Abolfazl Khodamoradi; Mojtaba Maghsoudi
Abstract
Due to bilingualism and interaction among languages, all languages experience changes at different levels as a result of these language contacts. One of these levels is lexicon which has become a source of concern for policy makers and language planners more than the other language levels. Therefore, ...
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Due to bilingualism and interaction among languages, all languages experience changes at different levels as a result of these language contacts. One of these levels is lexicon which has become a source of concern for policy makers and language planners more than the other language levels. Therefore, this qualitative study was conducted to investigate the plan of replacing the loanwords in high school textbooks with the proposed terms by Academy of Persian Language and Literature. To this end, in a structured interview, 126 participants, including high school students, teachers, college students, and linguists were required to evaluate the necessity of implementing the plan, justify its success or failure, and propose suggestions for increasing its efficiency. The results of this study indicated that the vast majority of participants (97%) did not agree with the implementation of the plan. The reasons they gave for their disagreement were confusion in the audience, lack of coordination in the use of proposed terms in educational settings, and the international nature of technical terms. They also deemed the plan unsuccessful justifying that the audience would not use the new terms in their daily communication and that scientific terms are international in nature. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that the Academy of Persian Language and Literature, while diligently trying to preserve the structure of Persian as the language of science, should reformulate the quality and quantity of the plan through modifying the principles and criteria for selecting technical terms.
Abolfazl Khodamoradi; Mohammad Hadi Mahmoodi; Mojtaba Maghsoudi
Abstract
In recent years, teachers’ professional identity has been considered the core of their professional development. In line with this novel approach, this study aimed at constructing and validating a questionnaire to assess EFL prospective teachers’ professional identity. Through a comprehensive ...
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In recent years, teachers’ professional identity has been considered the core of their professional development. In line with this novel approach, this study aimed at constructing and validating a questionnaire to assess EFL prospective teachers’ professional identity. Through a comprehensive review of related literature and previously-validated scales, the most common subscales and items were carefully identified. After assuring reliability and content validity of the initial questionnaire, a convenience sample of of 186 prospective teachers majoring in teaching English as a foreign language filled out the questionnaire. The results of the confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses indicated that the professional identity of the target group consists of seven components, namely, task orientation (6 items), professional commitment (4 items), self-concept (7 items), self-efficacy (5 items), career motivation (9 items), job attachment (5 items) and collective identity (4 items). Therefore, the validated questionnaire can be used for assessing EFL prospective teachers’ professional identity. This questionnaire can be used as a suitable instrument to assess the professional identity of applicants to teacher education programs and assess the formation and evolution of the professional identity in the target group from admission to graduation.
Abolfazl Khodamoradi; Mojtaba Maghsoudi
Abstract
This study aimed at developing and validating a questionnaire for measuring Iranian English teacher competencies. Upon the survey of the literature, three constructs, and 42 sub-constructs were identified, and after examining the content validation by a group of expert panelists, the final questionnaire ...
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This study aimed at developing and validating a questionnaire for measuring Iranian English teacher competencies. Upon the survey of the literature, three constructs, and 42 sub-constructs were identified, and after examining the content validation by a group of expert panelists, the final questionnaire was developed with 36 su-bconstructs. Its reliability was then assured via test-retest method (r= 0.91), and split-half method (α= 0.92). The final questionnaire was filled out by an available sample of 305 graduates of English language. The data were gathered and both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were done. The results of the exploratory factor analysis indicated that only three factors of knowledge, skills, and attitudes can be extracted from the questionnaire. Moreover, the results of the confirmatory factor analysis showed that all regression and correlation coefficients among underlying latent variables were standard ones and the suggested model had acceptable goodness of fit index. Therefore, it is suggested that the proposed model of teacher competencies in the questionnaire is supported by both types of factor analyses.
