Despite being trained in pre-service teacher education programs, most EFL teachers are underprepared when faced with language assessment-related activities. Part of the problem emanates from the fact that Language Assessment Literacy (LAL) as a construct has not been well defined by experts. The purpose of this study was to pinpoint the components of LAL in the Iranian EFL context using an adap...

In this ever changing competitive global society, universities in China strive to achieve quality in the programs, courses, qualifications and services offered to their clients. This paper debunks that myth and argues that micro-teaching can be used as a tool to ensure quality of pre-service English teachers. The paper reviews relevant literature to support the experiences of the author and exp...

The 22-page subject index of the report of the AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education (Cochran-Smith and Zeichner, 2006) has no entries referring to information and communication technologies (ICTs) and only two referring to computers. Several chapters remark that teachers should develop ICT skills, but what this actually means is not discussed to any substantial degree. This does not mea...

In this paper, the authors first discuss the main rationales of situated cognition and its connections with innovation in teacher education. The challenges that might occur in applying situated cognition in teacher education programs, including insufficient opportunities for cognition apprenticeship, limited social interactions, and constraints in microteaching, are then presented. Correspondin...

Teacher education preparation programs prepare pre-service teachers for K-12 classrooms. In order to best prepare pre-service teachers, higher education institutions must be cognizant of the changes that are occurring in today’s K-12 classes. The flipped model is an approach to instruction where direct instruction and lecture is viewed at home and class time is used for collaboration and projec...

Teacher education programs can play a principal role in helping prospective teachers to acquire requisite knowledge and skills. Vital to the issue of teacher education is the efficient evaluation of such programs in promoting prospective teachers’ knowledge base. However, the literature contains very few reports of the evaluation of the Iranian EFL preservice teacher education program, which is...

Introduction In the 16 years since the first Education for All conference at Jomtien, national governments and international donors have invested billions of dollars in programs and reforms designed to improve access to quality education, with a focus on basic education. These education programs have implemented activities designed to address many of the common obstacles to education: school co...