Despite the surge of interest in evaluating culture representation in English language teaching (ELT) materials, the literature has not adequately addressed representations of culture in English for ...Academic Purposes (EAP) textbooks. To bridge this gap, the present study draws on the Cultural Linguistics semiotic approach to evaluate texts, tasks, and visuals in three locally-developed EAP textbooks in Iran. To this end, we triangulated interview data and narratives obtained from the materials developers of the selected textbooks and a local EAP policymaker with the analysis of texts, tasks, and images. The findings revealed that: (a) few instances of cultural schema and cultural categories were found in the textbooks; (b) mostly materials developers either were not cognizant of the notion of cultural conceptualisations when designing the textbooks or they did not consider it a significant priority in EAP textbooks due to some politico-religious reasons; (c) metacultural development tasks were barely presented in the pre-, while-, and post-reading tasks; and (d) an incompatibility prevailed among texts, tasks, and visuals regarding the presented cultural conceptualisations. The findings are discussed with reference to the need to raise EAP materials development stakeholders' awareness about the effectiveness of cultural conceptualisations and metacultural competence in EAP education.
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FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, UL, UM, UPUK
Academic reading and writing abilities are prerequisites for success inpostgraduate programmes. These are particularly important domains ofcompetence for students in applied linguistics, whose ...studies and futureperformance require insight into these skills. A validated self-assessmentquestionnaire was administered to 194 graduate students of applied linguistics,who assessed their own academic reading skills. In addition, open-endedquestions added to the questionnaire and interviews with 14 students wereanalyzed, yielding eight domains identified as particular challenges. The resultsrevealed that students assessed their information literacy to be the weakestdomain. The eight areas of challenge included: shortage of time, informationliteracy, content knowledge, critical literacy, writers’ language styles and genericfeatures of texts, teachers’ high expectations and vague instructions, insufficientstatistical literacy and insufficient interaction with peers. The implications forEnglish for Academic Purposes (EAP) instruction are discussed.
La posesión de habilidades para la lectura y escritura de textos académicos es un requisito para concluir con éxito un programa de posgrado. Estos son tipos de competencias especialmente importantes para los estudiantes de lingüística aplicada, quienes durante sus estudios y en su futuro académico y profesional requerirán estas destrezas. Se administró un cuestionario de autoevaluación validado a 194 estudiantes de posgrado de lingüística aplicada con el que estos valoraron sus propias destrezas de lectura académica. Además del cuestionario, los participantes respondieron diferentes preguntas de respuesta libre y 14 de ellos participaron en sendas entrevistas. Su análisis evidenció la existencia de ocho aspectos de especial dificultad. Los resultados ponen de manifiesto que los estudiantes consideran que su alfabetización informacional es el aspecto en el que creen tener menores habilidades. Las ocho áreas que suponen un mayor desafío para los estudiantes son las siguientes: la falta de tiempo, la alfabetización informacional, el conocimiento del contenido, la alfabetización crítica, el estilo de cada autor y aspectos relativos al género de cada texto, las altas expectativas de los profesores y la existencia de instrucciones imprecisas, una insuficiente alfabetización estadística y una insuficiente interacción con sus pares. Por último, se discuten las diferentes implicaciones de estos hallazgos para el ámbito del inglés para fines académicos.
Although university English teachers’ professional growth hinges upon active research engagement, they could not individually follow a one-size-fits-all approach to turn into teacher researchers. In ...this study, through the lens of activity system, we explored how university English teachers could be empowered to mediate their research engagement by reliance on socially enhanced research tools, research community norms, and research scaffolding trends. Thirty Iranian university English teachers (twenty-seven PhD candidates and three PhD graduates) participated in this study. To collect the data, we used semi-structured interviews, reflective journals, and online discussion forums. The findings demonstrated that Iranian university English teachers’ research engagement is mediated by research mindset, research interest, and research toolkit. Furthermore, research apprenticeship and academic promotion are the two research norms that university English teachers support. In the research engagement system, research networks and research teams promote the teachers’ collective research literacy. The results further showed that to socially mediate the university English teachers' research engagement, research educators are expected to systematically guide the teachers’ research practices, research materials developers need to curate and produce teacher-friendly research materials, and academic researchers should authorize the teachers to get socialized into teachers’ research communities. KCI Citation Count: 0
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FFLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, UL, UM, UPUK
The present study investigates English language teaching (ELT) curriculum planning in Iran's Ministry of Education and its implementation by teachers. We studied programme evaluation; needs analysis; ...the ELT-specific documents; communication channels between planning and practice levels; teacher evaluation and student assessment; interpretation and re-examination of national policies within the Ministry; and the criteria set for ELT material development. Instrumentation included: curriculum documents; interviews with Ministry officials, material developers and headteachers; and teacher questionnaires. Results attested to the lack of any ELT-specific document for material development and absence of research-based needs assessment as the foundation of the programmes. Also, there are no pre-defined linguistic and professional criteria for evaluating teachers, and planning for students' assessment is limited to a set of general guidelines. Moreover, there is neither a programme evaluation nor an ELT evaluation model and national-level policies are not re-examined at planning level. Results also indicate that politico-ideological beliefs of material developers are as important as their expertise and communication channels between planning and practice levels are of a top-down nature. It is argued that the gap between planning and practice results from a highly centralised policymaking process in which local policymakers (i.e. teachers) are not involved.
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DOBA, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Needs analysis, as an important phase in curriculum development and course design, has received scant attention in Iranian English for Academic Purposes (EAP) education. Similarly, no systematic ...empirical study has addressed the status of EAP programs for post-graduate psychology (PgP) students. Hence, this study aimed to investigate target academic English language needs of PgP students, their abilities in performing discipline-related EAP tasks, and their general English Proficiency (gEP). Participants included 343 PgP students, 13 EAP instructors, and 22 content teachers from 7 major Iranian universities. To achieve triangulation, data were collected through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and observations. The findings highlighted several skills and subskills of academic English as highly important for PgP students. Moreover, some mismatches were found regarding the participants' perceptions about students' abilities in different language skills/sub-skills as well as in their gEP levels. Furthermore, we probed participants' viewpoints regarding the amount of EAP instruction in post-graduate curriculum, the degree of effectiveness of general English (gE) and EAP courses in bA education, their preference for EAP teachers (i.e., either ElT instructors or content teachers), language skill priorities in EAP courses, and major challenges in EAP education in Iran. Some implications and suggestions for further research are presented.
Given the importance of specialized vocabulary in scientific communication and academic discourse, there is a growing need to create wordlists to address the vocabulary-learning needs of university ...students and researchers in different subject areas. The current study analyzed a corpus of chemistry research articles (with 278 million running words) to establish a mid-frequency vocabulary list for this field. Using frequency, range, and dispersion criteria, the study identified 560 lemmas in the fourth to the ninth British National Corpus/Corpus of Contemporary American English (BNC/COCA) lists that provided 6.4% coverage of all words in the corpus. The list was validated using specialized and general corpora, and the results confirmed the value and relevance of the items for chemistry. Moreover, for using the list for pedagogical goals, the vocabulary items were divided into five bands based on their coverage and importance. The 100 words in the first band were the most important mid-frequent vocabulary in chemistry, as they provided 3.05% coverage. The study highlights the significant contribution of mid-frequency words in research articles and the findings have implications for using large corpora as a big data source in identifying specialized and field-specific vocabulary.
Needs analysis, as an important phase in curriculum development and course design, has received scant attention in Iranian English for Academic Purposes (EAP) education. Similarly, no systematic ...empirical study has addressed the status of EAP programs for post-graduate psychology (PgP) students. Hence, this study aimed to investigate target academic English language needs of PgP students, their abilities in performing discipline-related EAP tasks, and their general English Proficiency (gEP). Participants included 343 PgP students, 13 EAP instructors, and 22 content teachers from 7 major Iranian universities. To achieve triangulation, data were collected through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and observations. The findings highlighted several skills and subskills of academic English as highly important for PgP students. Moreover, some mismatches were found regarding the participants’ perceptions about students’ abilities in different language skills/sub-skills as well as in their gEP levels. Furthermore, we probed participants’ viewpoints regarding the amount of EAP instruction in post-graduate curriculum, the degree of effectiveness of general English (gE) and EAP courses in bA education, their preference for EAP teachers (i.e., either ElT instructors or content teachers), language skill priorities in EAP courses, and major challenges in EAP education in Iran. Some implications and suggestions for further research are presented
► We examined computer-mediated communication in two listservs: taxonomy and language testing. ► Male participants posted and received more messages and posted longer messages than females. ► Both ...genders had common priorities for topics they posted but different priorities for responding. ► No significant difference was found for the stylistic features between genders. ► Males showed greater tendency towards mixed style while females used their own style.
This study examined the claim of democracy in computer-mediated communication with regard to amount of participation and communicative style of genders and the effect of topic of discussion on these aspects. To this aim, 300 randomly- chosen messages from two listservs (language testing and taxonomy) were coded for the number of female and male participants, frequency and length of messages, frequency of new topics, frequency of responses to each topic type and to the same and cross gender topics, stylistic features of females’ and males’ language, and frequency of flaming. For each aspect of analysis, χ2 statistical test was applied to examine the significance of the differences between genders in and across the lists. The results indicated that given the amount of participation, the democracy claim was breached as male dominance and presence was more ubiquitous. However, the results supported the provision of a democratic platform as far as manner of participation is concerned since both genders presented common communicative needs and priorities and there was no support for differentiation of genders’ communicative styles. The findings promise implications for EFL/ESL education.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teachers are expected to cope with the manifold challenges of teaching EAP courses although they do not generally receive adequate training for handling them. ...Therefore, this study explored the coping strategies used by them upon facing different challenges and probed the effectiveness of these strategies. To this end, we collected quantitative data from 314 EAP teachers through a questionnaire developed for the purposes of this study and conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 teachers chosen from those who completed the questionnaire and volunteered to participate in the interview. The results revealed the coping strategies used by the participants of the study and highlighted the effective ones. The findings provide implications for current and prospective EAP teachers as well as teacher educators by presenting some effective strategies for EAP instruction.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
In view of the paucity of evidence on teachers' conceptions of teaching English an International Language (EIL), the present study used panel discussions to investigate the beliefs of 10 native and ...10 non-native English-speaking teachers about their roles in teaching English in the EIL contexts and the perceptions of EIL. The findings revealed that some aspects of teachers' beliefs about their roles were reshaped after panel discussions. Non-native teachers showed lower levels of self-confidence in their role in teaching EIL and underlined the superiority of native teachers. However, after panel discussions, they were able to notice their advantages in comparison with native teachers. It was also observed that both non-native and native teachers underwent a slight shift in conceptualizing what EIL is. Non-native teachers' appraisal of native speakerism also decreased after panel discussions. These findings suggest that both native and non-native teachers hold certain beliefs about EIL and native speakerism which are not in line with EIL theorizing.
