I got my PhD in language education from Shiraz University, Iran. My PhD dissertation focused on the use of Critical Language Testing (CLT) to challenge and uncover the camouflage of three Iranian high-stakes tests as tools of power which have overshadowed the EFL context of Iran. The findings of this research have been published in Policy Studies as a reputable international ISI journal. I carry on doing research in different areas of my interest including: language and policy, ideologies behind language tests in society, teacher education, critical pedagogy, and philosophy of language learning and teaching. Supervisors: Professor Nasser Rashidi (Supervisor) and Professor Rahman Sahragard and Professor Seyyed Ayatollah Razmjoo (Advisors)
Critical pedagogy (CP) with the eventual aim of creating changes in society towards the socially ... more Critical pedagogy (CP) with the eventual aim of creating changes in society towards the socially just world rests upon the premise that language learning is understood as a sociopolitical event. Schools and classrooms are not merely seen as the neutral and apolitical sites or oxymoron of transmitting taken-for-granted knowledge and common sense to students but rather as the political and democratic sites in which teachers, through praxis-oriented activities, furnish opportunities for students to critically question oppressive systems, hierarchies, and sociopolitical inequalities. Through the connection of word to the world, or the relationship between classroom learning and students’ lived experiences and worlds, teachers can create social transformation and empowerment in the marginalized students’ lives. However, teachers as the transformative intellectuals can facilitate this transformative process only if they are equipped with the critical theories, theoretical underpinnings an...
The Peircean semiotic approach suggests a non-linear and dynamic view of culture to examine it th... more The Peircean semiotic approach suggests a non-linear and dynamic view of culture to examine it through signs, sign systems and meaning-making processes. This approach emphasises that images, texts and tasks are considered semiotic resources, generating cultural meanings through semiotic processes. This study aims to reveal the concept of culture in a dynamic manner concerning the semiotic potential embedded in the Iranian EFL textbooks used in junior high schools from the perspective of a semiotic framework. Semiotic analysis showed that cultural meaning-making is directed through guided semiosis, hampering students’ exploration of cultural potential meanings, cultural reflection, understanding and awareness. The denotational and the indexical relationship between texts and images also does not foster students’ intercultural understanding of living and maintaining in a global community, and hence, teachers need to move towards the symbolic aspect of texts and images through unguided...
RMLE Online, Research in Middle Level Education (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Publishing Group), 2024
The impact of COVID-19 on education involved an abrupt switch from face-to-face instruction towar... more The impact of COVID-19 on education involved an abrupt switch from face-to-face instruction toward emergency remote teaching/learning. In public schools, teachers and students were required to undertake language education using virtual learning platforms. This shift created certain problems for both teachers and students. This qualitative research attempts to explore challenges encountered by English teachers and students in Iranian middle schools during the lockdown period. 47 participants were selected by stratified purposive sampling, providing qualitative data through semi-structured interviews and online focus groups. Thematic analysis illustrated economic, technological, and instructional concerns in addition to a set of psychological pressures. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic created certain affordances for language program which accelerated the process of online language education. The anticipation and effective management of educational problems arising from such catastrophes would help stakeholders enhance the quality of language education, prioritize teachers’ and students’ language needs at the middle level education of public schools, and facilitate learning/teaching process.
The Peircean semiotic approach suggests a non-linear and dynamic view of culture to examine it th... more The Peircean semiotic approach suggests a non-linear and dynamic view of culture to examine it through signs, sign systems and meaning-making processes. This approach emphasises that images, texts and tasks are considered semiotic resources, generating cultural meanings through semiotic processes. This study aims to reveal the concept of culture in a dynamic manner concerning the semiotic potential embedded in the Iranian EFL textbooks used in junior high schools from the perspective of a semiotic framework. Semiotic analysis showed that cultural meaning-making is directed through guided semiosis, hampering students' exploration of cultural potential meanings, cultural reflection, understanding and awareness. The denotational and the indexical relationship between texts and images also does not foster students' intercultural understanding of living and maintaining in a global community, and hence, teachers need to move towards the symbolic aspect of texts and images through unguided semiosis to develop students' cultural understanding of self and others.
The teacher education field has recently undergone dramatic changes leading to a shift of focus f... more The teacher education field has recently undergone dramatic changes leading to a shift of focus from transmission models towards alternative approaches and theories that emerged in the post-transmission era addressing sociocultural, political, ideological, and critical issues. Despite worldwide changes in teacher education programs, it seems that alternative theories and ideas have had little or no impact on teacher education for English language teaching (ELT) in Iran. This study investigated the applicability of the post-transmission perspectives and theories to the Iranian teacher education context, in addition to the concerns and challenges faced by teachers and instructors working in that context. To this end, the views and beliefs of ten experienced English teachers and three educators were collected using three methods of data collection: collaborative dialogue; currere or reflexive narrative; and, interviews. The data were analysed to identify emerging themes relating to the...
This study makes use of visual methodology to achieve insights regarding Iranian ELT student teac... more This study makes use of visual methodology to achieve insights regarding Iranian ELT student teachers’ professional identities. Accordingly, the researcher makes an attempt to investigate the 51 male-female student teachers’ professional identities through their drawings. Social constructivism, hermeneutics, and grounded theory inspire this study and allow the researcher to make sense of drawings and approach them as texts, which freight meaning to be interpreted. Data analysis based on inductive design led to the emergence of themes that most of the student teachers have reconstructed and developed their identities in the rapid evolving cultural and global context created by the new insights and perspectives of postmodernism. However, in the case of student teachers whose identities have been traditionally shaped, teacher educators are required to provide support through additional instruction, dialogue, feedback, and insights to raise their consciousness about their identities and self.
" "Abstract "A substantial body of research on the provision and use of corrective... more " "Abstract "A substantial body of research on the provision and use of corrective feedback has consistently indicated that whether learners will modify their output may depend on the type of feedback provided and that the types of feedback that enhance modified output may occur relatively rarely in the classroom ( Lyster & Ranta,1997; Pica,2002 ). While these research findings are primarily drawn from immersion classrooms and adult contexts, very little research has examined the provision and use of feedback in other contexts, including young adult EFL learners. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the relationship between corrective feedback and learner uptake (i.e., responses to feedback) in a young adult EFL classroom whose learners are between 13 to 16 years of age. Inspired by Lyster and Ranta (1997), the present study attempts to describe and analyze the discourse patterns of corrective feedback used by the teacher and their relationship to learner uptake and immediate repair of errors. The data base consists of 16 hours of interaction, comprising 306 student turns and 259 teacher turns which were all audiotaped, transcribed and coded on the basis of the categories identified in Lyster and Ranta's model of corrective discourse. Results involve the frequency and distribution of the six different feedback types utilized by the teacher, in addition to the frequency and distribution of different types of learner uptake and repair pursuing each feedback type. With respect to the interactional patterns revealed in such a context: (1) recast was the most frequent teacher-generated feedback type despite its ineffectiveness at eliciting repairs; (2) metalinguistic feedback was the least occurred feedback type which led to the lowest rates of uptake; (3) clarification request, elicitation, repetition and explicit correction yielded the highest rates of student-generated repair, although in the case of clarification request and explicit correction, the low frequency of use was observed. Key Words: Corrective feedback, uptake, recast, metalinguistic feedback, self-repair, needs-repair"""
"""Abstract The present study reports on the effects of formative assessment and f... more """Abstract The present study reports on the effects of formative assessment and feedback which are considered as two major processes to help learners take control of their own learning. A key argument is that the teacher should organize the students into small groups so as to facilitate self- and peer-feedback on the test, leading to learning enhancement. The research also, underpinning feedback, addresses the effect of marking as a traditional way of providing feedback. 75 EFL female students of junior high school constituting three groups participated in this study. The same teacher administered similar tests during an educational semester. Having a traditional form of class, the first group received formative assessments and exam marks as the sole feedback. While the second and the third groups were in the form of the small groups, had different kinds of feedback, except marking that the exam papers of group three were devoid of any. It was found that formative assessment and feedback affect overall achievement significantly. However, the performance of the third group was highly significant than others’, that can be attributed to their non-marked exam papers. On the basis of this study, it is suggested that teachers provide learners with various sorts of feedback excluding exam marks. Key words: Formative Assessment, Feedback, Internal versus External Feedback, Formal versus Informal Feedback, Small Group. """
Critical pedagogy (CP) with the eventual aim of creating changes in society towards the socially ... more Critical pedagogy (CP) with the eventual aim of creating changes in society towards the socially just world rests upon the premise that language learning is understood as a sociopolitical event. Schools and classrooms are not merely seen as the neutral and apolitical sites or oxymoron of transmitting taken-for-granted knowledge and common sense to students but rather as the political and democratic sites in which teachers, through praxis-oriented activities, furnish opportunities for students to critically question oppressive systems, hierarchies, and sociopolitical inequalities. Through the connection of word to the world, or the relationship between classroom learning and students’ lived experiences and worlds, teachers can create social transformation and empowerment in the marginalized students’ lives. However, teachers as the transformative intellectuals can facilitate this transformative process only if they are equipped with the critical theories, theoretical underpinnings an...
The Peircean semiotic approach suggests a non-linear and dynamic view of culture to examine it th... more The Peircean semiotic approach suggests a non-linear and dynamic view of culture to examine it through signs, sign systems and meaning-making processes. This approach emphasises that images, texts and tasks are considered semiotic resources, generating cultural meanings through semiotic processes. This study aims to reveal the concept of culture in a dynamic manner concerning the semiotic potential embedded in the Iranian EFL textbooks used in junior high schools from the perspective of a semiotic framework. Semiotic analysis showed that cultural meaning-making is directed through guided semiosis, hampering students’ exploration of cultural potential meanings, cultural reflection, understanding and awareness. The denotational and the indexical relationship between texts and images also does not foster students’ intercultural understanding of living and maintaining in a global community, and hence, teachers need to move towards the symbolic aspect of texts and images through unguided...
RMLE Online, Research in Middle Level Education (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Publishing Group), 2024
The impact of COVID-19 on education involved an abrupt switch from face-to-face instruction towar... more The impact of COVID-19 on education involved an abrupt switch from face-to-face instruction toward emergency remote teaching/learning. In public schools, teachers and students were required to undertake language education using virtual learning platforms. This shift created certain problems for both teachers and students. This qualitative research attempts to explore challenges encountered by English teachers and students in Iranian middle schools during the lockdown period. 47 participants were selected by stratified purposive sampling, providing qualitative data through semi-structured interviews and online focus groups. Thematic analysis illustrated economic, technological, and instructional concerns in addition to a set of psychological pressures. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic created certain affordances for language program which accelerated the process of online language education. The anticipation and effective management of educational problems arising from such catastrophes would help stakeholders enhance the quality of language education, prioritize teachers’ and students’ language needs at the middle level education of public schools, and facilitate learning/teaching process.
The Peircean semiotic approach suggests a non-linear and dynamic view of culture to examine it th... more The Peircean semiotic approach suggests a non-linear and dynamic view of culture to examine it through signs, sign systems and meaning-making processes. This approach emphasises that images, texts and tasks are considered semiotic resources, generating cultural meanings through semiotic processes. This study aims to reveal the concept of culture in a dynamic manner concerning the semiotic potential embedded in the Iranian EFL textbooks used in junior high schools from the perspective of a semiotic framework. Semiotic analysis showed that cultural meaning-making is directed through guided semiosis, hampering students' exploration of cultural potential meanings, cultural reflection, understanding and awareness. The denotational and the indexical relationship between texts and images also does not foster students' intercultural understanding of living and maintaining in a global community, and hence, teachers need to move towards the symbolic aspect of texts and images through unguided semiosis to develop students' cultural understanding of self and others.
The teacher education field has recently undergone dramatic changes leading to a shift of focus f... more The teacher education field has recently undergone dramatic changes leading to a shift of focus from transmission models towards alternative approaches and theories that emerged in the post-transmission era addressing sociocultural, political, ideological, and critical issues. Despite worldwide changes in teacher education programs, it seems that alternative theories and ideas have had little or no impact on teacher education for English language teaching (ELT) in Iran. This study investigated the applicability of the post-transmission perspectives and theories to the Iranian teacher education context, in addition to the concerns and challenges faced by teachers and instructors working in that context. To this end, the views and beliefs of ten experienced English teachers and three educators were collected using three methods of data collection: collaborative dialogue; currere or reflexive narrative; and, interviews. The data were analysed to identify emerging themes relating to the...
This study makes use of visual methodology to achieve insights regarding Iranian ELT student teac... more This study makes use of visual methodology to achieve insights regarding Iranian ELT student teachers’ professional identities. Accordingly, the researcher makes an attempt to investigate the 51 male-female student teachers’ professional identities through their drawings. Social constructivism, hermeneutics, and grounded theory inspire this study and allow the researcher to make sense of drawings and approach them as texts, which freight meaning to be interpreted. Data analysis based on inductive design led to the emergence of themes that most of the student teachers have reconstructed and developed their identities in the rapid evolving cultural and global context created by the new insights and perspectives of postmodernism. However, in the case of student teachers whose identities have been traditionally shaped, teacher educators are required to provide support through additional instruction, dialogue, feedback, and insights to raise their consciousness about their identities and self.
" "Abstract "A substantial body of research on the provision and use of corrective... more " "Abstract "A substantial body of research on the provision and use of corrective feedback has consistently indicated that whether learners will modify their output may depend on the type of feedback provided and that the types of feedback that enhance modified output may occur relatively rarely in the classroom ( Lyster & Ranta,1997; Pica,2002 ). While these research findings are primarily drawn from immersion classrooms and adult contexts, very little research has examined the provision and use of feedback in other contexts, including young adult EFL learners. Accordingly, this study aims to investigate the relationship between corrective feedback and learner uptake (i.e., responses to feedback) in a young adult EFL classroom whose learners are between 13 to 16 years of age. Inspired by Lyster and Ranta (1997), the present study attempts to describe and analyze the discourse patterns of corrective feedback used by the teacher and their relationship to learner uptake and immediate repair of errors. The data base consists of 16 hours of interaction, comprising 306 student turns and 259 teacher turns which were all audiotaped, transcribed and coded on the basis of the categories identified in Lyster and Ranta's model of corrective discourse. Results involve the frequency and distribution of the six different feedback types utilized by the teacher, in addition to the frequency and distribution of different types of learner uptake and repair pursuing each feedback type. With respect to the interactional patterns revealed in such a context: (1) recast was the most frequent teacher-generated feedback type despite its ineffectiveness at eliciting repairs; (2) metalinguistic feedback was the least occurred feedback type which led to the lowest rates of uptake; (3) clarification request, elicitation, repetition and explicit correction yielded the highest rates of student-generated repair, although in the case of clarification request and explicit correction, the low frequency of use was observed. Key Words: Corrective feedback, uptake, recast, metalinguistic feedback, self-repair, needs-repair"""
"""Abstract The present study reports on the effects of formative assessment and f... more """Abstract The present study reports on the effects of formative assessment and feedback which are considered as two major processes to help learners take control of their own learning. A key argument is that the teacher should organize the students into small groups so as to facilitate self- and peer-feedback on the test, leading to learning enhancement. The research also, underpinning feedback, addresses the effect of marking as a traditional way of providing feedback. 75 EFL female students of junior high school constituting three groups participated in this study. The same teacher administered similar tests during an educational semester. Having a traditional form of class, the first group received formative assessments and exam marks as the sole feedback. While the second and the third groups were in the form of the small groups, had different kinds of feedback, except marking that the exam papers of group three were devoid of any. It was found that formative assessment and feedback affect overall achievement significantly. However, the performance of the third group was highly significant than others’, that can be attributed to their non-marked exam papers. On the basis of this study, it is suggested that teachers provide learners with various sorts of feedback excluding exam marks. Key words: Formative Assessment, Feedback, Internal versus External Feedback, Formal versus Informal Feedback, Small Group. """
Over the past years, English teaching profession was influenced by imperialistic and hegemonic fo... more Over the past years, English teaching profession was influenced by imperialistic and hegemonic forces, changing it into a commercial enterprise through which teachers as subordinates and passive recipients of supervisors’ dictates needed to be constantly observed and supervised for delivering the most satisfactory outputs. Supervisor-teacher relationship was based on acting judgmental evaluation and exercising institutionalized power by which teachers as puppets were assumed to follow prescriptions of supervisors as authority figures who determined ins and outs of their pedagogies. To cope with deficiencies of traditional teacher supervision, this qualitative longitudinal study attempted to embrace innovative ideas and philosophies emerging through postmodernism in an Iranian language institute. 8 English teachers (5 female; 3 male) participated in this critical project which involved the operationalization of an integrative approach inspired by critical pedagogy and Bakhtinian dialogic approach. Through provision of democratic spaces in which English teachers were dialogically involved in voicing, (re)constructing their meanings and worlds, questioning, and acting upon status quo, the researcher could trace their professional development during a one-year time span. Observation, teacher journals, and semi-structured interview were data gathering instruments. Constant Comparative Method (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) was used to thematically analyze the data. Emerged themes showed enhancement of the teachers’ critical awareness and thinking regarding supervision, learning, and teaching, development of their autonomy and professional knowledge in operationalizing their own pedagogies, reconsideration of their roles as curriculum developers and syllabus designers, their (re)constructed identities through critical reflection on their discursively-shaped beliefs and experiences as well as their enthusiasm for applying the alternative approaches emerged through postmodernism in their own classes. Based on findings, traditional supervision needs to be re-examined in favor of liberating and critical approaches which (re) shape teachers’ understandings and identities, maximize professional opportunities, and enliven their pedagogical acts. Keywords:institutionalized power, Critical pedagogy, Dialogic approach, Supervision, Critical reflection.
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Keywords:institutionalized power, Critical pedagogy, Dialogic approach, Supervision, Critical reflection.