Zia Tajeddin

Tarbiat Modares University | TMU · Department of English Language Teaching

This research paper delved into the critical issue of applying English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) assessment principles in local English language tests used for non-native English speakers in Iranian language institutes. A qualitative content analysis was made on 60 local tests, dissecting them into domains, dimensions, and rating rubrics to scrutini...

Although language learners' knowledge of second language (L2) speech acts is postulated to be substantially influenced by learner variables, there is little empirical evidence of the influence of pragmatic motivation (PM) and willingness to communicate (WTC). To address this gap, this study sought to investigate the impact of PM and WTC as two impo...

Scaffolding is a contributing factor to the effectiveness of pragmatic instruction. Although there is a large body of research on the means of scaffolding in second language teaching, research on scaffolding in L2 pragmatic instruction, especially in online teaching, is still in its infancy. To bridge the gap, this study investigated the means of s...

Research on corrective feedback (CF) in L2 pragmatics instruction, especially in online teaching, is still in its infancy. To address this gap, this study sought to examine the types of CF provided by EFL teachers in online classes in response to the learners’ pragmalinguistically and sociopragmatically inappropriate production of the binary speech...

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 effectiv...

The theme of this book aligns with the burgeoning interest in teacher identity tensions in the past two decades. Although the impact of identity tensions permeates not only teachers’ practices but also their professional development, we noticed that there is no book allocated to these tensions to afford an inclusive vision of them across internatio...

Language teachers’ gendered identity: Unpacking tensions in agency, instructional practice, and professional development

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 diff...

Learners' acquisition of pragmatic competence in additional languages has received mounting attention since the 1990s. However, although studies on general learning strategies have proliferated since Oxford’s (1990) influential inventory was published, studies on pragmatic-specific learning strategies contributing to the acquisition of this compete...

Although intercultural communicative competence (ICC) has been foregrounded in L2 pedagogy, the status of intercultural pedagogy in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL) education in terms of policymaking and planning stages has remained under -represented. Against this backdrop, the present study used interviews as a data source to ex...

Research into language teacher cognition has expanded over the past two decades. This line of inquiry has contributed to our understanding of teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and classroom behaviors. Whereas prior studies have investigated teachers’ cognition of tasks in task-based language teaching (TBLT), to date exploring their cognition in task-su...

The provision of scaffolding entails contingent assistance given to learners. Despite the proliferation of research on scaffolding, scant attention has been devoted to studying the modes of classroom interaction in fulfilling various scaffolding intentions in content-based instruction (CBI). To narrow the gaps, the present qualitative study embarke...

This article presents a systematic review of studies investigating teachers’ and learners’ beliefs about English varieties, World Englishes, English as an international language (EIL), and English as a lingua franca (ELF). A total of 122 empirical studies published in international peer-reviewed journals from 2000 to 2023 were selected and analyzed...

The pedagogical roles of teacher educators (TEs) in recruiting and educating future language teachers have recently gained attention among teacher education researchers. As there is scant research on the perspectives of stakeholders on these roles, this study ought to investigate the pedagogical roles of Iranian non-native TEs in educating preservi...

Despite the importance of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and post-observation feedback, limited research has delved into how these beliefs are expressed and negotiated in feedback sessions. This chapter aims to investigate post-observation debriefing as a facilitative space where English language teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs can be observed, ne...

There is a substantial body of studies investigating teachers’ beliefs about pronunciation. However, this line of research has rarely examined teachers’ beliefs as a complex system. To fill this gap, the present study aims to shed light on the genealogy of teachers’ beliefs about pronunciation instruction from the perspective of complexity theory....

L2 teachers, no longer considered to be predominantly passive coursebook consumers, act as mediators between pedagogy and materials in the current era of technology-assisted language instruction and should be empowered to digitalize language learning materials to meet the immediate needs of the digital generation. In this study, we aimed to investi...

Among various factors contributing to autonomous language learners’ success, the beneficial role of out-of-classroom activities (OCAs) has been largely neglected. The present case study sought to explore successful language learners’ OCAs, their perceptions of the efficiency of these activities, and their purposes for engaging in them. To this aim,...

Although the construction of language teacher professional identity is situated in a social, political, and ideological context, scant attention has been paid to tensions emerging from the nexus between identity construction and these contextual variables. To address this gap, this study drew on English language teachers’ collaborative reflection t...

Interactional competence has recently gained considerable attention in language education. As an aspect of this competence, classroom interactional competence has been in the limelight since Walsh’s (2006) delineation of this concept. However, there is no survey tool to measure teachers’ classroom interactional competence. To bridge this gap, the p...

This study investigated the effects of collaborative reflection (CR) on Iranian English language teachers’ intercultural instructional practice. The data were gathered by observing the classroom instruction of four novice and experienced teachers before and after eight CR sessions. The result revealed that CR was an effective tool for improving tea...

Recruiting efficient EFL teacher educators (TEs) is crucial for language institutes as it can directly affect the quality of language instruction and, consequently the success of language institutes. Nevertheless, language institute policies for employing TEs and strategies for their professional development have not been well-documented. To this e...

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the effectiveness of language teacher education programs in Iran. To this end, we evaluated 18 pre-service language teacher education programs following Kiely’s (The Routledge handbook of English language teacher education. Routledge, 2019) framework. Informed by this framework, we focused on what, when, wh...

The chapter begins by providing an overview of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in language teaching over the past few decades and explicates the educational policies for its implementation in different educational contexts. It further describes the status of intercultural pedagogy in Iran by exploring eight Iranian macro-level policyma...

Although several studies have addressed intercultural language teaching, there seems to be a dearth of research in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts, specifically focusing on its critical aspects. To address this gap, this chapter reports on a study investigating the non-native language teachers’ beliefs about critical intercultural lang...

Language learning in Iran is a site of struggle between two ideologically opposed spaces, state schools and non-state language institutes. This study drew on the construct of investment, which combines ideology, capital, and identity, to investigate the investment of Iranian English language learners at A1 and C2 proficiency levels at a non-state l...

Pedagogical reasoning, as one of the major components of teacher knowledge base, is crucially important in teacher education. Motivated by the dearth of research in this area, this study investigated the pedagogical reasoning of four novice language teachers in relation to speaking instruction in order to further our understanding of language teach...

Recent research on scaffolding has turned the spotlight on implementing scaffolding principles for more effective instruction in the classroom. This qualitative study, using observations, investigated scaffolding principles, including continuity, intersubjectivity, contextual support, handover, flow, and contingency, in content-based instruction (C...

Impoliteness entails the employment of strategies oriented toward attacking face and bringing about social disruption. Although research on impoliteness has received great attention in the past two decades, how impolite utterances are perceived and what the recipients of impoliteness do in return has remained relatively under-addressed. The current...

Various features of teacher instruction underpin the criteria used for the evaluation of teacher quality. The current study sought to explore whether nativeness/non-nativeness affects the criteria teachers consider for teacher quality evaluation. To this end, the participants were provided with five video clips of teaching, each presenting a 10-min...

Teachers are constantly involved in the act of decision-making in every moment of the classroom. These decisions are underpinned by pedagogical reasoning, which entails situated knowledge about particular teaching episodes and is reconstructed through teaching practice. The present case study sought to explore the pedagogical reasoning skills that...

Recent theories and models of intercultural communication and the movements toward English as a lingua franca have led to the growth of an intercultural approach to second/foreign language (L2) teaching (Byram & Wagner, 2018; Kramsch, 2013). As a result of this surge of interest, during the past few decades, intercultural language learning for the...

Within the last two decades, research on entrepreneurship has received increasing attention throughout the world. However, most of the research in this area has been done in business and vocational fields and more research is needed in educational and non-business contexts. This study took the initiative to explore the connections among entrepreneu...

Articles Exploring language examiner training as professional learning in a Canadian teacher education program Stephanie Arnott, Cameron Smith, Amanda Battistuzzi, Shelina Adatia, Marie-Josée Vignola 89–113 What have we learnt from the COVID experience? Lessons for the future Carol Griffiths 115–135 ‘I think that I am fossilized’ Examining t...

This edited book has been compiled in honor of Thomas S.C. Farrell, one of the most distinguished scholars in theorizing and researching language teacher reflection. It examines teacher reflection in three main areas: policies, practices and the impact of teacher reflection on teachers' practices and professional development. The data-driven chapte...

Teacher reflection contributes to more effective teaching by affording teachers a tool for understanding the teaching and learning process. Provided that it is continued and systematic, teacher reflection can play a central role in teacher professional development. Teacher reflection has been researched from three vantage points. The first strand o...

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 involveme...

Teacher education programs are shaped and reshaped in line with emerging conceptualizations in teacher education, research on teacher knowledge base and professional development, and feedback received from research on teachers’ beliefs and pedagogical practices. This chapter presents a critical review teacher education in Iran in the past few decad...

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). T...

Teachers from different sectors of education have always been involved in the process of assessing learners’ academic performance. In the language teaching discipline, this has highlighted the significance of language assessment literacy (LAL), reflecting its significance to language teachers across various settings. In the wake of recent theoretic...

Decision-making and pedagogical reasoning constitute the foundation of teacher professional practice. This qualitative study was conducted to explore novice Iranian EFL teachers’ professional decision-making and pedagogical reasoning in the three domains of (1) planning and preparation, (2) classroom management, and (3) professional responsibilitie...

Although the language pedagogies of private institutes are sharply different from those of the public curriculum, scant research has been done on the identity formation of English language learners in these institutes. To fill this niche, first, a literature-driven identity scale was developed, which consisted of the eight components of learning, b...

This experimental study aimed to explore the effect of entrepreneurship education among English language teaching (ELT) learners in Iran. To this end, an entrepreneurship awareness-raising intervention was designed and evaluated through a mixed-method explanatory sequential design with hypotheses rooted in social cognitive career theory. The effect...

Teacher Educator Interest Section (TEIS) of TESOL International Association will hold a webinar to introduce a new journal in teacher education, Second Language Teacher Education. Thomas S. C. Farrell (Brock University, Canada) and Zia Tajeddin (Tarbiat Modares University, Iran), the journal's editors, will discuss the journal and its focus and i...

Linguistic stratification and discrimination in diverse societies could be barriers to status, legitimacy, and adequate employment opportunities for NNESTs. How do these barriers intersect with social justice? How do NNEST leaders address them? What contextual factors contribute to those barriers? How can we advocate for and support those TESOL pra...

Understanding the nature of language teachers’ gendered identity is of significance due to its influential role in the development of their professional identity. However, the number of studies conducted on this area has been rare. The current case study investigated language teacher gendered identity formation to address this gap, focusing on 3 di...

The contemporary era of learning-oriented assessment (LOA) demands teacher professional efforts to appropriately and accurately assess learners' attainment and use the assessment results for the enhancement of learning. In second/foreign language (L2) discipline, this has recently brought language assessment literacy (LAL) to the forefront, emphasi...

Despite many studies on teacher autonomy (TA) and its connection with learner autonomy (LA), scant attention has been devoted to TA on its own and how it might contribute to teachers themselves. Against this backdrop, the current study set out to investigate novice English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ autonomy development in terms of their...

Critical language assessment (CLA) has been addressed in numerous studies. However, the majority of the studies have overlooked the need for a practical framework to measure the CLA dimension of teachers’ language assessment literacy (LAL). This gap prompted us to develop and validate a critical language assessment literacy (CLAL) scale to further...

Despite many studies on the concept of learner autonomy and the relationship between teacher autonomy (TA) and learner autonomy, scant attention has been devoted to TA on its own. To bridge this gap, the present study used narrative accounts to discover language teachers’ autonomy in terms of self-directed professional development (PD), capacity fo...

Teachers' decision-making and pedagogical reasoning and their improvement are key to the effectiveness of teaching. Although a number of studies have been conducted on these issues, there is still not enough information about teachers' interactive decision-making and pedagogical reasoning, and teachers also do not have the necessary skills in this...

Research into second language (L2) pragmatics has addressed a number of learner variables likely to implicate in speech act knowledge. Subscribing to the same line of research, the present study addressed the development and validation of a pragmatic learning strategy inventory (PRALSI), and the relationship between English as a foreign language (E...

Despite the existence of a large body of research on pragmatic instruction, teachers’ beliefs about teaching and assessing pragmatic competence have received scant attention. The present study sought to investigate Persian-speaking EFL teachers’ beliefs and perceived knowledge about pragmatic instruction and assessment and their self-reported instr...

SPRINGER Book Series: Studies in Language Teacher Education springer.com/series/16848 Series Editors: Zia Tajeddin (Tarbiat Modares University) Thomas S. C. Farrell (Brock University) This book series brings together book titles addressing numerous subfields of language teacher education (LTE) as an interdisciplinary area of inquiry that lies at...

L2 speakers’ movement from L1 culturality to interculturality requires their intercultural development from ethnocentric stages to ethnorelative stages. This chapter begins with the definitions and models of intercultural competence and cultural ethnocentrism. It critically outlines the main body of research on ethnocentrism and the impact of learn...

Teacher identity has turned out to be of great importance in teacher pedagogical practice. A number of factors are implicated in shaping and reshaping teachers’ identities. Despite numerous studies on teacher identity, language teacher religious identity has remained under-researched. Therefore, the current study examined how Iranian religious Engl...

The genesis and consolidation of criticality in applied linguistics have contributed to the reconceptualization of its defining aims and scope. This shift toward critical applied linguistics has created spaces for revising language instruction, language assessment, and teacher education. Nonetheless, despite the nexus between applied linguistics an...

Identity conflict resolution is an essential stage in teachers' identity construction. As there seems to be no tool to measure resolution strategies for overcoming the imposed identity, we developed an 18-item questionnaire based on a previously validated imposed identity questionnaire. It included four options of resolution strategies for coping w...

The worldwide spread of English as the dominant language of globalization has accelerated the development and implementation of Foreign Language Education Policy (FLEP) in many countries. However, Iranian macro policymakers seem to be reluctant to develop an overt FLEP due to ideologized agendas. This study employs document analysis to explore FLEP...

Although decades of research have documented scaffolding in second language learning, providing scaffolding in content-based instruction (CBI) has remained under-explored. This qualitative study investigated teachers’ discursive scaffolding strategies and functions and L2 students’ reciprocity to teachers’ scaffolding in science CBI. Four teachers...

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 co...

Lessons from Good Language Teachers - edited by Carol Griffiths April 2020

Lessons from Good Language Teachers - edited by Carol Griffiths April 2020

This study used questionnaires and interviews to investigate Iranian English language teachers’ intercultural identity and its metaphoric realization in the context of cultural globalization. While questionnaire findings revealed that the majority held first language cultural identity, factor analysis indicated teachers’ preference for American cul...

What makes a good language teacher? This up-to-date, practical book addresses that question from a "human" perspective, recognizing that teachers are not just machines, but have feelings, needs, and identities of their own. As the twenty-two topics of the chapters in this volume clearly indicate, language teachers are complex individuals who are ex...

Lessons from Good Language Teachers - edited by Carol Griffiths April 2020

Lessons from Good Language Teachers - edited by Carol Griffiths April 2020

Lessons from Good Language Teachers - edited by Carol Griffiths April 2020

Despite the global spread of English, it seems that voices from Persian-speaking teachers concerning English as an international language (EIL) teaching methods and materials are underrepresented. The present study set out to explore how nonnative Persian-speaking English language teachers respond to the increasing global dominance of EIL and nativ...

The aim of this study was to develop a new typology of scaffolding grounded on a large classroom corpus of teacher talk. To this end, 45 hours of 15 language teachers' classroom instruction were recorded and transcribed. From the obtained data, a new typology is proposed with four major categories, namely meta‐scaffolding, linguistic scaffolding, a...

Abstract 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 reve...

This paper examines how English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in Iran manage the identity conflicts that arise within their language teaching contexts. The position of English in Iran is manifestly, ideologically, and politically shaped, yet little is known about the process of EFL teacher identity construction and management in this context...

The present study sought to investigate how non-native English-speaking teachers in Iran recognize the legitimacy of different emerging varieties of English and how they perceive native speaker language norms and the linguistic diversity of present-day English use. Participants included 210 teachers of English from the Persian-speaking context, fal...

Researchers have extensively compared different L2 learning contexts, such as EFL versus study-abroad, for their impacts on oral production; however, scant attention, if any, has been paid to comparing EFL settings in terms of input factors such as textbooks, amount of contacts in L2, and teachers. Accordingly, the effects of these factors on the o...

With increasing intercultural communication among people from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, the integration of language and culture has recently been foregrounded in language education. This has led to a growing need for studies on intercultural communicative competence. To address this need, this study aimed to afford an insight...

Despite the body of studies on different dimensions of effective teaching, the literature provides little evidence of research on effective teachers as persons. To narrow this gap, 50 pre-service and in-service English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers participated in this study to explore their beliefs about the attributes of effective teachers...

Applied Pragmatics aims to enhance research on acquisitional pragmatics and hence accepts studies which have strong implications for teaching, learning, and assessing L2 pragmatics, including L2 English and other languages. We encourage submissions from a wide range of topics falling within the scope of the journal. The topics can be approached fro...

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...

Reflection is a key component of teacher quality assessment and a venue for professional development. Among many tools for teacher reflection, keeping blogs as a user-friendly, technology-enhanced tool has recently come to the forefront in teacher education. To contribute to the body of literature on the potentiality ofblogs for teacher professiona...

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...

Despite many studies on assessment literacy, scant attention has been devoted to classroom assessment literacy for speaking. To bridge this gap, the present study set out to explore novice and experienced English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ classroom assessment literacy for speaking. Twenty-six novice and experienced EFL teachers first co...

Mainstream L2 pragmatic research has shown that pragmatic fossilization is quite common among L2 learners at almost all levels of proficiency. This study examined the defossilizing effect of corpus-driven activities on 10 situationally-based pragmatic routines under two instructional conditions, i.e. input-based and output-based treatments. Partici...

Textbooks are regarded as a central and universal element of ELT. Textbook use is shaped by many variables, including learners' age, proficiency level, and learning purpose. All multilevel textbook series attach labels such as “beginner,” “pre‐intermediate,” or “upper‐intermediate” to the volumes in the series so that teachers will know how each vo...

Genres of spoken interaction refer to talk‐in‐interaction, which involves two (dialogic) or many (multiparty) interactants in everyday or institutional contexts. These genres include interaction types such as job interviews, small talk, classroom discourse, and service encounters. This entry describes the typologies for the categorization of genres...

Despite the global spread of English, it seems that voices from nonnative English teachers concerning English as an international language (EIL) are under-represented. To address the issue, this study sought to investigate the nonnative teachers’ perceptions of idealized native-speaker linguistic and pragmatic norms in the EIL context. Participants...