Iranian Teachers Research Articles

Culture-specificity of teacher demotivation: Iranian junior high school teachers caught in the newly-introduced CLT trap!

Research has shown that lack of motivation on either students or teachers’ part negatively influences language learning. The latter case is a serious problem in this regard, since an unmotivated teacher will extinguish his learners’ enthusiasm and energy for learning. This study employed a mixed-method approach to investigate the demotivating factors for Iranian junior high school teachers. For the quantitative stage of the study, a questionnaire on demotivation was distributed among 105 participant teachers to find out the dominant demotivating factors. In the qualitative stage, and in order to gain a better picture of the salient demotivating factors and the reasons behind them, a set of semi-structured interviews with 10 volunteer teachers were conducted. The results indicated that lack of social recognition and respect, few adequate rewards, lack of supports or understanding regarding English education, and a large number of students in a single English class were the major demotivating factors for Iranian teachers. In the interviews, it was found that the participants perceived the first two items as specific to Iranian educational context. Finally, the implications for policy-makers and material developers and suggestions for future researchers are discussed.

The experience of burnout among English language teachers in Iran: self and other determinants

Burnout in teachers is an important concern since it adversely impacts their instruction as well as their psychological, mental, and physical health. The present study examined the levels of burnout (i.e. emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment) experienced by Iranian English language teachers. Specifically, the relationships of participants’ gender, workplace context, grade level taught, and teaching experience to their burnout were investigated. Data were collected from 40 teachers using the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Overall, findings revealed that English teachers (N = 40) were experiencing high levels of reduced personal accomplishment (M = 18.72) and emotional exhaustion (M = 17.80). Results of one-way ANOVA showed significant differences among English language teachers with respect to burnout subscales. Significant correlations were found between burnout, workplace context, and grade level taught. A number of helpful suggestions for programs and individuals involved in relieving stress and burnout among teachers are presented.

Flexibility of Iranian Teachers Teaching Methods and High School Students’ Gains

The teaching skills are the key element for all teachers. The main objective of this descriptive study was to investigate the relationship between Flexibility of Iranian Teachers Teaching Methods and High school Students’ emotional, social and intellectual gains as a model. The study population included all Shiraz high schools teachers and their students. By stratified random sampling, 100 teachers and for each of them, 4 students were selected. Data instruments were flexible personal style questionnaires (Taggart & Hausladen, 1993) and students gains subscale of college student experiences questionnaire (Kuh & pace, 2002). After measurement of validity and reliability of instruments, they were distributed among sample and data was collected. Data was analyzed by inferential statistical methods included Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression. The results showed that: 1. There is a relationship between teachers’ intuitive and logical teaching style and student gains. 2. The intuitive teaching style of teachers is stronger predictor of student gains.

A Case Study of an Iranian EFL Student Teacher’s Professional Preparation and Development from the Perspective of Social Constructivist Approach

Language teacher professional development has recently shifted away from transmissionist approaches based on cascading or transfer of external knowledge toward social constructivist paradigm with a focus on the situationality of learning and teaching as social processes of sharing and (re)constructing personal meanings, understandings, and skills. The social constructivist view of teacher education values teachers’ agency in constructing and shaping personalized knowledge as a socially constructed experiential process in context. So, the researcher as an EFL educator in an Iranian teacher education university investigates the professional development of an EFL teacher during a three-year-time span both as a student and then as a teacher. Teacher journals, observation, and interview as three appropriate data gathering tools were used to obtain triangulated data. Student teacher professional change during the time span, multidimensionality of professional development, and discursively shaped personal beliefs and knowledge and their influence on teaching actions and practices were the emerged themes of data analysis based on Strauss (Qualitative analysis for social scientists. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998) constant comparative method, including three steps of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. The findings of this research challenge the transmission nature of teacher education which assumes student teachers as the conduits, requiring to be filled with skills, input, and knowledge lectured by educators as authority figures.

An Exploration of Teaching Practices of Private, Public, and Public-Private EFL Teachers in Iran

Abstract This study investigates the practices of public (high) school, private language institute, and public-private teachers. In particular, it aims at addressing the role of contextual factors, the variations teachers introduce to cope with them, and the degree of sustainable behaviour among these three groups of teachers. High school teachers consisted of those who taught only in high schools and the ones teaching both in high schools and private language institutes. For this purpose, classroom practices of 60 EFL teachers (N=20 per group) with 3 to 6 years of teaching experience and BA degree in TEF) were compared in terms of group/pair work, teacher talking time, L1 use, questioning, corrective feedback, and coverage of language skills. The findings of the study indicate that a significant difference exists among these three groups of teachers in terms of their practices. It is noteworthy that in the same teaching context of high school, the practices of teachers with and without private language teaching experience are significantly dissimilar except in the duration of pair/group work activities and the rates of repetition and explicit correction. This study suggests that high school EFL teachers with teaching experience in private language institutes subscribe more closely to the tenets of communicative language teaching and thus can act as powerful agents of sustainable language teaching in Iranian public schools.

Understanding Professional Challenges Faced by Iranian Teachers of English

<p>The objective of the present study is to understand professional challenges faced by Iranian high school teachers of English through exploring their viewpoints. To this end, it benefits from both qualitative and quantitative modes of inquiry. First, grounded theory method was used to conduct some interviews with 20 EFL teachers and members of educational groups in the Education Organization, Shiraz, Iran. After coding the obtained data, a number of concepts and categories were identified and a model was developed. Next, a questionnaire was designed out of the findings of grounded theory procedures. It was filled out by 130 EFL teachers and the collected data was subjected to both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results confirmed the existence of educational, social, economic and temporal challenges in the profession. They further revealed that variables of gender, years of experience and educational districts had no significant effects on teachers’ viewpoints. Generally, the current EFL situation has led to teacher burnout. In order to improve the situation, some modifications seem necessary. With regard to this, a number of solutions have been offered at the end of this study.</p>

Emotional Intelligence and Self-efficacy of Iranian Teachers: A Research Study on University Degree and Teaching Experience

This study evaluates the level of emotional intelligence, self-efficacy to investigate whether a relationship exists between these two attributes or not, also, the role of years of teaching experience and teachers’ university degrees in their emotional intelligence. To this end, 70 teachers were asked to complete The Assessing Emotions Scale Questionnaire (Salovey and Mayer, 1990) and Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001), regardless of their English teaching experience. The aim of this study was to represent the importance of emotional intelligence, self-efficacy and in teachers for having an effective teaching. The results indicated a significant relationship between teachers’ EI and their self-efficacy. Moreover, the findings showed that there was a significant relationship between teachers’ EI with their years of teaching experience, in a way that more experienced teachers can benefit their low experienced colleagues with their emotional experiences. Meanwhile, no significant difference was found between teachers’ EI in terms of different university degrees. The research results also proved a positive relationship between EI and self-efficacy.

How Iranian Instructors Teach L2 Pragmatics in Their Classroom Practices? A Mixed-Methods Approach

<p>This study examined the teaching approaches and techniques that Iranian instructors utilize for teaching L2 pragmatics in their classroom practices. 238 Iranian instructors participated in this study. The data for this study were accumulated through questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. In terms of the instructional approaches, both the quantitative and qualitative results showed that instructors make use of inductive and implicit approaches more than other two approaches, deductive and explicit, to teach L2 pragmatics .With regard to the pragmatic consciousness-raising techniques, the results revealed that instructors mostly make use of conversation topics and also situations to raise learners’ awareness of the speech act under study. In addition to this technique, instructors make use of field experience to give input to learners. Regarding the pragmatic communicative practice techniques, the quantitative and qualitative results showed that instructors mostly make use of role-play and pair- work techniques to engage learners to practice speech acts. Moreover, the results of the questionnaire and interview with regard to pragmatic corrective feedback techniques showed that instructors almost give feedback implicitly by reformulating learners’ mistakes and repeating their errors On the contrary, instructors give less metalinguistic information and explain the inappropriate expressions to learners. In terms of culture teaching techniques, the results illustrated that instructors share their knowledge of what they hear or read about other cultures with their learners. The results of this study have some implications for language instructors.</p>

The effect of dimensions of transformational, transactional, and non-leadership on the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of teachers in Iran

It has been found that transformational and transactional leadership is positively related to the effectiveness of the leader, the subordinate’s effort, job satisfaction, and the subordinate’s organizational commitment. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of transformational, transactional, and non-leadership on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The population was teachers of all three levels of schooling (elementary, intermediate, and high school) in the province of Kermanshah, Iran in 2012–2013. The sample consisted of 387 teachers who were randomly selected from among 42 schools. The results seem to indicate that teachers experienced more value commitment than commitment to stay and job satisfaction. The results of the study revealed that charismatic leadership was a strong predictor of job satisfaction and value commitment, and laissez-faire leadership was a strong (negative) predictor of intent to stay.

Iranian Instructors’ Practices and Criteria for Teaching English Translation

Concerning the significant role of translation as a significant field which contributes to intercultural communication, assigning valid criteria for teaching translation is necessary to make sure that the best practices are employed by instructors’ to teach translation skills. This, in return, would help translation students be equipped with better translation skills. However, little research has been conducted to see what training practices translation instructors employ in their translation training classrooms. More significantly, it has been little research to determine the criteria that are behind the practices instructors employ in their translation training classroom. The purpose of the current research was to determine what practices instructors follow in their English translation classrooms and what criteria are behind these practices. To serve this purpose, the classrooms of ten English translation instructors were observed in an Iranian academic context using an observation checklist. Subsequently, the instructors were asked to write about the criteria behind their teaching practices in an open-ended questionnaire. The results of the study showed that the instructors’ practices were consistent with some of the principles made in the literature an inconstant with others. The instructors referred to the criteria behind the translation teaching practices they employed in their classrooms. Implications that these findings have for the field of translation are presented and some suggestions for further research in this area are given.

Teacher Educators Evaluation Model

This study was an attempt to shed light on the requirements of components of a teacher educator evaluation model. To this end, 6 branches of Farhangian University, which is the mother University for training pre-service and in-service teachers in Iran and has some branches in different parts of Iran, were randomly selected. A number of 545 teacher educators and student -teachers from these centers were participated in this study. They were both males and females. They were asked to fill a five-Likert scale with 68 items, which was designed based on the American Association of Teacher Educators (ATE) standards, for teacher educators in 2009. To answer the research questions the model went through the process of validation. Expert and content validity of the model were proved. For the process of standardization, data gathered from 5-likert scale questionnaires was given to Amos 18 and SPSS 22. The result from the SEM showed that the goodness of fit for the proposed model was very high. Furthermore, all items showed very high loadings on their latent factors. And the model was confirmed satisfactorily and none of the items was removed. Moreover the result showed that major does not play a significant role in Iranian teacher educators' attitudes toward the evaluation model.

Iranian English Teachers’ Perception over Applying Different Feedbacks in Writing

This study aimed to inspect the written feedback practices as well as the Iranian teachers’ perceptions and attitudes towards written feedback in their writing classes. In fact, it tried to investigate what type of feedback the teachers usually give more and whether their written feedback practices are in agreement with their beliefs or not. To this end, data were collected by means of questionnaires and 30 TOEFL/IELTS writing teachers’ written feedback given to 300 students’ essays in different language institutes of Tehran. Both the quantitative and qualitative analyses in this study showed that although most of these teachers were of the opinion that teachers must give feedback to the language (i.e., spelling, grammar, vocabulary, capitalization, and punctuation), organization (i.e., cohesion, coherence, and unity), and content of students’ essays, most of their written feedbacks were given to the language of their students’ essays. In other words, a discrepancy was found between their perceptions and practices. In addition, most of their written feedbacks were direct while the majority of them believed that teachers must give indirect feedback to their students’ writings. This lack of agreement between what was believed and what actually happened indicates that teachers may not be completely aware of the feedback they give to their students’ writings.

EFL Teachers' Perceptions towards Textbook Evaluation

Textbook evaluation helps the teachers find appropriate course books and let them regulate and modify them to meet the learners' needs and also allow for natural interaction to occur. The skilled teachers have the opportunity to report and reflect their perceptions on the usefulness and weakness of the textbook they use in a given class. Although there is a lot of research on textbook evaluation, the newly published textbooks are paid less attention. Therefore, the aim of this study is to review the evaluation of various textbooks which are conducted by EFL teachers all over the world to find out their perceptions toward the strengths and weaknesses of the textbooks. Moreover, this study reviews some studies on Iranian teachers' perceptions toward old and newly published materials Prospect1which are taught in schools, the role of teachers in evaluating textbooks, weaknesses and strengths of textbooks and some arguments against materials. This review research illustrates to what extent textbooks provide teachers and students' needs and empower teachers to improve their knowledge about evaluation of each kind of textbooks. The evaluation of textbooks reveals benefits and deficiencies of the teaching materials. Finally, it is recommended that it will be useful for the syllabus designers, experienced and inexperienced teachers, materials developers and educational authorities to evaluate and investigate the newly-published textbooks in order to realize new ways to improve the quality of the materials and revise their contents.

Professional Development and IELTS Training Course: A Case of EFL Teachers in Iran

Professional Development and IELTS Training Course: A Case of EFL Teachers in Iran

Demotivational Factors among Secondary School EFL Teachers in Iran

Demotivating factors negatively influence teachers attitudes and behaviors and hence lead to undesired teaching outcomes. The endeavor of this thesis was to scrutinize some sources of demotivational factors among Iranian English language teachers junior and senior high schools. To begin with, 100 junior and senior high school teachers in Chaharmahal Va Bakhtiari province, South West of Iran participated in this study. Two instruments (questionnaire and interview) were used for collecting data. Descriptive and inferential statistics for all questions and categories were generated and reported. The overall results showed that five out of six top items are related to working conditions and class facilities. The lowest number of demotivating factors related to lack of communication among teachers, lack of expression of straight opinion by colleagues, heterogeneity of learners in one class, students' forgetting to do homework, students' forgetting to bring textbook. The results also showed that recognizing and eradicating such impeding factors serve promising attention to learning, teaching and attainment.

Relationships between Language Teachers’ Time-management Skills, Creativity, and Burnout: A Mediation Analysis

The present study aimed to investigate the effects of language teachers` time management and creativity skills on their burnout levels. The sample consisted of 213 Iranian language teachers. The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), Creative Behavior Inventory (CBI) and Time Management Skills Questionnaire (TMSQ) were employed for data collection. By taking a Structural Equation Modeling approach, the study proposed a model that explored the direct effects of teacher creativity on burnout level of language teachers. Additionally, the study investigated the mediating role of time management skills on the correlations between teacher creativity and burnout levels. The results revealed that the total effects of creativity on all aspects of burnout dimensions were significant; however, after the intervention of time management as a variable, the effect of depersonalization proved insignificant; and, although still significant, for the other two subscales of burnout (emotional exhaustion and depersonalization), the effect markedly decreased. Therefore, the mediation role of time management was rejected.

Native and Iranian teachers’ perceptions and evaluation of Iranian students’ English essays

Abstract Past research has shown different reactions by native English speaker (NES) and non-native English speaker (NNS) teachers to student writings. The present study aims to investigate whether NES raters differ from Iranian raters in the severity with which they rate essays. It also sets out to see to what extent such differences reflect the raters’ perceptions of what makes a good writing. A total of 144 teachers (NES = 72, Iranian = 72) participated in an online survey, ranking four writing criteria (i.e., content, organization, vocabulary, and grammar) in order of difficulty and importance. Subsequently, 24 of the teachers (NES = 12, Iranian = 12) rated eight essays written by Iranian EFL undergraduates based on IELTS band descriptors and considering the criteria in question. The results of a many-facet Rasch measurement showed that Iranian raters were significantly more severe than NES raters in rating the essays. Also, the results of the survey revealed significant differences between the two groups of raters in their perceptions of the difficulty and importance of organization and grammar. The findings suggest that rater training programs in Iran should aim at deemphasizing the role of grammar while at the same time highlighting the role of inter-sentential discourse.

A comparison of Iranian EFL vs. non-EFL teachers’ “knowing” of learner autonomy

Investigating the “knowing”, a module of the KARDS model proposed by Kumaravadivelu (2012) for teacher education, of Iranian teachers of learner autonomy, this study is an attempt to illuminate some of the yet unexplored areas of teachers’ various types of knowledge of learner autonomy. Furthermore, it attempts to illustrate how Iranian Non-EFL teachers’ knowing affects their practices with regard to learner autonomy and how this could differ from that of Iranian EFL teachers. To that end 112 EFL and Non-EFL teachers were purposefully cluster-sampled. Based on convenient sampling but only after data saturation was reached were 12 teachers interviewed. Based on the result of the interviews and the data gleaned from the literature a questionnaire was developed. The sample were asked to complete the questionnaire and then through negative case analysis some were interviewed. The questionnaire tapped into the social, political, psychological and personal aspects of learner autonomy. The results indicated the informants, be it EFL or non-EFL, found learner autonomy to be a psychological construct, which can be traced back to their personal knowledge. Finally, with regard to the feasibility and desirability of learner autonomy implementation in the education system, the informants see learner autonomy as more of a desirable concept than feasible. It is hoped that teachers and teacher educators find the results as well as the suggestions-for-action made at the end of the study helpful and that the results have tangible implications for the Iranian education system when fed into professional development activities and strategic planning.

The Effect of Iranian Teachers’ Epistemological Beliefs on Their Teaching Practice

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that investigates what knowledge is and how people know whether they know something (BonJour, 2002). It addresses questions such as: What is knowledge? How do people know if they really have knowledge? What gives a reason for any knowledge that they have? This study aimed at investigating the relationships between high school teachers’ epistemological beliefs and their teaching practices. The subjects of the study were 60 teachers at Ardabil high schools. They responded to two questionnaires: an Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire and a Teaching Practices Questionnaire. In this study, the independent variables are measures of teacher epistemology and their teaching practices as the dependent variables. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was used to assess the relationship between scores on the Teaching practice scale and those on the Epistemological Beliefs scale. Findings of the study showed that teachers with inexperienced epistemological beliefs tend to traditional teacher-centered practices and experienced belief holders were more tend to constructive learner-centered practices. Keywords: inexperienced epistemology, experienced epistemology, teacher-centered practices, constructive learner-centered

On the Relationship between Iranian L2 Teachers’ Pedagogical Beliefs and L2 Learners’ Attitudes

<p>The present study employed a descriptive survey design to investigate L2 learners’ attitudes towards language learning, and the possible effects of teachers’ beliefs on learners’ attitudes. Participants were chosen from among 2 groups: Twenty EFL teachers were asked to take part in this study and 80 from a pool of 213 learners at 2 language schools who were chosen to fill out the learners’ attitude questionnaire. The teachers were subsequently placed at/in 3 groups of high-opinion group (HOG), moderate group (MG), and low-opinion group (LG), and the attitudes of the learners of these 3 groups of teachers were compared to uncover the possible impact of teacher beliefs on learner attitudes. The relationship between the teachers’ beliefs and the learners’ attitudes was analyzed, and it that showed there was a statistically significant difference in the learners’ attitude scores for HOG, MG, and LOG. Analysis of the data showed that the learners of the HOG teachers gained significantly higher attitude scores than the learners of the MG teachers. Simply put, it was found that EFL teachers’ beliefs can influence their learners’ attitudes about language learning. Language teachers should learn about the effect of their beliefs and experience it and become more aware of practicing them.</p>