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The efficient and systematic design of language education programs through deploying instructional strategies and techniques and with the knowledge of learners’ cognitive make-up and their environment helps develop increasingly effective and capable language learners. Effective instruction begins with effective educational design which involves a wide range of practices, the most important of which is informed and structured material development. In line with these, the present study was carried out to analyze exercises in Arabic textbooks for public junior high schools in Iran based on Nation and McAllister’s (2010) principles of format and presentation of learning materials and activities. The research employed a descriptive design using qualitative content analysis and to achieve more valid and reliable results, Shannon’s entropy for weighting codes and statistical tests of homogeneity of variance, univariate analysis, and Kruskal-Wallis were used. The population and the statistical sample of activities considered in the study were the same and included all the exercises in the selected Arabic textbooks for the 1401-1402 AH / 2022-2023 academic year. Content analysis was done following a researcher-made scheme based on the layers proposed in Nation and McAllister’s (2010) principles, i.e., meaning-oriented input, form-oriented input, meaning-oriented output, and form-oriented output.  The validity of the scheme was verified through expert opinion and its reliability was calculated using Pearson correlation. The results of the research showed that in these textbooks, there is no four-way balance in the activities and no harmony between the expected four types of activities on form, meaning, input, and output.

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 One of the recent developments in the teaching of writing to second language learners is the genre-based approach which follows the more traditional product- and process-based approaches.   Experimental and quasi-experimental studies on the effects of genre-based instruction (GBI) on writing in English as a foreign language (EFL) have been frequently reported in the last few decades. Findings of these studies are inconclusive and inconsistent. Past research indicates that different populations of language learners may benefit differently from this type of instruction. The present meta-analytic study followed two purposes: a) to explore the average effect of GBI on EFL writing based on both experimental and quasi-experimental studies of the past 26 years and b) to investigate how the variables of writing task type, educational level, and first language possibly moderate the effect of GBI on EFL writing. Four research questions were addressed: a) what is the average effect size of studies on GBI in EFL writing? b) Do EFL writers at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels benefit differently from GBI? C) Does GBI affect different task differently?, and d) Do speakers of different mother tongues benefit differently from GBI? In this meta-analysis, a total number of 255 studies thoroughly searched and collected from various academic websites constituted the original population of studies intended for analysis. Based on careful exclusion and inclusion criteria, 26 (quasi)experimental studies providing 28 effect sizes were included as the final sample. The studies were coded for effect size data and moderator variable indices. The analyses were performed using CMA software. The results of the analyses showed that (1) GBI has a small average effect on EFL writing (Cohen’s d= 0.298); (2) GBI significantly more effective for primary level participants; (3) GBI produced different effects for different task types producing significantly higher effects for paragraph writing, (4) GBI was significantly more effective for learners whose first language was Japanese. The findings of this study can be considered as beneficial issue for both pedagogical and research purposes. The results imply that EFL writing instructors should consider possible moderating variables when choosing their method of writing instruction.

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Systematic research on English language teachers' perceptions of research has not yet shown whether or not ‘teacher research’ is acceptably understood and carried out in institutions of higher education worldwide. Moreover, understanding cross-cultural (mis)conceptions of and barriers to research is an important initial step in promoting teacher research engagement. This article explores perceptions of teacher research held by 68 university lecturers (38 Iranians and 30 Malaysians) teaching English at graduate and undergraduate levels. Data was collected using questionnaire surveys followed by focus group and electronic interviews. The participating lecturers reported their views on the nature of research, their levels of reading and doing research, and their reasons for research engagement. Comparative analyses of their response frequencies indicated that common perceptions of research were more in line with traditional views of research in both subgroups. Low research engagement by doing and moderate engagement by reading was reported by teachers from both countries. Time limitations and lack of skills were reported as the most frequent barriers to teacher research. A series of Chi-Square analyses comparing the two contexts indicated significant differences in how lecturers saw good teacher research and how they were affected by different de-motivating elements of their institutional research culture. The findings indicate that socio-cultural contexts affect research perception and have valuable implications for the curricular promotion of teacher research in English Language Teaching in institutions of higher education in the targeted institutions