The study examined the relationship between English teachers' reflective practices and their self-regulation. It also explored the relationships between self-regulation and teachers' teaching experiences. To achieve the goal of the study, 103 English teachers from different senior and junior high schools were selected through convenience sampling based on availability and based on their consent to participate in the study. They were asked to complete two questionnaires: the English Language Teaching Reflection Inventory (ELTRI) and the Teacher Self-Regulation Scale (TSRS). The relationship between teachers' reflective practices and their self-regulation was examined by running Spearman correlation coefficient formula. Additionally, the power of reflection and the teachers' experiences in predicting English teachers' self-regulation was investigated by running a multiple regression analysis. The findings revealed a positive relationship between the teachers' reflective practices and their self-regulation. Nevertheless, there were no significant relationships between teachers' selfregulation and their experiences. Reflective practice was also found to be a strong predictor of self-regulation. In light of the results gained, a list of reflective practice techniques for improving English teachers' teaching quality and selfregulation in teacher education were suggested. The results of this study have implications for English language teachers, researchers and teacher trainers in Iran and abroad.
This study investigates the practices of public (high) school, private language institute, and public-private teachers. In particular, it aims at addressing the role of contextual factors, the variations teachers introduce to cope with them, and the degree of sustainable behaviour among these three groups of teachers. High school teachers consisted of those who taught only in high schools and the ones teaching both in high schools and private language institutes. For this purpose, classroom practices of 60 EFL teachers (N=20 per group) with 3 to 6 years of teaching experience and BA degree in TEF) were compared in terms of group/pair work, teacher talking time, L1 use, questioning, corrective feedback, and coverage of language skills. The findings of the study indicate that a significant difference exists among these three groups of teachers in terms of their practices. It is noteworthy that in the same teaching context of high school, the practices of teachers with and without private language teaching experience are significantly dissimilar except in the duration of pair/group work activities and the rates of repetition and explicit correction. This study suggests that high school EFL teachers with teaching experience in private language institutes subscribe more closely to the tenets of communicative language teaching and thus can act as powerful agents of sustainable language teaching in Iranian public schools.
This study was an attempt to evaluate the attitude of Iranian conference participants regarding the effect of ELT conferences on their professional development and teaching practices. To this end, an appropriate questionnaire was administered to 192 conference participants selected through convenience sampling. The collected data was statistically analyzed, and the obtained results revealed that the participants believed that ELT conferences in Iran have positive effects on the participants' professional development and teaching practices in terms of familiarity with the existing trends in the ELT, motivation for conducting further studies and application of conference materials in their teaching. The results also showed that the participants noted a number of drawbacks in such events, including the low quality of papers and presentations, attendance just for the sake of getting a certificate, and theoretical rather than practical orientation, which might be the cause of demotivation for teachers to attend upcoming conferences. To remove these drawbacks, the participants offered some suggestions such as providing guidelines for presentations and double-blind review papers, holding more workshops, internationalizing the conferences, and attracting more keynote speakers and foreign presenters.
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