2024-03-29T04:03:55Z
https://journalscmu.sinaweb.net/?_action=export&rf=summon&issue=14002
Iranian Journal of English for Academic Purposes
IJEAP
2476-3187
2476-3187
2020
9
1
Professionalism: The Perceptions of Iranian English Teachers of Competence and Performance in Language Teaching (Research Paper)
Shahram
Salehizadeh
Mohammad Bagher
Shabani
Ali
Malmir
Professionalism has been generally linked to nations’ economic, industrial, and technological developments. Therefore, having a professionally and ethically competent workforce is a necessity in today's changing world. More specifically, L2 teacher professionalism plays a crucial role in economic development too. Given its utmost importance in language teaching, this study intended to investigate how Iranian English teachers would perceive professionalism defined in terms of competence and performance. The participants were comprised of 281 English teachers at junior and senior high schools, language institutes, and universities in Tehran, Fars, Khuzestan, and Qazvin Provinces. The data were obtained through a researcher-made questionnaire, initially consisting of 44 items. However, the final version contained 40 items since four problematic items were deleted. Structural equation modeling was used to develop a three-factor model which lends support to Richards’ perspective (2010) derived from his article “Competence and Performance in Language Teaching”. The model found three factors, namely competence, performance, and techno-pedagogical competence that matched the components of professionalism proposed by Richards mostly in theoretical terms. The findings indicated that most of the participants endorsed Richards’ perspective at least in theoretical terms. The insights from this study can be used to bridge the gap between competence and performance and improve teachers’ practice in the classroom context.
Professionalism
teacher education
Teacher knowledge
reflective teaching
2020
03
01
1
14
https://journalscmu.sinaweb.net/article_103041_8c24da139e4f9b1452b89756c951c054.pdf
Iranian Journal of English for Academic Purposes
IJEAP
2476-3187
2476-3187
2020
9
1
Prefacial Visibility of Contemporary Iranian Translators: Implications for Translator Trainers (Research Paper)
Ameneh
Yari
Zahra
Amirian
Mohammad
Amiryousefi
Although the existing research has advanced our understating of sociological issues such as translators’ prefaces, a paucity of studies into languages of limited diffusion, including Persian is strongly felt. To partly fill this gap, this study aims to explore Iranian fiction translators’ (in)visibility from the perspective of paratexts. Paratextual elements, especially prefaces, are among the most privileged translators' commentaries that provide opportunities for translators to have a direct contact with readers and foreground their presence and status in their profession. Drawing on a convenience sampling technique, the corpus of the study comprised the prefaces of 300 Persian translated works of fiction from English. The corpus under investigation encompassed a wide spectrum of English writers and Persian translators. The prefaces of the translations were analyzed in accordance with the “thematic analysis” procedure, where the prefaces were examined multiple times, and meaningful patterns were extracted and grouped under several headings sharing the same content. The results showed that a large proportion of the extracted themes from translators’ prefaces elaborated on introducing the original authors and their source texts. Consequently, these commentaries, even under the translators' name, did not significantly contribute to highlighting the visibility of translators within their work. This study may provide implications for novice translators regarding their stance and voice in their translations.Keywords: Preface, Paratext, Theme, Translators, (In)visibility.
Preface
Paratext
theme
Translators
(In)visibility
2020
03
15
15
26
https://journalscmu.sinaweb.net/article_104931_ce55739135918f084461438efeee412c.pdf
Iranian Journal of English for Academic Purposes
IJEAP
2476-3187
2476-3187
2020
9
1
Evaluation of Specialized English Textbook for the Iranian Students of Chemical Engineering (Research Paper)
Shima
Vahdatnia
Hadi
Salehi
The present study on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) textbook evaluation was an attempt to investigate the students and teachers' perceptions of the textbook English for Students of Chemical Engineering, first published in 2000 and lately reprinted in 2017 by the Iranian Organization for Researching and Composing University Textbooks in the Humanities (named SAMT in Iran). A modified version of Baleghizadeh and Rahimi's (2011) textbook evaluation questionnaire, which was itself based on Sheldon's (1988) model of evaluation and adapted by Karimi (2006), was distributed among 110 students of chemical engineering and 11 ESP teachers who had taught the book under question; however, 98 student questionnaires were returned. The obtained data revealed that the surveyed students had positive attitudes towards compatibility of book objectives with course objectives, subject matter, skills and strategies, exercises and activities, appropriateness of content, while they negatively evaluated the book's practical concerns, linguistic issues, and layout. Teachers, on the other hand, held positive perspectives towards practical concerns, objectives compatibility, subject matter, exercises and activities, and appropriateness of content, while they had negative attitudes towards the book's linguistic issues, skills and strategies, and layout. Care, thus, should be exercised while choosing and teaching this book since, despite its enjoying several good features, it might be found demotivating due to its layout and linguistic issues.
English for the Students of Chemical Engineering
ESP
textbook evaluation
SAMT
2020
03
19
27
40
https://journalscmu.sinaweb.net/article_105116_3bb47566fad8ac645c67a8c8c0015eda.pdf
Iranian Journal of English for Academic Purposes
IJEAP
2476-3187
2476-3187
2020
9
1
Lexical Bundles in English Review Articles (Research Paper)
Javad
Zare
zohreh sadat
Naseri
This study was an attempt to shed light on the formulaic nature of the language of theoretical review articles. The study was based on a corpus of 517 English review articles from linguistics and applied linguistics disciplines. Following a corpus-driven discourse analytic approach, we identified four-word bundles occurring at least 20 times per million words in at least five different articles and investigated their structural and functional features. The results showed that the dominance of text-oriented and phrasal bundles, especially framing signals and prepositional phrases, indicates the highly informational nature of review articles in linguistics and applied linguistics and the importance of organizational features of discourse in articles. Moreover, the low proportion of participant-oriented bundles and resultative signals implies the writer’s avoidance to make claims and interpretations in English review articles. Additionally, the varied and frequent use of the anticipatory-it structure among clausal bundles, the low proportion of engagement bundles, and the fact that this dialogic feature of article writing was conveyed through an impersonal construction point to the writer’s reluctance to explicitly show commitment to his/her evaluations. Finally, expressing stance through anticipatory-it constructions and shell nouns indicates the writer’s intention to hide or foreground authorial observations, interpretations, and claims.
Lexical Bundles
English Review Articles
Functional Analysis
structural analysis
2020
03
31
41
56
https://journalscmu.sinaweb.net/article_105523_ac3067af3b257c5f1bc2a6c10116bf5c.pdf
Iranian Journal of English for Academic Purposes
IJEAP
2476-3187
2476-3187
2020
9
1
Employing Tasks to Improve Argumentative Essay Writing of EFL Teachers: A Case of Interactionist versus Interventionist Dynamic Assessment (Research Paper)
Ayda
Rahmani
Mojgan
Rashtchi
Masoud
Yazdanimoghaddam
Dynamic Assessment (DA), which stems from Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, invests in the mediation of teacher to improve learners’ Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). This study investigated the impact of DA on the development of argumentative essay writing of EFL teachers and consisted of a pretest, mediation, a post-test, and a transcendence test (TRT). Accordingly, 66 novice EFL teachers were selected based on convenience sampling and were randomly assigned to two experimental groups and a control group (n1=n2=n3=22). The interactionist DA group (IA-DAG) and the interventionist DA group (IV-DAG) received non-standardized and standardized feedback types, respectively. However, the control group practiced non-DA writing instruction. Subsequently, a series of writing tasks were used for teaching writing. After nine sessions, the groups took a post-test, and after two weeks, TRT was administered. Appropriately, several statistical procedures were conducted to analyze data. First, repeated-measure ANOVAs were performed to examine the beneficial effects of the instructions in the groups. Second, the mixed between-within-subjects ANOVA was run and the results revealed that there were main effects for treatment types and time. Also, the result of one-way ANOVA on the post-test showed the outperformance of the IA-DAG over the other groups. Besides, the results of the one-way ANOVA on the TRT indicated no significant differences between the IA-DAG and IV-DAG. However, both groups had significantly higher mean scores than the non-DA group. The study has implications for L2 writing teachers, material developers, and educators.
argumentative writing
Interactionist dynamic assessment
interventionist dynamic assessment
Mediation
2020
03
31
57
75
https://journalscmu.sinaweb.net/article_106094_44915c33c3a832e8406b0285eee14bf8.pdf
Iranian Journal of English for Academic Purposes
IJEAP
2476-3187
2476-3187
2020
9
1
A Corpus-based Study of Noun Phrase Complexity in Applied Linguistics Research Article Abstracts in Two Contexts of Publication (Research Paper)
Mohammad
Ahmadi
Rajab
Esfandiari
Abbas Ali
Zarei
Unlike conversation, academic writing is characterized by the frequent use of noun phrases which make it difficult for less proficient readers to process a text. Using a subset of Biber, Gray, and Poonpon’s (2011) hypothesized developmental stages of writing, we analyzed noun phrase modifiers in applied linguistics research article (RA) abstracts between expert non-native English Persian writers and international writers. To that end, a 38,762-word corpus was constructed, consisting of 109 international academic research articles (RAs) and 100 Persian English-medium RAs randomly chosen from international peer-reviewed journals and Persian English-medium peer-reviewed journals. Using an automatic extraction computer program (PyCharm, version 3.4.), we tagged texts, identified noun phrase modifiers, and compared the normalized frequency of the modifiers between two writer groups. Independent-samples t-tests and chi-square tests of independence were run to analyze the data. The findings revealed that international writers differed significantly from Persian writers in the use of total noun phrase modifiers, relative clauses, and post-modifying prepositional phrases. Results from the analysis of lexical bundles indicated that Persian writers used lexical bundles to modify noun phrases more frequently than international writers. The findings of this study offer insights into the way expert international and non-native academic writers in applied linguistics make use of phrasal features for complexifying RA abstracts.
Research Article Abstracts
academic writing
Noun Phrases
Phrasal Complexity
2020
03
31
76
94
https://journalscmu.sinaweb.net/article_106176_c94f0f4f26958860af7e6dbad50c3466.pdf
Iranian Journal of English for Academic Purposes
IJEAP
2476-3187
2476-3187
2020
9
1
The Relationship between Job Stress and Job-related Affective Well-Being among English Language Teachers: The Moderating Role of Self- Compassion (Research Paper)
Mojtaba
Rajabi
Mehdi
Ghezelsefloo
Although extensive research has been carried out on the important source of self -compassion in reducing stress and enhancing job-related affective well-being, no single study exists to investigate the correlation between job stress and job-related affective well-being as moderated by self-compassion levels among English language teachers.In doing this study as a descriptive correlational -one, 120 English language teachers working in public, non-profit, and private schools in Gonbad-e- Kavous were selected by purposive sampling method. Then, occupational Stress Inventory-Revised, Self-Compassion Scale, and Job-related Affective Well-being Scale were administered. Data were analyzed using SPSS and AMOS softwares. The results demonstrated that there was a negative relationship between job stress and job-related affective well-being, total self-compassion and such subscales as self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness. However, there was a positive relationship between job stress and self-judgment, isolation, and over-identification. Furthermore, a positive relationship between job-related affective well-being, total self-compassion and such subscales as self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness was found; there was a negative relationship with self-judgment, isolation and over-identification. Based on path analysis pattern, standard and non-standard coefficients of the direct path of the hypothesized model of job stress to self-compassion and self-compassion to job-related affective well-being were meaningful. Therefore, the application of self-compassion can be useful for reducing job stress and improving job-related affective well-being among English language teachers.
Job Stress
Job-related Affective Well-being
self-compassion
English language teachers
2020
03
01
95
105
https://journalscmu.sinaweb.net/article_106854_015cdbe3cba10ce5666210e59186af83.pdf