Purpose: The growing body of knowledge on language teacher agency highlights the positive contributions of agency for teacher identity construction. However, teachers may face challenges in effectively exercising agency, and their agentive actions may be impeded by multiple contextual factors. The present study adopts a narrative inquiry…

This study explored the effects of three types of lexical tools (MOOCs, E-dictionaries, and lexical concordancers) and three types of lexical applications (technology-mediated communication-based applications (TMCA), Anki as an e-flashcard application, and WordUp as a dedicated lexical application) on learning academic core words among a sample of…

Purpose: While research on language teacher cognition is increasingly developing, the scope of research on writing teachers' cognition is still limited, particularly on how teacher education influences their cognitions. The present study moves along this line of inquiry and investigates the impact of a teacher education course on second language…

Learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) is a lengthy, demanding, and challenging process, which requires learners' L2 grit relating to their perseverance of effort and consistency of interest. Motivated by the growing body of research on L2 grit over the past few years, this study examined the role of perceived teacher support and learning…

Purpose: Despite the growth of theory and research on young English learners and the widely-recognized importance of critical incidents (CIs) in teachers' professional development (PD), little research has examined young-learner teachers' CIs. This study investigated the impacts of a PD course structured around CIs sharing/discussing on 14 L2…

This study examined the effects of praise for intelligence and praise for effort on Iranian EFL learners' language mindsets, perceived communication competence, speaking anxiety, and willingness to communicate (WTC). The students in three English classes (N = 63, all junior high school students) in a private language institute filled in…

Purpose: The present study investigated the domain-specificity of language mindset with a focus on foreign language (L2) reading mindset. We further examined whether L2 reading mindset could predict several L2 reading-specific outcomes, including L2 reading achievement and L2 reading emotions above and beyond general language mindset.…

Despite the recognition of the importance of teachers' professional development, the exploration of teachers' Critical Incidents (CIs) as a type of professional development initiative has received insufficient attention in L2 teaching contexts. Motivated by the dearth of research in this area and building on complexity theory as its conceptual…

Purpose: Although action research (AR) is considered essential for teacher development in second/foreign language (L2) education, no validated scale has been designed for its measurement. With that in mind, this study attempted to develop and validate an Inventory on Teachers' Beliefs about Action Research (ITBAR). Design/methodology/approach: For…

While research on teachers' Critical Incidents (CIs) has grown exponentially, little research has been done on teachers' assessment-related CIs, much less examining the contributions of such CIs to their identity sense-making. This study aimed to fill some of this gap by exploring assessment-related CIs of 13 Iranian L2 teachers and the associated…

Learner autonomy (LA) has become an intriguing topic in the field of language teaching. This study explored Iranian EFL teachers' beliefs about and practices of LA in light of two under-researched variables, namely experience and licensure. To this end, a cluster sample of 50 teachers were chosen who were further categorized into TEFL versus…

This article reports on a study which employed a flipped classroom strategy to increase the amount of peer dialogue among a group of Iranian EFL learners. The flipped strategy used in this study required the students to study some online materials provided for students via a social network called Telegram. Before attending the class, the…

Although researchers in the area of second language acquisition agree on the effectiveness of form-focused instruction, there is little consensus on the appropriate time to direct learners' attention to linguistic items, that is, whether before or after the error occurrence [Nassaji, H. 2010, "The Occurrence and Effectiveness of Spontaneous…

This study set out to evaluate Iranian EFL teachers' Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) beliefs and practices. An ICC belief scale was developed drawing on Byram's (1997) model of Intercultural Competence (IC) and Sercu's (2005) EFL teachers' opinion on Intercultural Foreign Language Teaching Questionnaire. To ensure the validity and…

The purpose of this study was to design and validate a scale to measure language teachers' temporal intelligence and to explore its role in teacher burnout. To this aim, 210 English as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, teaching at different language institutes were asked to complete two questionnaires: the newly-designed language teachers' temporal…