بهرام بهین

The present qualitative research sought to investigate EFL teacher educators’ experiences and attitudes toward critical thinking and its role in teacher professional development. The adopted design was a case study and the theoretical framework was the theory of transformative learning (Mezirow, 1978). For the data collection purpose, 30 EFL teacher educators participated in in-depth interviews. The  whole procedure of  the data collection was audiotaped for further reference in data analysis. The interviews were transcribed to familiarize with the data and the transcribed interviews were member checked with the participants. The collected data were analyzed through reflective thematic analysis. The data analyzed paved the way for generating three themes: cognition, metacognition , and personal growth/self attainment . The findings of the study comprise a number of implicatios for both theory and practice. One aspect of our contribution is that the notion of critical thinking can be conceived as more than cognitive and metacognitive one; it should be conceptualized as possessing both facets as well as other possible subsets. Beyond that, we suggest that critical thinking should be conjectured as being both a process and a product.

Giving corrective feedback (CF) is an essential part of the teaching and learning process, and the way it should beneficially be done has been the focus of attention for numerous researchers especially when traditional ways of CF provision are not possible, particularly in rare situations such as outbreaks of diseases. This study investigated how different ways of giving feedback; namely, through online chats and class discussions can help language learners in benefitting from their instructors’ CF provision. To this purpose, the effects of two ways of feedback provision were tested on the participants writing quality. Three hundred and seventeen Iranian EFL learners took a TOEFL test, 132 of them (53 males and 79 females) scoring between 477 and 510 were asked to deliver a 200-word writing task. Then, they were randomly put into 4 experimental and control groups to undergo different treatments, i.e. receiving CF through online chats and class discussions for 10 one-hour sessions. After the treatment, they were required to deliver another 200-word piece of writing. The results of statistical data analysis showed that the writing quality of the participants receiving CF through online chats was significantly higher than that of those who received CF through class discussions. The findings of this research have practical implications for Iranian educational system to update its instructional methods and for the nature of teaching and learning processes and practices.

Most of the models accounting for L2 oral production have deemed a significant role for vocabulary knowledge in this process. Previous studies have demonstrated a positive relationship between different aspects of lexical knowledge and performance or proficiency of second language skills including the speaking performance. Meanwhile, the findings have suggested a determining role for the task type used for measuring speaking performance when one or more aspects of lexical knowledge are in focus. This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the EFL Learners’ deep vocabulary knowledge (DVK) and speaking performance by scrutinizing the mediating role of task type. To this end, 102 bachelor ELT students were given Word Associate Test to measure their DVK, and a planned presentation task and unplanned tasks of description, narration and reasoning to elicit speaking performance. The elicited samples of speaking performance were transcribed and analyzed in terms of fluency, accuracy, lexical complexity and grammatical complexity. Structural equation modeling indicated a lack of causal relationship between DVK and aspects of speaking performance as measured with both planned and unplanned tasks. However, mixed results were obtained in the case of the correlations of fluency, accuracy, grammatical complexity and lexical complexity with DVK across different tasks. Although the findings do not provide evidence for a strong relationship between DVK and speaking performance when DVK is analyzed in isolation from other aspects of vocabulary knowledge, the variation witnessed in findings provide further proof for the importance of task effectiveness in the study of lexical access. 

The promotion of language assessment literacy (LAL) among teachers and assessment developers has been deadly called and emphasized by professionals and scholars in the field of language assessment. In line with this urgent call for research, the present study sets out to investigate the EFL teachers’ literacy assessment with the aim of bringing modifications for teacher education reforms. To meet the objectives of the study, a total of 200 EFL teachers (N=88, with a TEFL background and N=112, with a non-TEFL background) with B.A. (N=125) and M.A. (N= 75) degrees were selected through stratified random sampling at high schools of West Azerbaijan Province, Iran. The required data were gathered using Plake, Impara, and Fager’s (1993) Teacher Assessment Literacy Scale (TALS). Hence, the participants’ knowledge concerning components of assessment literacy (AL) was sought for. A multivariate analysis of variances (MANOVA) was run and the results, in general, revealed that the participants were not significantly familiar with assessment literacy principles and procedures. Specifically, the results indicated that EFL teachers with a TEFL background and those with a non-TEFL background differed in terms of their assessment literacy competence, especially in terms of their perceptions of AL components. The implications of the findings for teacher education programs, teacher educators and EFL teachers are discussed and some suggestions for further research are offered.