The study explores Iranian English teachers’ perceptions of the importance of critical thinking
skills and the extent to which they practice their beliefs in real classroom setting. As a secondary
purpose, the study discovered the possible hindrances in the way of implementing critical thinking
in reading classes. Using a sequential mixed-methods design, data were collected through survey
questionnaire, interviews and class observations from 4 universities and several English language
institutes. Fifty participants took part in the study. A questionnaire with 16 closed-ended and two
open-ended questions was utilized to collect data about the teachers’ beliefs. For the next phase
of the study, one teacher from among 10 teachers who showed strong beliefs was conveniently
selected for class observation and interview. The results of one sample T-test and independent
sample T-test indicated that teachers believed critical thinking was important and that there was
not any significant difference between male and female regarding critical thinking. Qualitative
analysis of the data showed that despite the teachers’ strong beliefs about the importance of critical
thinking, they did not implement it much in their classroom practices. The hindrances as well as the
implications of the study are fully explained in the paper.
Author : Martina Pavlikova
Exploring Teachers’ and Learners’ Attitude towards Homework: The case of English versus Non-English-Major Teachers’ Homework Practices
Homework assignments provide a channel of communication between students and teachers
especially in an EFL context where there is little exposure to English language out of the classroom
context. Thus, exploring attitudes and homework features may provide teachers with useful
information to know how to plan their homework assignments to improve students’ learning
opportunities. This study aimed to explore both teachers’ and learners’ attitude towards homework;
the difficulties faced by both teachers and learners with regard to homework as well as the assignment
characteristics of English-major versus Non-English-major teachers. The study participants were
120 randomly selected adult male and female EFL learners and 81 EFL teachers. The data were
collected through questionnaires and subsequent semi-structured interviews. SPSS 24 software
was used to analyze the questionnaire data and interviews were recorded, transcribed, coded and
categorized for further analysis. The results indicated that students had positive attitudes towards
homework assignments. There was no significant difference between students’ attitude towards
homework given by English Major (EM) and Non-English Major (NEM) teachers. The data showed
that teachers do feel that homework is essential to students’ language development. Similarly, there
was no significant difference among EM versus NEM teachers in their attitudes toward homework.
The results revealed the following reasons for the difficulties that teachers and learners faced in
assigning/doing homework assignments respectively. Those reasons varied from not learning the
required concept, not knowing the instruction, not enjoying homework, not paying attention
when homework assignments were presented, not understanding homework instruction, copying
homework or cheating, the absence of related and meaningful tasks, parents’ lack of knowledge,
lack of word power and grammar, to anxiety and stress of homework. The findings illustrated that
there were some differences between EM and NEM teachers in terms of amount, skill area used, and
degree of individualization in their homework assignments. The results of this study offer a number
of pedagogical implications for teachers, curriculum developers, and institute managers.
Exploring Literature Reading Classes in Terms of Types of Feedback Provided by EFL Teachers: Does Teaching Experience Play a Determining Role?
eading comprehension is thought to be a very challenging skill for L2 (second language) learners, and definitely the role that feedback has in enhancing reading achievement is undeniable. To shed more light on the issue, this study aimed to investigate the types of feedback utilized by EFL teachers in L2 reading comprehension classes at the intermediate level. The study took a step forward and explored the role of years of teaching experience in the provision of feedback. The study also examined the frequency of different types of errors that EFL learners committed in reading comprehension classes. To this end, an observational and descriptive study was conducted. Six EFL teachers along with their L2 learners at the intermediate level participated in the study. Three of these teachers were novices and the other three were experienced. The data were drawn from transcripts of audio recording of the selected teachers’ reading comprehension classes. Following the analysis, the corrective feedback types and the errors were coded using the coding categories identified in Lyster and Ranta’s (1997) model. Two other corrective feedback types were added – translation and multiple feedback. The frequency count and percentage were used to analyze the data. The results indicated that recasts were the most frequently used feedback type in both groups of teachers. Moreover, both experienced and novice teachers preferred to use varied corrective feedback types at different distributions which may suggest that there is a significant difference between novice and experienced teachers’ use of corrective feedback types. Regarding the error types, the analysis of the data showed that among four types of errors, the phonological errors were the most commonly errors committed by EFL learners in reading comprehension classes. The implications are discussed in the study.