Mahmood Reza Atai

Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran

[ 1 ] - Investigating Burnout among Iranian EAP Teachers: A Comparison of ‎Content instructors and ELT Instructors

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses are currently well-established university programs. These courses are run independently by English Language Teaching (ELT) instructors and content instructors without any collaboration. However, ELT instructors and content instructors do not receive the same level of collegiality and social support from the organizations and students. This paper probe...

[ 2 ] - Investigating the Processes and Means Involved in EAP Teacher Learning: A Sociocultural Analysis of In-Service Teachers' Experience as They Professionally Learn

There is little understanding of the processes and means involved in teacher learning. Further research is needed to better understand what happens when teachers learn. Therefore, using sociocultural theory (SCT) as a theoretical framework, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) teacher learning was documented and examined. To achieve this goal, an in-depth description of nine in-service EAP teach...

[ 3 ] - Exploring Iranian EAP Teachers’ Pedagogic Content Knowledge and Teaching Practices, and Students’ Beliefs about EAP Teachers’ Methodology

The systematic study of EAP teachers’ pedagogic content knowledge and their actual teaching practices in class is a fresh avenue in applied linguistics, especially in contexts like Iran, where, EAP courses are taught by two groups of teachers with different specializations; i.e., language teachers and content teachers. This study explored the similarities and differences between language teache...

[ 4 ] - Portfolio Assessment and the Enhancement of Higher Order Thinking through Multiple Intelligence and Dialogic Feedback

The current emphasis on higher order thinking skills (HOTS) has inspired many EFL educators to explore the impact of merging different pedagogical teaching and assessment strategies on the enhancement of thinking skills. Responding to such a growing need to investigate the effect of diverse teaching strategies on HOTS, the present study aimed to explore the impact of the integration of portfoli...

[ 5 ] - Exploring Iranian EAP Teachers' Pedagogical Content Knowledge and Their Professional Identity

This study was conducted in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) context to explore Iranian teachers' perceptions of their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and their sense of professional identity (PI) as well as to scrutinize how their cognitions were practiced in EAP classes. To this end, two ELT teachers and two content instructors (i.e. subject experts who teach EAP courses in addition to...

[ 6 ] - Developing a Questionnaire for Assessing Iranian EFL Teachers’ Critical Cultural Awareness (CCA)

Critical cultural awareness as a component of intercultural competence (Byram, 1997, 2012) has received the extensive attention of scholars in the fields of language teaching, cultural studies, ethnic studies, gender studies, communication studies, etc. in the recent decades. However, no instrument has ever been developed to assess this construct among Iranian EFL teachers. To fill this gap, in...

[ 7 ] - Task Condition and EFL Learners’ Individual Differences: The Mediation of Tolerance of Ambiguity and Self-efficacy

Drawing on Robinson’s cognition hypothesis, the study attempted to examine how task conditions influence EFL learners’ oral performance and whether learners’ individual differences in terms of tolerance of ambiguity and self-efficacy mediate the effects of such conditions. To this end, 62 Iranian intermediate EFL learners from private language institutes in Tehran performed four dyadic decision...

[ 8 ] - An Exploratory Study of Teacher Efficacy Doubts in English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) and English for General Purpose (EGP) Instruction

While teachers’ confidence in their abilities is a crucial asset in teachers’ professionalism and their identity development, their efficacy doubts are also considered useful. Given the diversity of English Language Teaching (ELT) contexts, this paper probes the dynamic nature of efficacy doubts the teachers face and are expected to resolve in English for General Purposes (EGP) and English for ...