females) English language teachers from high schools (N=90) in North West area of Iran participated in the study through available sampling. To collect the data, the Expected Self-goals Questionnaire, and The Selves I Fear Questionnaire were used. The results showed that prospective teachers of public schools feared that they seem uninspired and were more task-focused than quality-focused; new teachers feared that they cannot control classes and were more task-focused than quality-focused; and experienced teachers of public schools sought to reach professional development and were more quality-focused than task-focused. Further, it was shown that three categories of teachers’ expected selves were significantly different. Moreover, three categories of teachers’ expected selves were different significantly concerning both expected quality-focused and expected task-oriented dimensions. More specifically, prospective teachers reported lower levels of expected professionalism and higher levels of expected learning to teach than the two other categories of teachers. The results of the current study may shed light on our knowledge of EFL teachers’ possible selves as well as the effect of teaching experience on the construction/reconstruction of EFL teachers’ possible selves.

The term ''identity'' which refers to one's rights, equality and dignity, equal opportunity in work and education and equal pay, emerged in the United States in the mid-twentieth century in the context of immigration, social change, and emancipator movements. This study examines the distinctive ways in which contemporary black female authors have employed speculative fiction to portray diasporic identities in their female protagonists. The novels examined in this study offer new ways of conceptualizing the connection between cultural trauma and society and ultimately by giving voice, choice, and identity, have tried to empower their characters to take a stand against male operation and discover a sense of selfhood. The results indicated that by employing Afrofuturism and other African-based movements, the chosen authors in their fictional characters try to subvert and battle not only the widespread convictions of feminism and womanhood, but also resist social evils like racism, sexism, and gender inequality. In this regard, black literature utilizing science fiction and Afrofuturism imitates progress in the surrounding society and identity politics. The findings indicate an identity pattern and ways of reshaping the identity, voice, and healing during and after traumas distinct to the Afrodiasporic community in the female protagonists.

Although research on clinical supervision and teachers’ critical thinking has been separately carried out by many scholars, their integration in a unified study has been demanding, particularly in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. Investigation of learners’ language achievement affected by doing clinical supervision appears to have been taken for granted. The present study was an attempt to figure out the effects of clinical supervision model proposed by Gall and Acheson (2011) on EFL teachers’ critical thinking disposition and learners’ overall language achievement. The present study constituted two sets of participants: 60 teachers and 66 learners selected through convenience sampling and were divided into two groups namely experimental. Clinical supervision was conducted for the experimental group teachers within three cycles of planning conference, classroom observation, and feedback conference. Those learners whose teachers took part in the clinical supervision constituted the experimental group while the remaining were the control group whose teachers were not provided with any teacher education program. Data were collected through the Critical Thinking Disposition Scale and learners’ pre-and post-tests. By running one-way analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA) and independent samples t-tests, clinical supervision was significantly effective regarding EFL teachers’ critical thinking disposition and resulted in the learners’ significant improvement as well. Findings demand the practice of clinical supervision as an effective and awareness-raising teacher education program to help teachers reflect upon their strengths and weaknesses and self-regulate their teaching practicum.

This research aims to explore and examine Julia Kristeva's theory of the semiotic and symbolic dimensions of language on L. M. Montgomery's Emily of New Moon. In this novel Montgomery portrays the life of a young girl, Emily, who is in the middle of fight to gain self-realization. Kristeva suggests that the part of consciousness repressed by the process of the formation of the self through language – the symbolic- retains its own language - the semiotic- which cannot be entirely annihilated by our birth into the symbolic, and instead erupts into our controlled communication as unruly and uncontrolled expression. Emily has talent in writing and owns great imagination, which she uses as rebellion against the hardships of her life and by the interaction between father's realm of language and calmness and unity of mother's territory, her identity is in process. This research interprets Emily's shift from outer objective world to the inner reflective essence as a defense mechanism, through Kristeva's dichotomous concept of language.