Maryam Khosravi; Seyyedeh Susan Marandi; Leila Tajik
Abstract
One of the first steps toward improving online English language courses should be exploring and understanding the educational policies that shape them. Accordingly, the present study examined 191 educational guidelines and plans that were issued during the COVID-19 pandemic in a well-known Iranian language ...
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One of the first steps toward improving online English language courses should be exploring and understanding the educational policies that shape them. Accordingly, the present study examined 191 educational guidelines and plans that were issued during the COVID-19 pandemic in a well-known Iranian language institute, in order to identify the main concerns of the institute policymakers, as well as the shortcomings of the online language classes. This was done through applying qualitative content analysis to these documents. The emerging themes revealed that the focus of the institute policymakers was mainly on supporting teachers’ and learners’ technological literacy. On the other hand, some of the guidelines which were issued in response to the teachers’ questions and requests indirectly revealed their concerns, thus highlighting the shortcomings. These revealed that online teacher training can be more efficient by supporting online teachers beyond mere technology literacy support, and with more emphasis on effective technological pedagogical knowledge. Moreover, online teachers could play an influential role in the decision-making, development, and teaching of online courses. Recognizing their key role, providing them with more support as well as more freedom, dignity and respect, can lead to an improvement in teacher soft skills, such as patience and empathy with students in times of crisis. Furthermore, promoting the motivation, job satisfaction, and overall well-being of teachers is expected to similarly promote student engagement and improve their performance.
Leila Tajik; Sara Pakand Ahmadi; Seyyed-Abdolhamid Mirhosseini
Abstract
Given the significant role of studying history in casting light on the past and present of events and providing future insight, the present study aimed to investigate the history of English teacher preparation programs offered in five famous private language institutes established in the second post-revolutionary ...
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Given the significant role of studying history in casting light on the past and present of events and providing future insight, the present study aimed to investigate the history of English teacher preparation programs offered in five famous private language institutes established in the second post-revolutionary decade (about thirty years ago) in Iran. Precisely, the study investigated the past and present of the programs in terms of their internal aspects as well as their response to external or sociopolitical associations of English language teaching (ELT) from their establishment. Two administrators, nine TPP (teacher preparation program) designers who were also teacher instructors, and two teachers were purposefully sampled. Data was gathered through conducting semi-structured interviews, in addition to analyzing documents available on the website of the institutes and those provided by the participants. Analyzing data through phronetic iterative approach manifested the related history in terms of five constant features including methodological directions as content, transmission approach in teacher preparation, providing teachers with external opportunities for professional development, insisting on monolingualism in ELT, and disregard for bringing the inclusion of local culture in ELT to the attention of prospective teachers, as well as three major changes comprising inclusion of teaching practice (TP), inclusion of technology education for ELT purposes following the outbreak of covid-19 pandemic, and enhancement of TPP duration. Specifically, the constant features disclosed lack of attention to external association of ELT in designing the programs while the major changes exhibited their internal development. Findings have implications to develop teacher preparation programs based on postmethod pedagogy.