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The study examined the extent to which Iranian EFL teachers were familiar with reflective journal writing (RJW), the possible contribution of a consciousness-raising interactive workshop to the participants' individual and collective journal writing, and their perception of the barriers to RJW. The study enjoyed a qualitative design employing interviews and journal writings for data collection. Thirty Iranian EFL teachers sat a face-to-face interview. They were also asked to write two reflective journals, (one individually and one collectively), before, and two others after attending a consciousness-raising interactive workshop on reflection which adopted Richards' (1995) framework on teacher reflection and Soodmand Afshar's (in press) journal content guide. The grounded-theory-based content analysis was employed to analyze the data collected. The results indicated an improvement in participants' familiarity with RJW after the event. Furthermore, the barriers to RJW were identified as 'institutional issues', 'teacher issues' and 'educational system issues'.

The present study explored the characteristics of 147 Iranian EFL teachers teaching at senior secondary schools (N = 62) and those teaching in private language institutes (N = 85). Data were collected through a Likert-scale teacher characteristics questionnaire mainly adapted from Borg (2006). Also, for data triangulation purposes, 20 teachers from each group (i.e., 40 in total) were randomly selected and attended a semi-structured interview. The results of Independent Samples t-test indicated, overall, there was a significant difference between the characteristics of senior secondary school teachers and those of language institute teachers. Moreover, the results of Chi-square analysis and content analysis of interviews revealed that EFL teachers of language institutes and senior secondary schools were significantly different regarding some specific characteristics commonly ascribed to successful teaching including good command of aural-oral skills, "being disciplined and punctual", "being open to criticism", "respecting the personality of students", "listening to students' opinions and letting them express themselves", and "showing interest in students and their learning". The findings of the study might prove fruitful for syllabus designers, teacher educators and pre-service EFL teachers as discussed in the paper.

As part of a large-scale project, this study investigated the differences between satisfied and dissatisfied Iranian junior secondary school English teachers in terms of their job performance. To this end, 64 Iranian English teachers and 1774 of their students completed a validated questionnaire specifically developed to investigate EFL teachers' job performance. The results indicated that satisfied teachers significantly differed from their dissatisfied counterparts in terms of their job performance suggesting that the observed differences in their job performance might have mainly been caused by the degree to which they were satisfied with their profession. The results also showed a significant difference between students' evaluation of their teachers' job performance and the teachers' self-evaluation of their job performance. Furthermore, through a semi-structured interview, the most crucial factors contributing to poor job performance of dissatisfied Iranian secondary school EFL teachers were identified to be an insufficient subject and pedagogic knowledge, unequal attention to individual students, lack of professional commitment, interpersonal relationship problems, and demotivation.

The study investigated the relationship among critical thinking, strategy use and university achievement. To this end, 76 English major students sat the California Critical Thinking Skills Test and filled out Oxford's Strategy Inventory for Language Learning. Participants' Grade Point Averages were regarded as their university achievement. The results indicated that both critical thinking and strategy use had significant positive correlations with university achievement, with the former being stronger. The regression analyses revealed between critical thinking and language learning strategy use, the former significantly predicted university achievement. The results of analysis of variance demonstrated that the three groups of high, mid and low achievers were not significantly different in their use of language learning strategies; however, the three groups performed significantly differently on the test of critical thinking. From post-hoc comparisons and descriptive statistics, it became evident that critical thinking was an asset to the high-achieving group.

The idea that language learning is facilitated or inhibited by a multitude of factors has prompted scholars in the field to investigate variables considered to be crucial in the process of second or foreign language learning. This study investigated relationships between emotional intelligence, learning style, language learning strategy use, and the L2 achievement of Iranian EFL learners. One hundred and thirty eight Iranian EFL learners participated in the study by completing three Likert-scale questionnaires: the "Emotional Quotient Inventory" (Bar-on, 1997), the "Learning Style Questionnaire" (Kolb, 1984), and the "Strategy Inventory for Language Learning" (Oxford, 1990). Also, the participants' final scores in the previous four terms were collected and their average was regarded as their L2 achievement. The results of Pearson correlation analyses revealed there was no statistically significant relationship between learning styles and L2 achievement; however, the findings indicated L2 achievement was significantly related to emotional intelligence as well as to language learning strategy use. The results of multiple regression analysis revealed that among the variables of the study, strategy use, followed by emotional intelligence, was a stronger predictor of L2 achievement. Moreover, the findings indicated that of the components of emotional intelligence, assertiveness was the best predictor of L2 achievement.

Among the factors influencing learners' learning, instrumental motivation, critical thinking and autonomy are thought to be of crucial importance. The present study, thus, set out to investigate relationships between instrumental motivation, critical thinking, autonomy and academic achievement of Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 100 Iranian learners majoring in English language were selected as the participants in the study. For data collection purposes, the participants filled out two questionnaires; one on instrumental motivation, adapted from Kimura, Nakata and Okumura (2001), Carreira (2004), and Takagi (2003), and factors analysed, and another on autonomy developed by Cotterall (1995; 1999). They then sat the "California Critical Thinking Skills Test" (CCTST) form B. The participants' GPAs were also requested and collected. The results of multiple correlation analyses revealed that autonomy correlated significantly highly with academic achievement, followed by instrumental motivation and critical thinking, which stood at the second and third places respectively. The results of the multiple correlation analyses also revealed that the relationships between critical thinking and autonomy, and instrumental motivation and autonomy were significant, but critical thinking and instrumental motivation did not correlate significantly. The results of multiple regression analyses revealed that among the independent variables of the study, critical thinking was a significantly stronger predictor of academic achievement, with autonomy and instrumental motivation.