No abstract

As a growing approach to assessment, learning-oriented assessment (LOA) has recently flourished to position learning at the center of assessment practices. It aims to unify assessment, teaching, and learning. However, little is written and known about its benefits, challenges, and practices in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts. To shed light on these aspects, the present study was a bid to unpack Iranian EFL teachers’ perceptions about the benefits, challenges, and professional activities that facilitate LOA understanding and practice. To this end, 40 EFL teachers including both genders were invited to a semi-structured interview held in person. The results of the thematic analysis obtained by MAXQDA revealed that Iranian EFL teachers had different perceptions regarding LOA. They argued that LOA is a process-based, feedback-oriented, formative, and alternative assessment technique that foregrounds feedback and progress rather than the final outcome. Furthermore, it was identified that LOA can be practiced by using alternative assessment, performance assessment, dynamic assessment, peer assessment, self-assessment, and portfolio assessment. Likewise, the results demonstrated that LOA is beneficial in enhancing classroom interaction, collaboration, and engagement, integrating assessment, teaching, and learning, and monitoring students’ progress. However, the time budget, large classes, and teachers’ lack of knowledge and training on LOA were perceived as challenges for applying LOA. Furthermore, it was found that Iranian EFL teachers supported the use of training courses, reading articles and books, and attending assessment-related workshops, webinars, seminars, and conferences to improve LOA knowledge and skills. The study provides implications for EFL teachers and trainers, who can use different assessment techniques/practices representative of LOA.

Second/foreign language classroom interaction is believed to have its own idiosyncrasies and peculiarities. Many studies have focused on the importance of turn-taking systems for students to gain and hold the floor. Nevertheless, a limited number of studies has explored teachers" turn-allocation strategies in their instructional interactions. Motivated by this gap, through the methodological framework of Conversation Analysis (CA), the present study attempted to investigate the frequently employed turn-allocation strategies that Iranian EFL teachers use in their classroom interactions with their students. To this end, a corpus of nine hours of English instruction was video-recorded and analyzed through Sacks et al."s (1974) model of turn-allocation. The results of in-depth qualitative analysis indicated that Iranian EFL teachers used multiple resources to allocate the turn to their students. More specifically, it was found that Iranian teachers generally allocate turns to their students through directing their gaze towards them as well as nominating them by their names. Moreover, the teachers, in this study, used non-verbal strategies of head nods and pointing gestures to nominate the next speaker to take the turn. The study ends with some implications for the EFL teachers in that they can manage their turn-allocation techniques more efficiently in their instructional interactions.

Knowing and analyzing the "culture of learning and teaching" in a coursebook or series of course books can contribute to teachers' and students' success in the educational and pedagogical goals and objectives. Cultures of learning and teaching refer to the perspectives of teachers and learners towards learning and teaching. Most of the research studies conducted in this field have referred to values and attitudes related to good learning and teaching as reflected through observations, interviews and questionnaires. However, just few studies have examined this term with regard to language teaching materials, and course books. Thus, the purpose of the present study was tointroduce, investigate, and analyze the cultures of learning and teaching in Iranian secondary school course books entitled Prospect series. Based on the model used in this study, the cultures of learning and teaching in Prospect series were investigated as reflected in their external features including aims and objectives cited in the introduction, tables of content, and layout of the students' books, and internal features including task instructions and visual images in students' book plus the instructions in the teacher's book. Each of these features as well as the pedagogical issues of the Prospect series were provided and elaborated.