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Being a promising component of educational and occupational success, the inclusion of critical thinking in various aspects of schooling has gained momentum in recent years. Therefore, the present study investigated the Iranian 12th grade English language final examinations based on Bloom’s revised taxonomy in terms of “knowledge dimension” and “cognitive process dimension” over the last five years of exam administration. Using a quantitative content analysis design, the items of the aforementioned examinations administered from 2019 to 2023 were analyzed. The findings of the study showed that the frequency of “conceptual knowledge” items in the “knowledge dimension” and “understand” items in the “cognitive process dimension” were significantly higher based on the results of Chi-square test. Moreover, the frequency of items relevant to lower-order thinking skills was found to be considerably higher than that of the items related to higher-order thinking skills, although instances of top cognitive level items could be traced in these examinations. It was also revealed that there was no considerable change with regard to the inclusion of the two dimensions of Bloom’s revised taxonomy over the five years of administration under study. The results of this study can be a fillip for policy makers, textbook developers, and teachers to accelerate the required changes regarding the consideration of inclusion of critical thinking-based tasks in textbooks, lesson plans and examinations.
 

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This study aims to investigate the representation of gender and intercultural competence in the images and texts of 15 Iranian secondary school English coursebooks, published over six decades. Gender representation was investigated using the framework proposed by Dahmardeh and Kim (2020), and the scale developed by Solhaug and Kristensen (2020) was used as the criteria for investigating intercultural competence. The data were coded and counted using manifest content analysis. The results showed that Iranian English coursebooks mentioned males and females unequally in their texts across different decades, with one gender being represented more in each decade. Regarding gender representation in the images, males were represented more than females in almost all decades. The representation of males and females in the books published in the 1970s was almost equal, followed by extreme and sudden changes in gender representation in the 1980s. However, the books published in and after the 2000s presented a balanced picture of males and females. The coursebooks dealt with intercultural competence in their texts and images very rarely, limiting this concept to religious issues and neglecting other aspects. In fact, the coursebooks addressed only one category out of the 11 categories. Finally, the study ends with implications for coursebook authors, materials designers, teachers, students, and teacher trainers.

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This study investigates the integration of post-humanist pedagogies in e-learning for English language teaching (ELT) through the perspectives of Indonesian doctoral students. Post-humanist principles, emphasizing interconnectedness and collaboration, are explored within digital language education contexts. Conducted at Universitas Negeri Malang, the study employed a sequential mixed-methods approach involving 28 participants. Data collection included closed-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, focusing on three key dimensions: relationality, agency and autonomy, and multiplicity and diversity. Findings underscored the preference for collaborative digital learning environments, highlighting peer interaction and the role of adaptive technology in fostering personalized instruction and learner autonomy. The participants also emphasized the importance of integrating sustainability-focused content in language courses to promote ecological awareness. This research advocates for the transformative potential of post-humanist pedagogies in enhancing inclusive, learner-centered language learning experiences that support linguistic diversity and intercultural understanding. Future studies should explore the scalability and socio-political implications of these pedagogical approaches across diverse educational settings to address broader societal challenges and promote equitable education practices.

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Acknowledging the strengths of the national curriculum, the present study aimed at evaluating its approach towards foreign language education from three perspectives: (1) analyzing the foreign language section of the national curriculum based on the methodological and theoretical underpinnings, and its internal consistency; (2) examining its content based on the basic assumptions mentioned in the literature for setting foreign language policies and (3) evaluating its content based on the macro-documents of the country. In so doing, first, the relevant sections of the national curriculum were analyzed. The results indicated that, although the foreign language section of the national curriculum has some strengths such as a move toward decentralization and increase in hours of instruction, it suffers from some weaknesses such as vagueness of the content and lack of consistency and connection among the aims of the instruction. In order to examine the document from the second perspective, 6 criteria that foreign language education policies should follow were extracted from the relevant literature, and the document was evaluated based on these criteria. The results indicated both consistencies and inconsistencies between the content of the document with these principles. The national curriculum, then, was evaluated to find its matches and mismatches with the policies and orientations of macro-documents. The results indicated that the foreign language section of the national curriculum cannot set the ground for achieving the goals proposed in the macro-documents of the country. Finally, the paper offers some guidelines for developing national English language curriculum.

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The present study was set out to investigate the generalizability of the findings of quantitative research studies in Iranian English Language Teaching (ELT) context. To this end, the researchers, first, examined the general characteristics of the people who had participated as study subjects in quantitative ELT research studies during the last ten years. Considering the subjects’ age and the research sites, it appeared that the participants in previous quantitative ELT studies belonged to 11 groups of people. Subsequent analyses revealed that more than 60% of previous research studies had been carried out in academic settings and on university students. About 20% of the studies had focused on language learners in private language institutes and students in junior high schools and high schools. Pre-university centers had participated in only 7% of previous studies. Highlighting the possible causes of the imbalanced focus of previous studies, the researchers then discussed the limitations that this skewed distribution impose on the generalizability of previous ELT studies.    

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The process of learning never happens in vacuum, and the final product encompasses the various interactions between the language learner and the surrounding world. Most often, the language learner is assessed in a two-way relationship and in this respect, the academic environment and the classroom are the first and the last destinations, which are considered. Considering the importance of ecological and environmental factors in learning a foreign language, the present article tries to investigate the parents’ role in learning English language qualitatively. The amount of effective interaction between the parents and the child, the amount of accessibility to cultural goods such as computer and the Internet and that the effects of these goods on learning, as well as the parents` values with respect to learning English language were included as the purpose of this study. The study was conducted based on the following assumptions: (a) Intelligence and aptitude are not the only way toward success or failure in learning English language, and (b) there may be some discrepancies between the set of values advocated by schools and institutes with those of the parents. Thirty-five families participated in this study whose children were instructed in English language institutes in Mashhad. We interviewed all of these families as well as their children. The results revealed that families in both more-proficient and less-proficient learners use various strategies. At the end, some recommendations were given to improve the quality of education within families.  

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The present study tries to compare differential effects of two types of written corrective feedback, that is, direct corrective feedback and metalinguistic explanation, on Iranian EFL learner acquisition of English conditional sentences and indefinite articles. During both types of feedback, all learners were given sufficient time to revise their writings in the first time. They were not given such a chance in the second time. Then, their accuracy and precision in writing were assessed. It was found that the all types of feedback were effective in their precision and accuracy in writing conditional sentences. It was further confirmed that the effect of direct corrective feedback was more effective that meta-linguistic explanations. Also, giving the learners more chances to revise and rewrite their texts enhanced the effect of the feedback. The results revealed that if the written feedback is given to multiple syntactic structures at the same time, the learners would most probably concentrate on the one which more meaning focused than form focused. As to complex syntactic structures, direct correction of the learners' errors will produce better results than metalinguistic explanations. 

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With regard to the salient role of language in shaping the culture of a society, the present study is seeking to delve into praying in Persian and English languages. To achieve this purpose, 168 movies were watched and conversations including praying instances were transcribed and later analyzed. The collected data was scrutinized based on Hymes’ (1967) model of speaking. The results exhibited that Iranians employed praying in their everyday life much more than the English people did. In addition, people’s intentions of using the speech act of praying and their referents were uncovered. In the end, the possible reasons of the differences in two languages of Persian and English were discussed. 
 

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One of the most important issues in the realm of education is assurance regarding the quality and effectiveness of teaching and teachers. In this regard, it is essential that models and instruments be developed in order to describe and assess them. It is one of the subjects creating a lot of interest in learners is English. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a model as well as a measuring instrument for describing quality of teachers and teaching in English. The present study was an attempt to develop such a model and instrument in a qualitative and a quantitative phase. In the qualitative phase, seven factors were identified as the underlying structure of teacher quality on which basis a 48-item questionnaire was developed. Then, in the quantitative phase, using Exploratory and Confirmatory factor Analyses, the reliability, and the validity of the model and the questionnaire were obtained. Based on the findings, both the model and the questionnaire are acceptable and valid and can be utilized.

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The aim of this qualitative study was to apply the grounded theory methodology to a comparative investigation of the challenges and problems of teaching and learning English and Arabic in Iranian high schools. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with five English teachers and seven Arabic teachers who were theoretically sampled from different high schools in Sabzevar, Iran. Using MAXQDA software, the data were analyzed based on the three levels of open, axial, and selective coding in grounded theory (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). Two models of challenges of teaching and learning of English and Arabic was posited with the problems of teaching and learning of English and Arabic as the core category and teacher, student, and educational facilities as sub-categories. The findings of this study shows that in spite of some differences between these two languages in terms of problems of their teaching and learning, there are some similarities between them. Also, some pedagogical implications for teachers, students, and curriculum developers were discussed in this study.

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The English language textbooks for learners with special educational needs play a crucial role in classifying knowledge in the learners’ minds and framing their axiological-epistemological systems. As a result, developing English language textbooks based on discourses of needs analysis can not only empower language skill abilities among these learners but also contribute to them to become active citizens. However, if the materials developed are silent on the learners’ needs in developing their practices may marginalize the learners as at risk educational groups. Very few studies have critically analyzed prevocational English language textbooks written for learners with special needs to see to what extent the content, conversations and image of these English language textbooks could meet daily affair realizations for learners with special needs.  Embedded in Laclau and Moffe’s Critical Discourse Analysis approach, the current study thus focuses secondary school prevocational English language textbook by ministry of education in grades seven, eight and nine. Findings showed that in the dominant discourse of these textbooks, there exists no symbol of body and life style representation of these learners. They have been selected either in ideal or token manners. Contents and images of these textbooks could not go beyond dichotomizing hegemonic discourses of society (normal-abnormal) and have reproduced power relations belonging to ordinary people. Normal affair is a social construct. Discourse representation and power relations dominant on curriculum patterns frame real worlds and life styles for learners with special needs. Thus, dearth of images and challenges of people with special needs are perceived as their absence in public domains and consequently neglecting multiple life styles of these groups. Hence, this study is of significance as it has some theoretical and practical ramifications for the materials developers and raises their awareness to redesign English language textbooks for these learners based on their needs.      
 

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After the approval of the Document on the Fundamental Transformation of Education and the implementation of the National Curriculum, we have witnessed the implementation of a new curriculum on English in the education system. The program, with a change in the teaching approach, as well as the preparation and compilation of newly developed textbooks, has had a major difference with the previous traditional and inefficient program. Due to the fact that practically all first and second levels of high school textbooks have been developed and taught, the necessity of critical analysis and evaluation of the program, with due attention to its strengths and weaknesses from different perspectives is inevitable. To achieve this, the present paper, using the language-in-education policy and planning framework and through a qualitative analysis has attempted to assess and analyze the new English language program, through delving into attitudes of five experts in the field of English language planning. The findings indicate that the new program, along with its strengths, suffers from deficiencies in teacher education, curriculum period, and especially student evaluation; such ignorance leaves of the new program with serious challenges. In the end, based on the findings of the research, suggestions are made to reduce potential and actual weaknesses of the program as well as strategies are introduced to improve it.
1. Introduction
The post-revolutionary system of English language education in Iran has undergone various changes; the last one dates back to 2013. Following the approval of two significant higher-level educational documents known as the Document on the Fundamental Transformation of Education and the Document of the National Curriculum, the English language education in the Iranian formal system has experienced its most fundamental, and of course, controversial reform (Alavi-Moghaddam & Kheirabadi, 2013). In fact, the program, with a change in its approach, as well as reform in the preparation and compilation of new textbooks, has experienced a major difference with the previous traditional and inefficient program (Davari et al., 2018).
Conceiving the importance of this reform and the necessity of its evaluation at this stage, which has been mostly neglected in the available research on the topic, the researchers attempted to critically evaluate the program. In a more precise word, using the language-in-education policy and planning framework, they attempted to assess and analyze the new English language program.
 
2. Literature Review
The story of English education in Iran has been described and documented in a grwing number of works including Farhady et al. (2010), Borjian (2013), Atai and Mazlum (2013), Davari and Aghagolzadeh (2015), Aghagolzadeh and Davari (2017) and Iranmehr and Davari (2018).
Despite the difference in their points of view, the point in common in these works is the belief that English education in Iran suffers from serious shortcomings for which the necessity of a thorogh evaluation is perceived. Despite this fact, reviewing such works reveals that the English curriculum in Iranian education system, especially the new curriculum, intending to reform the education of this language in schools, has not been studied and analyzed from a policy and planning framework of evaluation. In doing so, this study is an attempt to critically evaluate the new program of English education through integrating an efficient policy and planning-based framework.
To serve this purpose, Kaplan and Baldauf's (1997) language-in-education planning (LEP) framework was adopted as the point of movement. Their framework presents a rather comprehensive platform for evaluating educational programs through five dimensions (curriculum policy, personnel policy, methods and materials policy, community policy, and evaluation policy). The study would try to keep a critical eye on the evaluation of the new Iranian program of English language education with respect to these five dimensions so that the shortcomings and limitations of the policies and practices could be highlighted.
 
3. Methodology
The sampling method used in this study was that of criterion-based selection. In this form of sampling, the researcher creates a list of attributes essential to the study and then seeks out participants to match these criteria. The criteria in this research were: a) Having PhD in applied linguistics; b) Having expertise in ELT curriculum development and evaluation; c) Being familiar with the English language education in schools. Then, eight specialists with such criteria were contacted, out of which five accepted to take part as participants in the research. Among the different types of the interviews, the semi-structured one was selected (Dörnyei, 2007) and the findings were thematically analyzed.
 
4. Results
Regarding the first policy, namely the curriculum policy, findings revealed that the new program suffers from two serious shortcomings. First, the reduction of seven years of English education in the previous program to six years in the new program is in contrast with the essence of the communicative approach. Second, the crowded classes, leading to less exposure of students to English, cannot meet the curriculum objectives. Such findings are in line with Aghagolzadeh and Davari (2017).
Concerning the second policy, i.e. the personnel policy, findings showed that setting new criteria in teacher selection and holding teacher education courses seem necessary. In specialists' views, due to differences in teachers' abilities and skills as well as tangible lack of professional knowledge among them, the implementation of the new program is faced with challenges. In their attitudes, the teachers' awareness of such changes in the curriculum is of upmost importance, though its absence is quite evident. Such findings are in line with Alavi-Moghaddam et al. (2018).
With regard to the third policy, namely methods and materials policy, the specialists' attitudes were positive. In their views, this reform in approach, teaching method and especially textbook development has been essential. However, they clearly asserted that due to the significant position of textbooks in Iran, as the main source of input in education system, their constant revision and update are necessary. In doing so, considering the views of materials developers as well as paying attention to teachers' feedback were emphasized.
Concerning the fourth policy, namely community policy, findings revealed that they had two concerns. At first, the reconstruction of the society’s view toward English language is necessary. Secondly, supplying the financial needs of implementing a nationwide program like this must be considered. In their views, the accompaniment of students along with their families with the new program can guarantee its success.
Regarding the last policy, i.e. evaluation policy, the participants had a negative attitude. In their views, the current university entrance exam imposes heavy burden on the new program. In a more precise word, in their views the successful assessment of learners' knowledge and skills cannot be achieved by the current exams.   
 
5. Conclusion
In all, the findings indicate that the new program, along with its strengths, suffers from deficiencies in teacher education, curriculum period, and especially student evaluation; such ignorance leaves the new program with serious challenges.
The findings also promise some principal implications. First, they will redound to the benefit of language planners integrating the latest innovations in the field of curriculum development as well as considering the specialists' attitudes with regard to the program. Since the ever developing world of educational arena calls for a curriculum which meets the objectives, the findings of the present research can provide the language planners and material developers with an approach in which a thorough evaluation of the new program can be achieved.
Another possible line of research is investigating the teachers' attitudes and perceptions about the recent reform in the Iranian ELT program and the above-mentioned policies. Through such research, undoubtedly a more comprehensive evaluation of the program is provided.

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The relation between culture and language, features the need to examine the effectiveness of language textbooks. Considering the goal that foreign language teaching is mainly associated with the entry of cultural issues into the learner' knowledge, this need increases especially during learning a foreign language. Due to the today's growing importance of visual communication, this article offers a new perspective on images of English language textbooks in our system of education, based on the semiotic model of Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006), which emphasizes the importance of constituent elements of culture and society in analyzing linguistic signs; such as clothing, traditions or customs of cultures and subcultures. Paying attention to limitations of this case study, "ethnicity and location" are analyzed in the images of "Visions" and "Prospects". The present study explains how discourse is represented in these images, based on a scientific background and descriptive-analytical method with the aim of examining the social and cultural functions of language. The results show that the studied textbooks don't have a specific "ethnic-racial" approach and selection of "place" was without bias of the source language or the target language; In this way, the illustrator didn't pay special attention to his or her own language in choosing the images
1. Introduction
Due to the today's increasing importance of visual communication, the present study has a new perspective to this issue and examines the various forms of visual communication and discourse representation in images of "Visions" and "Prospects"related to place and ethnicity. Sometimes it is not possible to express everything that is presented through the images with a linguistic tool, and the opposite is also true. In this study, in addition to examining the semiotic pattern of Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006), we will look at the questions: how discourse is represented in images related to "ethnicity" as well as "place". A deep connection between English language and its related culture and the need to confirm that English language textbooks contain cultural issues in addition to linguistic issues, resulted the researcher into analyze multi-style texts after extracting. In this article, we try to analyze images at the levels of representational, interactive and compositional meaning using descriptive-analytical method. This study is based on the hypothesis that the mentioned English language textbooks, don't have a specific ethnic-racial approach and images related to "place" play a role in conveying concepts without biasing the source language or the target language.
 
2. Literature Review
It is necessary for images to meet the conditions of representation and communication, sothat they act as a complete communication system. One of the language semiotics' schools is social semiotics, which deals with a social dimension of meaning in the communication media and pictures. Social semiotics has many possibilities for semiotics and is presented with the assumption that signs and messages should considered in the field of social processes (Kress & Van leeuwen, 2006: 6). Studies like Meshkat (2002), Shin & Kubota (2008), Amouzade et al (2013), Wue (2014) and Ahangar & Shirvani (2016) have discussed the discourse representation in multimedia texts. However, the present research is a new study to newly published English textbooks "Prospect" and "Visions". Although Halliday's theory (1994) is capable of analyzing pragmatic aspects of language, it is incapable of studying multi-style texts. Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) improved and generalized his idea to images. Torres (2015) evaluated textbook's social-visual semiotics in the educational system of South Korea based on Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006). His findings indicated that some visual and verbal messages conflict with each other. He also explains that this opposition reveals the purposeful ideology within those images. Rouhani and Saeed Far (2013) worked on a comprehensive study using the grammar model of Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006). They analyzed the images of old high school textbooks. According to their research, images aren't used in the service of language learning completely. With this in mind, let's know the other part of paper. 
 
3. Methodology
This research applies Halliday's theory (1994) and Kress, G. & Van leeuwen (2006) to analyze discourse representation in images of English textbooks "Prospects" and "Visions" which affect the students as learners. In this article, we try to analyze images at the levels of representational, interactive and compositional meaning using descriptive-analytical method.
 
4. Results and Discussions
By analyzing the data, the initial hypotheses are confirmed. In this way, the studied images show that people having different ethnicity are the same. They tend to show that it doesn't matter what their particular race or skin color is; rather, human beings regardless of these features, can be successful and efficient people if they have necessary competencies. In selecting place-related images, public locations such as the street and the classroom are selected. It has a general aspect and isn't specifically related to a particular language or culture; As a result, no orientation of the source language or the target language plays a role in conveying concepts

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One of the most innovative tools for researchers in order to improve the quality of education and assessment is the application of Cognitive Diagnostic Approaches (CDA) which is the result of the unification of cognitive psychology and educational measurement; unfortunately, they are scarcely utilized by (grammar) language education and assessment researchers (in Iran). Among the most important decisions to be made in the process of cognitive diagnostic assessment are determining the (sub-)skills required to respond correctly to each question as well as choosing an optimal cognitive diagnostic model. The present qualitative and quantitative study aims to develop a Q-matrix in order to identify such cognitive (sub-)skills, to determine the optimal cognitive-diagnostic model (CDM) for the grammar section of MA entrance examination for English majors, and to pinpoint mastery and non mastery states of the examinees who were 5000 MA entrance participants. The findings from the literature review, informants’ and experts’ evaluations,  and think-aloud protocols in the Q-matrix development phase revealed that each MA examination grammar item taps into between two to four of the six attributes of verb tense, correct verb usage, idiomatic expressions, modifiers, agreement, and preposition.  Evaluation of three alternative models [i.e. the Deterministic-Input, Noisy-And (DINA), Deterministic Input, Noisy-Or-gate (DINO), and Generalized DINA (GDINA)] from among the existing cognitive diagnostic models indicated that G-DINA was the best fit for the Grammar data. Considering the performance of master and non-master participants, the study concludes with suggestions, implications, and applications of the findings for high-stakes language education and testing        

1. Introduction
Cognitive diagnostic assessment (CDA) is designed to measure specific cognitive skills of students, so as to provide information about their cognitive strengths and weaknesses (Leighton & Gierl, 2007). Previous research on CDA in language testing mostly focused on reading comprehension and listening sections, whereas less attention has been paid to grammar. Moreover, in most of the previous studies (Baghaie & Ravand, 2015; Clarck, 2013; Jang, 2009; Lee & Sawaki, 2009; Ravand, 2015; Ravand, Barati & Widhiarso, 2013) just a specified cognitive diagnostic model (CDM) was fitted to the language test data while searching for an optimum CDM was generally overlooked.
Given the importance of high-stakes tests such as university entrance examinations, the current research aims to apply CDA to an Iranian high-stakes English grammar test to specify the underlying skills required to answer the test items correctly; furthermore, it intends to detect strengths and weaknesses of the students     based on the identified skills. In doing so, searching for an optimum CDM was adopted to find the best fitting model to the second language grammar test data.
 
2. Literature Review
Cognitive diagnostic models are confirmatory multidimensional latent variable models with complex structures. These models let researchers propose exact hypotheses about the nature of cognitive processes that students use in response to test items (Rupp et al., 2010). Three classes of saturated, compensatory, and non-compensatory models of CDA are available to researchers. That is, a- the saturated model titled generalized deterministic inputs, noisy “and” gate (G-DINA), b-compensatory models (e.g., the Deterministic Input Noisy Output “OR” gate (DINO) and the additive CDM (ACDM)) which allow for other skills to contribute to the chance of responding to an item correctly, and c- the non-compensatory models (e.g., The Deterministic Input Noisy Output “AND” gate (DINA) and the reduced reparametrized unified model (RRUM)), where possessing all cognitive skills is necessary to answer a test item correctly (de la Torre, 2011).
In recent years, many CDM studies were conducted on data from different fields of studies including language assessment (Alavai & Ranjbaran, 2018; Alderson et al., 2015;  Baghaie & Ravand, 2015; Clarck, 2013; Jang, 2009; Li, 2011; Lee & Sawaki, 2009; Minaei et al., 2014; Moghadam et al., 2015;        Park & Cho, 2011; Ranjbaran & Alavi, 2016; Ravand, 2015; Ravand et al., 2013; Yie, 2016, 2017). Although Park and Cho (2011) applied CDA on the English grammar for Korean EFL learners, only Yie (2017) searched for an Optimal Cognitive diagnostic model in a second language grammar test data. The latter study is very similar to the present study in many respects but the eventual cognitive diagnostic model.
 
3. Methodology
A retrofitting approach (Jang, 2009) to CDA was adopted to reach the cognitive diagnostic model. In doing so, at the first stage of the CDM, a Q matrix (de la Torre, 2011) was qualitatively developed based on the findings from the literature review, the viewpoints of an English language expert panel, and the cognitive processes extracted from college students' think-aloud protocols. The resulting Q-matrix provided all of the required skills needed to answer all of the grammar test items of the Iranian MA entrance examination for English majors. Then, DINA, DINO, and the G-DINA models were empirically fitted to the grammar test data of 5000 participants through the CDM package of R (George et al., 2016).
 
4. Conclusion
The findings of this study showed that the saturated G-DINA model was the best fitting model for the grammar data. The compensatory DINO model also fitted the data, yet the non-compensatory DINA model did not fit the grammar item response data based on the absolute model fit indices.
In line with the results of         Park and Cho (2011), this study also confirms that the six underlying skills including 1-verb tense, 2- correct verb usage, 3- idiomatic expressions, 4- modifiers, 5- agreement, and 6- preposition encompass almost all of the required grammar skills. Moreover, verb tense skill was identified as the weakness of the students, while idiomatic expressions skill was a strength point. Altogether, in a second language context, it seems that even the students majoring in the English language do not master all of the required skills of grammar. The study concludes with suggestions, implications, and applications of the findings for high-stakes language education and testing

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Given the complexity of spoken interaction, acquiring conversation skills has been difficult for most EFL learners, and as EFL classrooms largely depend on hypothetical scripted material, learners lack explicit exposure to naturally occurring language essential for real-life interaction. This paper reports on a quasi-experimental study aiming at assessing the impact of conversation analysis- (CA) informed language-in-(natural)-talk log assignments on the development of Thai EFL learners’ conversation skills. Eighty-eight second-year undergraduates at a university in southern Thailand took part in the study. As part of a monitored self-study task, the participants completed ten language-in-talk log assignments with self-selective use of audiovisuals available online. The quantitative data was collected using pre-and post-test role-plays. The qualitative data was assessed through completed log assignments, close analysis of the role-plays, and written interview for data triangulation. The findings suggested that the log assignment intervention significantly enhance participants’ conversation abilities, including turn construction, turn delivery, and the sequential organization of turn-taking. The qualitative results also show that via CA-informed requirements of the log assignment, students became more aware of conversation mechanisms and language use in real-life interaction. This paper recommends that language-in-talk log assignments be incorporated into existing EFL conversation lessons.

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It is evident that the most important competence emphasized by any translation competence model (TCM) is mastery of source and target languages and cultures. On the other hand, languages and cultures are always closely tied, a fact highlighted more than ever by Agar’s (1994) proposed concept of ‘languaculture’. The present two-phase qualitative study was conducted with the purpose of investigating how the curricula of B.A. and M.A. English translation programs offered by Iranian state universities cover language and culture competence as compared to overseas peer programs and how they can be improved in terms of the said competence. To this end, content analysis of the relevant curricula as well as semi-structured interviews with Iranian experts were used to gather the required data. The principal finding of the present research is that it emphasizes the necessity of revising the current curricula in line with the maximum coverage of topics contained in a proposed list of Persian language and culture topics, English language and culture topics, and joint language and culture topics. The said list of language and culture topics, being another valuable finding of the study, may also be used for designing new autonomous translator, interpreter, and audiovisual translator training programs, or at least concentrations with specialized tracks and strands. Further, the detailed findings of the study, gained through an atomistic approach to language and culture competence, may be availed of by researchers who intend to conduct further studies on each and every element of this competence.

1. Introduction
A close look at various translation competence models (TCMs) shows that they all cover languaculture (LC) competence one way or another. As regards the language side of the coin, knowledge of two languages has been pinpointed using different terms, including ‘linguistic competence’ by Bausch (as cited in Rothe-Neves, 2007), ‘source and target language competences at discourse and style levels’ (Honig, 1991), ‘source and target texts processing’ (Hatim & Mason, 1997; Stolze, 1997), ‘source and target language knowledge’ (Bell, 1991; Kastberg, 2007; Kiraly, 2000; Russo, 2000; Schäffner, 2000; Sim, 2000), ‘grammatical competence’ (Beeby, 1996), ‘language competence’ (EMT Expert Group, 2009; Neubert, 2000), ‘language awareness’ (Fox, 2000), ‘proficiency, being related to certain special bilingual skills’ (Campbell, 1991), ‘communicative and textual sub-competence’ by Kelly (as cited in Brala-Vukanovic, 2016, p. 226), ‘bilingual sub-competence’ (PACTE, 2005, p. 611), ‘communicative competence in at least two languages’ (Göpferich, 2009), ‘comprehension and production strategies’ (Forte, 2012), ‘listening and analysis of source speech and production of target speech’ (Gile, 2009), ‘absolute command of the source and target languages’ (Gouadec, 2007, p. 150), ‘language skills’ (Pöchhacker, 2000), ‘pre-process competence, including language proficiency and terminology management’ (Albl-Mikasa, 2013), ‘perception, decoding, recoding, encoding, and expressing skills’ (Ma, 2013), and more recently ‘language and culture competence’ (Beikian, 2020; EMT, 2017).
Along the same vein, culture sub-competence, albeit variously termed again, goes hand in hand with language sub-competence in most of the models having been examined in the course of the present study. Some terms used by scholars to mention culture sub-competence in their proposed TCMs include ‘communicative competence in source and target language cultures’ (Bell, 1991), ‘cultural knowledge’ by Stolze (1992), ‘cultural knowledge of the source and target language’ (Kiraly, 1995), ‘sociolinguistic and discourse competence’ (Beeby, 1996), ‘cultural competence’ (Kastberg, 2007; Neubert, 2000; Pöchhacker (2000), ‘cultural competence, including knowledge about cultural, historical, political, economic, etc. aspects in the respective countries’ (Schäffner, 2000), ‘sociocultural competence’ (Fox, 2000), ‘source and target culture controls’ (Sim, 2000), ‘cultural sub-competence’ by Kelly (as cited in Brala-Vukanovic, 2016, p. 226), ‘extra-linguistic sub-competence, made up of encyclopedic, thematic and bicultural knowledge’ (PACTE, 2005, p. 611), ‘intercultural competence, consisting of sociolinguistic and textual dimensions’ (EMT Expert Group, 2009, pp. 4-7), ‘multi-cultural competence’ (Gouadec, 2007), and finally ‘language and culture competence’ (Beikian, 2020; EMT, 2017).

2. Purpose
One of the most apparent applications of some of the given TCMs is as valid frameworks, the aim of which is to shape curriculum proposals in higher education (Campbell, 1998; Schäffner, 2000; Kelly, 2002; Pym, 2003; Colina, 2003; Kearns, 2006; Morón, 2009, Beikian, 2020). The present two-phase qualitative study was conducted with the purpose of investigating how the curricula of B.A. and M.A English translation programs offered by Iranian state universities cover LC competence as compared to overseas peer programs and how the said national programs can be improved in terms of covering this pivotal competence.

3. Research Method
The first phase of the study aimed at finding how LC competence is covered by Iranian state universities offering B.A. and M.A. translation programs in English and their overseas peer programs. Since Iranian state universities are not ranked officially, all 23 B.A. translator training programs and 8 M.A. translation studies programs offered in English by Iranian state universities were included in the study. As regards overseas peer programs, based on U21 Ranking of National Higher Education Systems in 2020, translation programs offered in 49 countries enjoying top systems of higher education were included in the study, which resulted in examining 20 B.A. programs and 73 M.A. programs. In order to access the curriculum of each program, first we consulted the program website; and if the required data were not found, we used personal communication with the program contact person. Then the contents of the national and overseas curricula were analyzed and all language and culture courses were extracted. Afterward, the said courses were categorized based on the themes which the researchers had extracted from the relevant literature. In addition, the courses extracted from the national and overseas curricula were further compared and contrasted for the purpose of finding the similarities and differences among them.
In the second phase, we interviewed 55 Iranian experts who had been defined to be either university teachers having taught translation and/or interpreting courses at Iranian state universities for at least 3 years or translation studies Ph.D. candidates being graduates of both B.A. and M.A. translation programs offered in English by Iranian state universities. Then semi-structured interviews were transcribed and analyzed using the ‘structuring’ form of qualitative content analysis method. To this end, first of all, tentative categories were defined and explained in the coding agenda; and for the purpose of differentiating the categories, coding rules were defined. Subsequently, the transcript of each interview was read and every statement seeming relevant at a first glance was underlined. After reconsidering the developed categories, the content of each transcript was structured using a color scheme. Then statements, opinions, and quotes were taken out by order of their color and summarized into the category system, although some were quoted directly. In the end, the categories and subcategories were analyzed by tallying their frequencies, which were then represented using tables.


4. Findings and Discussion
As regards language sub-competence, while Iranian programs mostly focus on receptive and productive skills as well as such components as grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, foreign peer programs offer quite variegated courses such as etymology, text analysis, appreciating written texts, language consolidation for translation and interpreting purposes, business communication, communication skills, language and communication studies, health communication, characteristics of specialized texts, text analysis for translation, creative writing, intensive writing, advanced native language, native language skills for translation, multilingual debate, conversation analysis, analysis of persuasive texts, language fluency for interpreters, native language for conference interpreters, native language fluency enhancement, editing in native language writing, native language in audio-visual translation, documentation and terminology for translation, lexicology, applied terminology, and foreign language semantic factoring.
When it comes to culture sub-competence, there are only a total number of 6 culture courses contained in the curricula of Iranian B.A and M.A. programs. What adds fuel to this flame of failure to cover culture adequately is that some of the courses (e.g., ‘cultural elements in two languages’ and ‘culture and sociology in translation) are electives, allowing Iranian universities either not to offer them at all or, in the best scenario, suffice to offering only one (Rezvani &Vakilinejad, 2012). This is while foreign peer programs offer a multitude of various courses intended to form students’ cultural competence, such as communication across cultures, subjects in culture and communication, variation and change, discourse analysis, discourse and power, language and power, language and culture, culture and conflict, intercultural studies, intercultural communication, cross-cultural perspectives on society, representation of cultures, intercultural perspectives on sustainable development, institutional discourse, changing topics from the intercultural communication area, culture and business, advanced intercultural communication/negotiations, advanced political and legal communication, and advanced health communication.
According to the Iranian experts, national B.A. programs are afflicted with such problems as applicants’ not having good commands of English language proficiency (agreeing with Behafarin, 2015; Hadipour, 2017; Riazi & Razmjou, 2004; Yousefi, 2014; Ziahosseiny, 2003) and Persian language proficiency (consistent with Behafarin, 2015; Miremadi, 2003; Riazi & Razmjou, 2004) and their ill-informedness about the nature and requirements of the program. The said experts argued that Iranian M.A. programs suffer from such deficiencies as admission of applicants who are mostly ill-informed about the nature and requirements of the program (consistent with Birjandi & Nosratinia, 2009), unsatisfactory admission system, applicants’ not having good commands of Persian and English proficiency (compatible with Miremadi, 2003), and inadequate prerequisite courses for the students not having done their B.A. in translation. Added to these are out-of-date curricula and departments’ lack of adequate autonomy to determine admission criteria.
When asked about how the B.A. situation could be improved, the interviewees suggested that admission criteria be made stricter (confirming Hadipour, 2017; Khazaee Farid & Khoshsaligheh, 2010) by adding independent English and Persian proficiency tests to the current entrance exam and including English and Persian writing competence tests in the same; departments be given autonomy on admitting applicants using admission interviews; applicants be required to provide an acceptable TOEFL or IELTS score; an English proficiency placement test be given to newly admitted students (compatible with Ziahosseiny, 2003); courses on Persian language reading, writing, and editing (consistent with Khoshsaligheh, 2014; Miremadi, 2003; Riazi & Razmjou, 2004; Sohrabi, Rahimi & Arjmandi, 2015) as well as courses on English and Persian cultures (in agreement with Behafarin, 2015; Khoshsaligheh, 2010; Salari & Khazaee Farid, 2015) be added to the curricula; the present curricula be revised by modeling successful leading programs worldwide (agreeing with Heydarian, 2003; Khazaee Farid, 2001; Miremadi, 2003); and textbooks be localized.
As a way out of the current M.A. situation, the Iranian experts proposed that the current entrance exam be made stricter by adding an admission interview and a practical translation aptitude test in the form of essay questions; stricter language proficiency criteria be established by requiring applicants to provide an acceptable TOEFL or IELTS score; applicants not having done their B.A. in translation either not be admitted or be required to provide an English proficiency certificate; courses directed at training political and journalistic text translators and localization experts be included in the curriculum; courses be directed at training specialized translators and interpreters; courses such as Localization, Foundations of History, Editing and Proofreading, CDA and Translation, and Foundations of Culture and Sociology be included in the curriculum; the course Sociocultural Studies in Translation be offered as a compulsory course; and the present curricula be revised by modeling successful leading programs worldwide (confirming Heydarian, 2003; Khazaee Farid, 2001; Miremadi, 2003).

5. Innovation and Contribution
Upon integrating the findings of the two phases of the study, we prepared a list of course topics jointly recommended by the interviewees and extracted from the curricula of peer overseas programs. The principal contribution of the present research is that it emphasizes the necessity of revising the current curricula in line with maximum coverage of topics proposed as a list of Persian LC topics, English LC topics, and Joint LC topics. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that this list is based both on Iranian experts’ views and the insights gained from the curricula of a total of 93 foreign peer programs offered by leading universities worldwide. The said list can prove very useful for both revising the current curricula and devising new ones. It is axiomatic that the proposed LC course topics are too many to be assigned individual courses. This is why they have been labeled ‘course topics’, which implies that when revising the exiting curricula or devising new ones, curriculum designers need to merge several related course topics in one single course. In addition, these course topics have been proposed with an eye to designing autonomous translation, interpreting, and audiovisual translation programs, concentrations, and specialized tracks.


 

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"English Language and Literature" courses are essential components of university education. They provide a significant avenue for understanding the politics, economics, and customs of English-speaking countries. These courses facilitate a mastery of English grammar, which in turn enhances students' comprehension of spoken and written English content. However, traditional modes of instruction in English Language and Literature often lack engagement and interactivity, thereby limiting the effectiveness of learning in this field. In order to boost learners' interest and efficiency in studying English, it is imperative to shift away from conventional teaching approaches. With the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence in various domains, its integration with English Language and Literature education can yield intelligent learning experiences. This study employs a combination of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Gated Recurrent Units (GRU) to reform the teaching model in English Language and Literature. The results indicate that CNN and GRU methodologies offer substantial support in realizing intelligent approaches to teaching this field. These methods exhibit a high degree of similarity and accuracy in predicting linguistic features in English Language and Literature. They excel in terms of predictive and scatter error distribution, showcasing superior performance.


 

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Autonomy plays a crucial role in the enhancement of important learning qualities in the learners. In that line of thinking, this study was launched to discover how English language learners exposed to an autonomously managed versus teacher controlled conditions would respond to the learning determinants. Two classes of English language learners at Isfahan University of Technology, Iran were thus treated under the two learning conditions. On the closing days of the semester, they were administered a questionnaire constructed based on three action phases of learning, namely, forethought, performance/volitional control, and self reflection. The questionnaire statements were rated on the Likert scale. The data analysis revealed that autonomy to a large extent determines the learners' views of learning. The class where autonomy was practiced showed a great deal of motivational boost or what is reinterpreted as forethought. The other two categories of learning, namely, their performance and self reflection, were also distinctly better perceived by the autonomous learners. The results point out the significance of preparing learners through autonomy for the prospective independent and critical learning.