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The rise of world Englishes has challenged the emphasis on native-speaker accents and cultures in English language teaching. This study aimed to investigate the representation of world Englishes and cultures in three global language teaching textbooks, namely Interchange , English Result, and American English File . The textbooks were subjected to content analysis regarding their reference to Inner, Outer, and Expanding Circles’ varieties and their associated cultural contents. Kachru ( The alchemy of English: The spread functions and models of non-native Englishes . Oxford: Pergamon, 1986) notion of Concentric Circles, and the categorization proposed by Pfister and Borzelli ( Unterrichtspraxis 10:102–108, 1977) functioned as a framework to see which aspects of each culture (social, personal, religion/arts/humanities, political systems and institutions, and environmental concerns) were addressed in these textbooks. Findings revealed that most of the references to the three circles and cultural elements embodied in the textbooks were toward Inner Circle countries in American English File . Furthermore, in Interchange and English Result series, reference to Outer and Expanding Circles’ varieties and cultural elements were comparatively more evident. However, all the three textbook series mostly represented Inner-Circle accents. These findings have implications for materials developers to adopt an EIL-aware approach and to avoid the sole representation of native speakers’ linguistic norms and cultures in ELT textbooks.

Despite the recent interest in the emotions of language teachers, there is limited research on the emotions experienced by teacher educators during their identity transition from being teachers to teacher educators. Utilizing semi-structured interviews and a narrative frame, this qualitative study investigated the emotional tensions experienced by seven early-career English language teacher educators teaching at language institutes in Iran as they navigated new roles and expectations. Findings revealed a notable relationship between this identity transition and emotional tensions experienced by teacher educators, resulting in three main emotional tensions, namely feeling de-skilledness and self-doubt due to new expectations and responsibilities (dual identity), a lack of resilience against emotional tensions, and frustration due to a lack of immediate impacts. This study is important in that early-career teacher educators' identity has not been extensively examined, manifesting a lack of a comprehensive understanding of the emotional tensions they may experience during the transition from teachers to teacher educators. The findings offer implications for understanding the emotional tensions experienced by early-career teacher educators and creating strategies to manage their emotions during identity transition.

As one of the productive approaches to L2 pragmatic development, study abroad (SA) has drawn the attention of numerous researchers during the past few decades. Different factors, specifically those related to L2 learners, implicate the impact of SA on pragmatic development. The present systematic review aims to identify the roles of individual differences, including personal as well as social and cognitive variables, on the pragmatic development of L2 learners who were involved in SA programs. To this end, 39 studies from peer-reviewed journals and books published from 2000 to 2022 were scrutinized. The results revealed that a substantial amount of research has been conducted on the intersection of L2 pragmatic competence and SA. However, more studies are required to investigate the impact of learner variables on different aspects of L2 pragmatics in the SA context. The results also indicated the extent to which learner variables were analyzed in these studies and how each variable impacted the effectiveness of SA programs. In addition to the effects of learner variables, the methodological features of the studies, including the context of the studies, designs of the studies, data sources, and characteristics of the involved participants, were explored and reported. The findings contribute to the fields of L2 pragmatic acquisition and study abroad by highlighting the gaps in the literature and identifying key learner variables that can have drastic influences on learners’ outcomes.

This study explores the impact of sociocultural theory-based instruction on enhancing L2 learners’ writing skills including grammatical accuracy, coherence, cohesion, task response, and lexical resources for the IELTS. To this end, a cohort of 40 participants, spanning intermediate and advanced proficiency levels, was divided into experimental and control groups, each comprising 20 students. The research utilized the Oxford Placement Test to ensure a balanced distribution. Throughout the instructional period, learners actively participated in collaborative group activities and benefited from scaffolding techniques. The analysis of outcomes revealed the effectiveness of sociocultural strategies, leading to significant progress across different proficiency levels. While intermediate participants demonstrated marked improvements in task response, advanced learners exhibited heightened levels of coherence and cohesion in their writing. The findings indicate the paramount importance of employing scaffolding and collaborative methodologies to foster writing proficiency, particularly in the context of preparing for the IELTS. This research sheds light on the potential of sociocultural theory-based instruction to positively influence second language learners' writing abilities.

In recent years, numerous studies have been conducted on language teachers’ beliefs about language assessment; however, teachers’ collaborative discussion as a mediational tool has received scant attention. The present study aimed to investigate non-native language teachers’ beliefs about classroom language assessment regarding features of effective assessment, assessment of learners by teachers, peers, and themselves, benefits of assessment, informal assessment vs. formal assessment, and continuous assessment. Participants of the study were positioned in two collaborative discussion groups of novice and experienced teachers. Analysis of the data indicated that the teachers in each focus group held similar beliefs about most of the issues on classroom language assessment. The findings also demonstrated that the participants believed in the important role of classroom language assessment for different purposes, the utilization of both informal and formal assessment, and the utilization of continuous assessment as a fair mode of assessment. Furthermore, they believed that classroom language assessment should accurately assess what is taught in the course while focusing on all four language skills and sub-skills. Although they had positive attitudes toward teacher assessment and self-assessment, they were not in favor of peer assessment. The results of this study have implications for teacher education as adequate attention should be paid to teachers’ assessment beliefs due to their vital role in classroom assessment. Collaborative discussions can be enacted in teacher education to shape and reshape teachers' assessment beliefs.

The pedagogical roles of teacher educators (TEs) in recruiting and educating future language teachers have recently gained attention among language researchers and scholars. Hence, this study set to investigate the pedagogical roles of Iranian non-native teacher educators (TEs) in educating preservice and in-service EFL teachers from the viewpoint of language institute managers. To this end, following a qualitative survey research design, a total of 30 institute managers were selected via the snowball sampling method and engaged in semi-structured, in-depth interviews. The participants’ responses were voice recorded and then thematic analysis was conducted to extract the main themes and subcomponents. The findings of the study showed that institute managers assigned three main instructional roles to TEs: holding preservice/in-service teacher education courses, revising the assessment system, and designing effective language syllabuses. Accordingly, language institute managers believed that effective TEs should not only be responsible for running teacher education courses but also engage in the evaluation process by checking and revising the testing procedures and designing and developing relevant instructional syllabuses in cooperation with educational managers of the institutes. The pedagogical findings of the study are also discussed.

To provide insights into a wide array of individual learner variables implicated in intercultural education in home and study abroad contexts, this study systematically reviewed the effects of such variables on the development of intercultural competence. The corpus consisted of 56 journal articles published over the past two decades (2000-2020). The purpose of this study was to explore: (a) learner variables that were described in research on intercultural competence, including, inter alia, their age, gender, first language (L1) background, proficiency level, and attitudinal orientations; (b) settings in which learners’ intercultural development was studied, including both home contexts and study abroad contexts; and (c) effects of learner variables on the development of their intercultural competence. The results of this synthesis indicate that a growing number of studies have started to document intercultural instruction in both home and study abroad contexts. They show how learner variables were considered in conducting these studies and how variation in these variables impacted the effectiveness of instruction that targeted intercultural competence. The findings can considerably broaden our understanding of both opportunities and constraints in intercultural education in terms of learner variables and in particular variables that make the most contribution to intercultural development in home and study abroad contexts.

This study sought to develop and validate a classroom-based language assessment literacy scale to measure teachers’ perceived classroom-based assessment knowledge and practice. Exploratory factor analysis revealed that the scale items clustered around four factors: (a) purposes of assessment and grading, (b) assessment ethics, (c) student involvement in assessment, and (d) feedback and assessment interpretation. Moreover, the scale was administered to 348 Iranian English as a foreign language teachers. The findings showed that the majority reported to be literate in classroom-based language assessment and agreed to the allocation of more space to classroom-based language assessment in teacher education courses. The findings suggest that the newly-developed scale can serve as a valid and reliable tool to explore language teachers’ classroom-based assessment literacy.

A concern with identity has become remarkably widespread since the 1990s. An immense amount of research has been carried out to investigate the construct of identity, but few studies have been done to explore the construct of identity boundary, even less on the discursive construction of identity boundary. To fill this gap, this study explored how Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers construct identity boundaries between themselves and learners discursively. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 58 Iranian EFL teachers (31 male and 27 female) to identify how they demarcate the boundaries between themselves and learners. Five significant themes emerged from the data analysis: teachers' knowledge and power as indicators of their identity, setting boundaries by drawing up classroom rules, creating boundaries and not walls, demarcating boundaries both discursively and non-discursively, and establishing boundaries more implicitly than explicitly. The findings indicate that four categories could be conceivable with regard to teachers’ identity boundary setting: discursive, explicit; discursive, implicit; non-discursive, explicit; and non-discursive, implicit. As the majority of the teachers in this study reported that they tended to demarcate their identity boundaries more implicitly and non-discursively, the implication might be that Iranian EFL teachers prefer to create the identity boundaries more indirectly so as not to cause any negative affective influences on their students.

Despite the international surge of interest in the measurement of L2 pragmatic competence, the washback of pragmatic test tasks has remained a noticeably under-researched issue. To bridge this gap, this study sought to investigate the washback of a written discourse completion task (WDCT), as a pragmatic measure, to L2 teachers and learners in two different testing contexts, i.e., one with the addition of WDCT as part of summative assessment (pragmatic testing context) and the other with no such addition to the tests (non-pragmatic testing context). Data from teacher and learner interviews and classroom observations were subjected to content analysis. The results revealed various aspects of pragmatic assessment washback. First, the added pragmatic test tasks in the pragmatic testing context enhanced learners' noticing of pragmatic aspects of listening materials and teacher talk, whereas learners in the non-pragmatic testing context expressed more concern for lexical and grammatical features. Second, pragmatic context learners specified the production of pragmatically appropriate discourse as the ultimate objective of language learning. Finally, most teachers in the pragmatic testing context emphasized the utility of pragmatic-based teaching activities. The findings indicate that low-stakes pragmatic assessment has a positive washback to learning and teaching activities.