The present study utilized a sequential mixed-method approach to examine the perspectives of university professors and students on Teacher-Student Relationships (TSRs) in Iranian universities. The focus was on three dimensions of behavior: emotional, social disposition, and ecological. Data were collected from 100 English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Higher Education (HE) students and 36 professors. Quantitative data were obtained through two researcher-made scales, the reliability of which was ensured through Alpha coefficient. The content validity of the scales was also checked using Content Validity Ratio (CVR). The results obtained from the students revealed no statistically significant difference in social disposition and ecological behaviors; however, there was a statistically significant difference in emotional behaviors. The professors also reported no significant difference in social disposition and ecological behaviors, but a statistically significant difference was found in emotional behavior. Qualitative data from interviews with students and professors confirmed the importance of all three dimensions in forming relationships. Nonetheless, the interviews also revealed how the roles of professors and students could affect these behaviors. Quality indicators, such as care, support, and sociability were identified within the dimensions. The study also found that contextual and individual factors play a role in the TSR. The implications of the results on how to form positive relationships in HE are discussed.

Considering the popularity of online platforms and their significant force in producing collective discourses, attitudes, and patterns of behaviours, this study critically examined the photographic portrayal of old Iranians on websites during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study focuses on this age group, which has been identified as the most vulnerable to the virus. Photographs of old people during COVID-19 are semiotic resources that enable researchers to excavate portrayals of ageing. Media portrayals of older adults gain resonance in ways they are constructed and societal effects that emerge through their widespread access. With an aim to contributing to the literature on visual social semiotic analysis, this study zoomed in on the portrayals of older Iranians on websites applying Kress and Van Leeuwen's visual grammar. The search for data, collected in the period of March to July 2020, yielded 39 results. The findings revealed that the portrayal of Iranian old people suffers from negative ageing stereotypes like ugliness, decline, and weakness. Notably, the analyzed photographs exhibited a higher degree of ageism towards old women than men.

Acknowledging the difference in the lexical backgrounds of students and teachers aids in having a realistic picture of how learning happens. Translanguaging promotes learning by exploring the multilingual capabilities of students. However, it is not sufficient to only account for the learner aspect of the matter. One way of considering the influence of educators is to start conversations about teacher immunity. Language teacher immunity allows teachers to function effectively at school and to appreciate new approaches. For the purpose of evaluating the link between Translanguaging and teacher immunity only a handful of studies have worked on this issue. The present work attempted to bridge the gap in the literature by surveying 207 Iranian EFL teachers’ perceptions toward translanguaging. This study aimed at finding connections between Translanguaging and teacher immunity in order to potentially develop teacher resilience by utilizing the full potential of the students’ lexicon. Participants were from both genders and were different in terms of their experience, native language, and their current field of study. The data collected from this denoted that Iranian EFL teachers have moderate immunity in their pedagogies. Approximately 61% of the participants chose to teach English using both Persian and English and 54% think using Persian to teach English is beneficial for students. Mostly, participants reported that they sometimes encourage and personally use Persian to teach English in different activities. Finally, the educators’ views of taking advantage of the complete gamut of language means of students by translanguaging techniques could not be clarified by their competence in dealing with complicated work conditions.

The ongoing increase in the population of Kurdish as Heritage Language (HL) learners encouraged the present study to explore the learners’ motivations as well as the influential factors on its development. Second Language Motivational Self-System (L2MSS) was adopted as the theoretical framework wherein, the subscales of the Ideal-self, Ought-to self and Motivational Intensity were explored. The study drew on a mixed-methods design in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with four undergraduate participants and a total number of 213 undergraduate Iranian learners of Kurdish participated in a survey. The qualitative results indicated that the interviewees had a positive experience of learning Kurdish in the classroom and were more enthusiastic to get engaged in the process of learning in the future. Furthermore, the quantitative results indicated that the participants more often pursued Kurdish in terms of the Ideal self and that learning Kurdish revealed to be an opportunity to fulfill the learners’ wishes. It was also found that the male participants were propelled by stronger motivational force which was more probably due to stronger sense of identity among male participants.

The present study adopted a mixed-methods sequential explanatory design to explore the status of nurturing creativity in Iranian EFL classrooms. A standard questionnaire was given to 214 public high school EFL teachers to rate the frequency of using creativity-nurturing strategies in their classrooms. While the curriculum policies stipulate creativity-nurturing strategies, the results suggested that the teachers do not frequently adopt the strategies. Further, interviews were conducted with the teachers to find out the factors hindering the teachers from using these strategies. Deductive thematic analysis of interview transcriptions led to the extraction of five themes regarded as attributes to the inability of Iranian EFL teachers to adopt creativity-nurturing strategies. The findings imply that the existence of performativity in Iranian EFL classrooms creates pressure and dilemma for EFL teachers to teach for creativity. Issues such as time, exams, and pressures of the curriculum strictly constrain the creativity-nurturing practices of these teachers. Generally, modifications need to be supported in various aspects of teaching English in Iran to help the teachers nurture creativity in the classrooms.

Language indicates the social and cultural identity of the nations, and literature is of great value in reflecting ideas, beliefs and visions in language. Considering the fact that the local dialects that lack written literature are more subject to convergence and death, extensive research is required for further documentation and investigating the factors leading to their infrequency of use. Bahmaie, a variant of Luri dialect spoken in the southwest of Iran, is an example in which the stylistic variation of kinship terms represents dialect endangerment and necessitates in-depth analysis of the factors affecting this variation. The present study aims at examining the variation of Bahmaie kinship terms and their Persian equivalents across different contexts, with respect to age, gender, educational level, and third person presence. To this aim, a 32item questionnaire was designed and distributed among 275 Bahmaie speakers divided into four age groups: 15-19, 20-29, 30-39, and 40 - above. The findings of the study indicated that the 15-19 age group speakers favored the Persian terms while those aged 40 - above were more likely to use Bahmaie terms. They also showed the impact of other contextual characteristics on variation of kinship terms (interlocutors’ status, gender, educational level, and third person presence). Results further demonstrated that Bahmaie speakers have a tendency towards being persified, and this trend is more pronounced among young speakers. This tendency is attributed to the dominance of Persian as the only high-status language, language contact, and migration causing a generation gap. The implication of the research is that documenting Bahmaie dialect, encouraging educated speakers to use it and fostering intra-cultural communication, are the strategies that can be helpful in keeping this dialect alive.

The present study examined the professional identity development of five student-teachers in the context of team-teaching. Data were collected from stimulated recall sessions, semi-structured interviews, and reflective reports, which were analyzed through thematic analysis. Findings indicate that the student-teachers' professional identity was shaped by meaningful cooperation with their mentor and peers. The student-teachers progressed from team-focused to self-focused professional identity, indicating professional development, self-regulation, and substantial gains in their satisfaction. The study provides implications for teacher educators to use team-teaching in their teacher professional development programs.

The potential effectiveness of various kinds of written corrective feedback (CF) has been the focus of CF investigations that did not reach firm conclusions about which methods of correction can more successfully facilitate students’ grammatical development. A good majority of the studies investigated an unfocused approach to CF while a focused approach has received far less attention. In line with this argument, the current study employed a pre-test, immediate post-test and delayed post-test design and set out to investigate the potential efficacy of unfocused and focused written CF in L2 accuracy development. The study incorporated 86 EFL students allocated to one control group and two experimental groups. Students in the focused group were corrected on irregular and regular past tense, while students in the unfocused group were corrected on a greater range of grammatical categories including irregular and regular past tense as well and learners in the control group received no written CF. Results of two-way repeated measures ANOVA and a set of ANOVAs with post-hoc evaluations revealed that in the short-term duration both treatment groups increased their accuracy but the efficacy of the focused CF found to be resilient.

This comparative study was to determine the impact of mobile learning classes on English Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ speaking skill development and their motivation to participate in class discussions. The level of students’ satisfaction with this approach was also investigated. 60 students from Kish institute in Ilam, Iran, were assigned through purposive sampling to comparable groups. One group participated in face-to-face classes, and the other took part in mobile learning classes through WhatsApp. Parallel forms of a test were conducted as pretest and post-test for both groups to examine the impact of mobile learning, and a researcher-made questionnaire was distributed through WhatsApp. The obtained data of both groups were analyzed through SPSS 20. The findings revealed that the majority of students were satisfied with mobile learning classes, students in mobile learning classes outperformed the students in face-to-face classes, and that mobile learning classes had a significant role in increasing students’ motivation to participate in class discussions.

The present study investigates the relationship between Iraqi EFL teachers’ professional development and their classroom management techniques. A general term that means developing yourself professionally and also improving your classroom management abilities by learning new strategies and techniques, making motivation for students, and having all students practice by asking questions. Language is very important, like grammar, writing, or vocabulary. Then Classroom management refers to a wide variety of skills and techniques. The study will require the participation of 275 EFL teachers. Participants must be of both sexes and different ages. They are chosen using convenience random sampling according to Krejcie and Morgan's (1970) formula, with a confidence level of 95%.in different language schools. The Classroom Management Techniques questionnaire (Diaz, Gonzalez, Ramirez, & Munoz-Parra, 2018) and Teachers’ Professional Development (Evers, Kreijns, & Van der Heijden, 2016) are used in order to collect the required data. The study's findings found that EFL (English as a Foreign Language) secondary school instructors in Iraq have a unique perspective on classroom behavior. The teachers agree that the subscale "content" obtains the 2nd highest score based on the questionnaire's eighth domain as a researcher and teacher at Abi Talib Intermediate School for Boys in Wasit Governorate, I observed that every teacher values the opportunity and necessity to constantly improve his professional development. Professional competence levels correspond to different stages of professional and educational development. The higher the level of the teacher's professional activity, the higher the scientific level of the students, which leads to the advancement of the educational process and the prosperity of the country.

Keywords accompanying abstracts are the metadata and topic representative features of research articles. They can enhance the retrieval, citation, and sorting of the studies in academia. Whereas keywords have been of interest to researchers in various fields of study, few, if any, studies have addressed them in a corpus-driven analysis. The present diachronic case study, then, aimed at analyzing 245 corpus-based studies to investigate their form, relevance, source, and frequency. Selected studies were published in International Journal of Corpus Linguistics from 1996 to 2016. Descriptive analysis of the data revealed that domain-specific keywords were the most frequent ones supporting the journal's more specific taste. High percentage of keywords with one representation across the two decades alerted the chaos in selecting appropriate keywords. Lack of criteria in selecting the most relevant keywords and asymmetrical forms were among the salient results. Findings may be useful to the researchers, authors of research articles, as well as editors and publishers.

The study intended to explore teachers’ professional identity in terms of teachers’ perceptions of their practices. The study employed mixed-methods design, including 80 survey participants and 19 interviews with teachers. In the quantitative section, teachers’ perceptions of their commitment to professional practices and how their perceptions were influenced by variables such as gender, age, educational degree, and teaching experience were explored. The results of descriptive statistics revealed that teachers were strongly committed to professional practices. Additionally, data analysis indicated significant differences in teachers’ perceptions with reference to age and teaching experience, but teachers’ gender and education degree did not appear significant. The qualitative findings revealed that teachers mainly tended to exercise professional practices of personal growth and interactional practices, and considered ‘teaching/learning materials’ as an important contributing factor in implementing professional practices. The data also showed that teachers’ professional identity practices were influenced by contextual factors and macro-political policies.

Textbooks in ELT perform different functions since their content can serve different purposes. Particularly, the content of textbooks can affect learners’ views to a great deal. Accordingly, designing ELT textbooks can generate much disagreement. Thus, textbook content is considered important and demands critical evaluation. This study explored the representation of national identity in the English Vision textbook series for Iranian senior high schools. For this aim, corpus analysis and content analysis were carried out, respectively, aimed at providing a description of the terms associated with nationalities, and describing aspects of national identity represented in the textbooks. The data in the corpus analysis phase were collected through obtaining frequencies of reference to nations and in the content analysis phase by means of a researcher-made checklist. Results revealed that Iranian identity is the most frequent aspect, for which 13 categories of reference were observed. Similarly, six major themes were found regarding aspects of national identity. This study offers implications for Iranian education policy-makers, textbook designers, and education practitioners.

Following the historical and technological shifts that led to the wide emergence of transformative educational methods, this study offers a developmental perspective to the reality of E-learning. The study further discusses the development of E-learning applications and assess the availability and appropriateness of the educational curriculum and related pedagogical constructs in an Internet networked learning environment. In addition, there is an attempt to address the theoretical foundations of E-learning environments and the educational implications and affordance in the contexts of E-learning. The study, meanwhile, focuses on the effectiveness of E-learning, its advantages and disadvantages and explores how virtual learning is enhanced by merging its principles with the use of new technologies in education, how virtual learning may be improved by integrating educational principles with the use of modern technologies in the classroom, and how modern social practices influence the roles of both instructors and students.

This paper aimed to investigate the impact of employing flipped classrooms in teaching grammar on Iranian advanced EFL students through an experimental research design. Two groups were created on Skype application. The groups of the participants were grouped via tossing a coin. There were 20 participants in each group. Both groups received instructions through Skype. They also had groups on Telegram, Signal, and WhatsApp to receive assignments for the members of the control group and instructions for the inverted classroom. The members of the control group received the instruction traditionally on Skype, whereas, the participants of the experimental group received the instruction in an inverted approach. Statistical test of ANCOVA was employed to investigate the differences among the participants after the 20th session to analyze the data. The results showed that learners who received instructions through the flipped classroom could outperform the control group in grammar achievement and accuracy.

TThe textbook analysis is a vigorous research approach for evaluating the conformity between the content and the purpose of education. Accordingly, the relatively newly-published Iranian ELT textbooks for senior high school, known as the “Vision series” were analyzed for their prominent levels of learning objectives according to Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. Activity sections of textbooks were codified according to the Taxonomy’s coding scheme, and the inter/intra-rater reliability which were measured and approved. Results revealed that the lower-order categories of cognitive domain are more frequently represented in Vision series of 1 and 2, and chi-square statistics indicate that Vision 3 is significantly different from the other two. The inclusion of higher-order categories in Vision 3 creates hope for increasing students’ proficiency and activating students’ need to develop higher-order thinking skills which are prerequisites to critical thinking and autonomous learning. Findings also maintain that the cognitive domain and metacognitive knowledge domain were the least perceived in the three textbooks which call for inclusion of more reflective activities and supplementing higher-order cognitive activities or complementary tasks in Visions 1 and 2.

This study evaluated the cultural content of Vision textbook series that are currently in use in Iranian public secondary school system. The aim was to find the most frequent cultural references as well as the most-frequently-represented cultural senses. For this purpose, frequency counts were used to collect the data and the culture categorization framework (Adaskou et. al., 1990) and cultural reference framework (Cortazzi & Jin, 1999), modified by Tajeddin and Teimournezhad (2014), were used to analyze the data. Results of the frequency counts indicated that the Vision ELT textbooks contained the most cultural content associated with Persian as the source culture. Similarly, the focus was primarily on the esthetic sense of culture, followed respectively by semantic, sociological and sociolinguistic (pragmatic) senses. The study ends up with implications for EFL stake-holders in Iranian context as well as the ELT enterprise in general.

Concentrating on job satisfaction and five school context variables—teacher autonomy, collegial support, time pressure, student demotivation, and student discipline problems—this study explored the interplay of these variables with reflective teaching and their relative contributions to prediction of teacher reflection. Data were collected from 181 Iranian high school teachers. The results of correlational analysis revealed that all independent variables significantly correlated with teacher reflection. Strong positive relationships were found between job satisfaction, teacher autonomy, and reflective practice. Time pressure, student demotivation, and student discipline problems strongly and negatively correlated with reflective teaching. Moreover, a small positive correlation was found between supportive social climate and reflective practice. The results of multiple regression indicated that, except for supportive social climate, all independent variables made statistically significant contributions to prediction of teacher reflection. Considering the shaping influence of educational policies on correlates of teacher reflection, the findings reflect the necessity of reform in policy makers’ approach. Implying English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ ignorance of collaborative dimensions of reflective practice, the results call attention to the importance of preservice and in‐service teacher educational programs and the necessity of effective monitoring systems supervising public school teachers.

Teacher training programs play a vital role in developing student-teachers’ understanding of their professional selves as an effective factor in successful teaching. Though the number of studies regarding the effects of teacher education on foreign language teachers’ self-images continues to proliferate, little attention has been paid to Iranian EFL student-teachers, particularly females, in terms of future images of professional selves being developed during their training at Teacher Education University. Using the Possible selves theory (Markus & Nurius, 1986), the present qualitative study explores and compares the future professional self-images of EFL student-teachers at Iranian Teacher Education University. Eight female student-teachers in the first, third, and last year of their studies from several female teacher education colleges around the country accepted to participate in the interviews. They were asked to discuss their desired and feared selves, as well as their plans for achieving or avoiding these selves, respectively. In-depth phenomenological interviewing was adopted to collect the data. Before fieldwork experience, student-teachers’ hopes and fears were mostly geared to classroom routines, while by the end, their statements were predominantly theory-based and sophisticated. Most student-teachers made reference to some plans for attaining their desired professional self-images and avoiding feared ones. The study put forward some implications for teacher training and education programs.