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Studies on the salient role of neoliberalism in education have increased rapidly in recent years. These studies highlighted the presence of neoliberalism in language teaching materials in different contexts. However, research exploring the reality of neoliberal mentality in young learners' (YL) English language teaching (ELT) materials are sparse. Contributing to this barely-touched line of research, this study, employing a mixed-methods approach, examined the two most frequently used young learners' ELT textbooks (i.e. 'Family and Friends'; 'Super Minds') taught in Iranian private language institutes. We further explored teachers' perspectives on neoliberalism. The findings revealed that young learners' textbooks are notably filled with neoliberal values such as 'fame & celebrity' and 'material wealth'. The qualitative findings also revealed that most teachers are unaware of the presence of neoliberalism in the textbooks. Implications for teachers, young learners, and policymakers are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper has arisen from diligent studies on the reading comprehension ability of biology students in the university EFL context. The purpose of the paper is to enhance biology students' academic achievement in reading comprehension through an innovative strategy inspired from the word "REVOLUTION". The strategy is introduced in the present paper and it is developed and implemented for the first time in reading comprehension instruction. To collect the relevant data, a questionnaire, interviews, reading comprehension texts and tests were used. Participants were 67 EFL learners studying plant biology at two universities in Iran. They were assigned into two groups of experimental and control. In the experimental group, the REVOLUTION strategy was used as a treatment in teaching reading comprehension, while in the control group, the teacher read out the text and asked students to listen, the teacher was supposed to answer the students' important questions. The main findings of the study showed that when the teacher applied the REVOLUTION strategy, the students had a much better performance on the reading comprehension tests. The conclusion to be drawn from this study is that the implementation of this strategy can be useful in improving the reading comprehension of university students, it enhances learners' academic achievement in reading comprehension and also helps them to understand academic texts easily and effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The role of technology in educational settings all around the world has changed the methods of teaching and assessment in the last few decades. Unfortunately, the shortcomings of e-learning in Iran have deprived students of many advantages of it. This research paper tries to answer the questions regarding the effect of e-portfolio on the students' writing proficiency in the context of learning English as a foreign language and the learners' use of self-regulated learning strategies. Furthermore, the attitude of students towards the use of e-portfolio in the writing class was investigated based on the data obtained through the survey, teacher's field notes, and teachers' observations. The data obtained from English majors at State and Azad Universities in Rasht, north of Iran, was both qualitatively and quantitatively analysed. The findings revealed that the use of e-portfolio had a significant effect on students' writing proficiency and their use of self-regulated strategies. The evidence from the study also showed learners' positive attitude towards the use of e-portfolio, mainly due to its accessibility, convenience, and the feedback they could receive through it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some recent research has focused on the students' silence and inviting more student voice. This paper investigated the reasons behind Iranian undergraduate students' silence in English classes and stepped further to give voice to those students' attitudes toward English with the belief that inviting and including student voice could improve the overall participation of silent students in English courses. One hundred freshmen and sophomore undergraduate students majoring at the University of Isfahan volunteered to take part in this study. From among them, 60 students who indicated they were silent in English classes were asked to complete a survey adopted from Life. In addition, 20 of the students were interviewed to pinpoint the intentions behind their silence. Thus, the paper took an in-depth look at the reasons for the Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students' silence, drawing from detailed examination of the students' own accounts, comparing and contrasting them. The results of this study explicitly states reasons behind the silence of the EFL students in English classes. It also put forth various solutions that could easily be implemented in pedagogical settings by English instructors to break the silence of EFL/English as a Second Language (ESL) students. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Textbook evaluation has been a matter of interest in almost every EFL/ESL context. Since some aspects of the quality of language learning and teaching stem from the instructor's textbook adaptation and use and since different EFL/ESL textbooks target at touching different aspects of pupils' needs, carrying out an assessment of a particular textbook before its adoption and adaptation is of paramount importance. Accordingly, scrutinizing the weaknesses and strengths of the textbooks that are currently being taught in the most popular and the biggest institute of Iran seems to be inevitable. Hence, the aim of this study is to evaluate the Intermediate ILI (Iran Language Institute) English Series. To this end, eighty highly experienced male and female teachers from different branches in different cities of Iran were called for cooperation. The teachers ranged from BA holders to PhD candidates. In order to obtain the intended data, a forty item questionnaire developed by David R.A Litz (2000) was given to every instructor. Analyzing the data was done by running Independent samples t-test and basic statistics in SPSS 16 package for windows. The results show that although the series favor some strong points, the majority of the sections of the textbooks suffer a few number of pitfalls. Moreover, the overall evaluation of the series manifests the average level of satisfaction in every component on the part of the teachers. Also, the ideas of male and female instructors were different in "Conclusion", "Subject and Content" and "Language Type" categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was an endeavor to investigate Iranian EFL teachers' awareness of critical pedagogy and its principles. It also intended to look for their viewpoints about the practicality of implementing critical pedagogy in our classrooms. In addition, the study made attempts to seek the barriers that hinder the application of critical pedagogy in Iranian teaching contexts. In order to achieve the goals of this study, 20 Iranian EFL instructors teaching at university, high schools, and language institutes were interviewed. Since the study employs a mixed-method design, the researcher benefited from both a critical pedagogy questionnaire, developed by Maki (2011), and in-depth interviews. Approaches based on grounded theory were utilized in order to analyze the qualitative data; in addition, statistical procedures such as descriptive statistics and factor analysis were used to analyze the quantitative data. The results indicated that the majority of Iranian EFL instructors are aware of the principles of critical pedagogy and support the helpfulness of such pedagogy and its premises. The study revealed that in spite of language teachers' awareness of critical pedagogy and their agreement with the positively effective CP principles, they rarely apply this methodology in their teaching. Further investigations revealed that the top-down educational system, class size, issues related to teachers' burn-out, limited class time and teachers' insufficient information about the learners' background and learning styles are the main barriers which prevent Iranian language teachers from applying the principles of critical pedagogy in their teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]