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Esmat Babaii

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I have worked intensively on discourse analysis (mainstream and CDA) with special interest in Systemic Functional Linguistics. Language assessment is my another area of interest. I have published in reputable refereed journals and I welcome international research collaborations related to my areas of interest. For a complete list of my publication please check the following link:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Esmat_Babaii
Address: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Esmat_Babaii

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Papers by Esmat Babaii

A New Scoring Method for Item Response Theory Analysis of C-Tests

by Farshad Effatpanah and Esmat Babaii

Language Testing, 2024

This study aimed to propose a new method for scoring C-Tests as measures of general language prof... more This study aimed to propose a new method for scoring C-Tests as measures of general language proficiency. In this approach, the unit of analysis is sentences rather than gaps or passages. That is, the gaps correctly reformulated in each sentence are aggregated as sentence score, and then each sentence is entered into the analysis as a polytomous item. Rasch partial credit model is applied to analyze the test. To investigate the effectiveness of the new method, the results of this new strategy were compared with those derived from passage and gap levels as well as combining locally dependent items using the dichotomous Rasch model, the rating scale model, and the partial credit model. The obtained scores from the administration of a C-Test comprising four English passages, each containing 25 gaps, to 160 participants were subjected to dichotomous and polytomous Rasch model analyses. The models were compared regarding individual item fit, person/item separation and reliability, global fit (e.g., deviance), unidimensionality, local item dependence (LID), and person parameters. Results showed the effectiveness of the new scoring method. The suggested strategy increases the number of items compared to the super-item approach, provides information at the sentence level, and reduces the impact of LID.

Literature Use in Iranian and International Journals of Applied Linguistics: A Grounded Theory Study

Researchers' thorough familiarity with the related literature together with the appropriate imple... more Researchers' thorough familiarity with the related literature together with the appropriate implementation of previous studies in academic publications is of crucial importance. Simply put, scientific studies need to address the related literature in a proper manner to get published. The main objective of the current study was to delineate citation patterns in applied linguistics. To come up with a citation framework/typology for applied linguistics, the researchers employed constructivist Grounded Theory. In order to present a comprehensive picture of citation practices, the researchers decided to investigate a corpus of five international and two local journals published between 2015 and 2020. Initial results revealed 20 themes which were then further categorized into five major themes. The results revealed considerable discrepancies between the local and international studies in employing various citation forms which can be attributed to journal polices, target audience and researchers' expertise level. Furthermore, differences were detected in quantitative and qualitative studies in using various citation techniques which can be associated with the nature of such studies. Ideally speaking, the results of the currents dissertation can have manifold implications. To begin with, the findings can divulge journal policies about citations. Simply put, the emerged themes can be quite beneficial in detecting citation norms across various journals and disciplines ultimately leading to researchers' more thorough comprehension of the citation norms and patterns.

Medical Researchers React to Peer Review: Attitudes towards and Challenges of Iranian Surgeons Publishing in English

Despite the recent growth of attention to English for research publication purposes, little is kn... more Despite the recent growth of attention to English for research publication purposes, little is known about how researchers view the role of peer review in their success of publication. In light of this gap, the present study investigated Iranian surgeons' attitudes towards peer review and the challenges they face in getting their papers published. To this end, 26 Iranian surgeons were interviewed, and the transcribed data were analyzed through thematic analysis. The results revealed that firstly the surgeons attested to the positive and negative contributions of peer review in terms of changing or unchanging their attitudes, respectively. Secondly, the authors faced a myriad of challenges related to editors, reviewers, and socio-political-linguistic factors in getting their papers published. Moreover, they associated these challenges with positive and negative effects in being connected to their career-stage development and motivating them to conduct and submit more papers. The study concludes with implications for research and practice in how researchers can craft more quality papers to enhance their chance of publication in high-quality journals.

How 'good' or 'bad' Others can be: National identity and intercultural encounters in the Iranian protectionist educational policies

language and Intercultural Communication, 2023

Intercultural communicative competence has been offered as an open-minded replacement for ego-cen... more Intercultural communicative competence has been offered as an open-minded replacement for ego-centric biases stemming from dogmatic national prejudice and its associated selfaggrandisement. While being a commendable proposal, its implementation in foreign language education has not been a widespread success story. Recent attempts to theorise intercultural communicative competence seem to emphasise negotiability in communication at the expense of some persistent issues, such as (cultural/national) identity. This article examines the prospects of intercultural communication in Iranian language policy as a country with a history of troubled encounters with foreign powers, culminating in protectionist approaches to nationalism, identity and the treatment of Others.

Let Their Voices be Heard: IELTS Candidates' Problems with the IELTS Academic Writing Test

by Esmat Babaii and Sajjad Arefsadr

TESL-EJ, 2023

According to the IELTS official website, IELTS candidates usually score lower in the IELTS Writin... more According to the IELTS official website, IELTS candidates usually score lower in the IELTS Writing test than in the other language skills. This is disappointing for the many IELTS candidates who fail to get the overall band score they need. Surprisingly enough, few studies have addressed this issue. The present study, then, is aimed at shedding some light on why IELTS candidates usually score lowest in writing by investigating IELTS candidates' problems with the IELTS Academic Writing test. To this end, 10 Iranian IELTS candidates were interviewed concerning the difficulties they had with this test. The interview summaries were subjected to thematic analysis. The results suggested that IELTS candidates may face four main problems with the IELTS Academic Writing test: insufficient time, unclear and difficult-tounderstand task instructions, "distant" topics, and overvaluation of advanced vocabulary and grammar in the scoring system. The study suggests that IELTS candidates' problem of scoring lowest in the Writing test may not be entirely due to deficiencies in their writing skills, and that certain features of the IELTS Academic Writing test may aggravate undesirable testing outcomes. The implications of the results of the study are discussed.

Doctors' Orders vs. Politicians' Bafflegab: Analysis of Iranian President's and Deputy Health Minister's Speeches on the Coronavirus Pandemic

This study adopted a critical discourse analysis approach to analyze the potential ideological di... more This study adopted a critical discourse analysis approach to analyze the potential ideological differences between the Iranian President and Deputy Health Minister (DHM) in the representation of issues related to the Coronavirus Pandemic. The analysis was based on the meeting of the national task force against Coronavirus chaired by President Rouhani, held in 2020, and DHM's five press conferences and interviews during the same period. By integrating insights from van Dijk's model (2005), the findings revealed that the President's speech on the Coronavirus Pandemic was highly ideological. However, the DHM had a tendency to use more objective and neutral words in the descriptions of the COVID-19 and express his views in a transparent way. The findings of this study are significant in raising the public's awareness of the manipulative function of the language used by politicians to express political ideologies, even on a public health issue such as the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Metacultural competence and ELT curriculum: The case of Iranian undergraduate ELT program

by Esmat Babaii and Ali Dabbagh

International Journal of Language Studies, 2023

The present study aims at exploring the representation of metacultural competence (MC)-a competen... more The present study aims at exploring the representation of metacultural competence (MC)-a competence that allows negotiation of cultural conceptualizations-in the documents designed at policy and planning stages of ELT curriculum development in Iran. For the policy stage, due to lack of an overt foreign language education policy document, seven major policy documents of Iran (namely, 20-year National Vision, Comprehensive Science Roadmap, Support for Comprehensive Science Roadmap in the Domain of Languages, Cultural Engineering Document, National Curriculum, Fundamental Reform in Education, and Islamicization of Universities) were selected. For the planning stage, Iranian ELT curricula for undergraduate students were chosen. Content analysis of the selected documents revealed that the analyzed documents did not represent MC in detail and mostly attended to the 'cultural variation awareness' component and the 'acknowledge' and 'anticipate' principles, which were limited to negotiating Islamic ideology and disregarded Iranian cultural conceptualizations.

A Social Semiotic Analysis of International Inflight Magazines as a Tourism Discourse: A Cross-cultural Study

Teaching English as a Second Language Quarterly (TESLQ), 2022

Despite being an important category of multimodal tourism discourse, Inflight magazines and their... more Despite being an important category of multimodal tourism discourse, Inflight magazines and their
roles in promoting international airlines’ profile and their host country, are mostly underresearched.
Therefore, the present study aimed to examine the application of different visual and
semiotic strategies regarding social actors' race, age and social class and how people are represented
in different international airlines’ inflight magazines. For this purpose, 16 international airlines’
inflight magazine issues were selected depending on the host country's geographical location and
availability. Using Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006 [1996]) and van Leeuwen’s (2008) visual
grammar, the data were analyzed based on ideational, interpersonal and compositional levels. The
results revealed that inflight magazine designers, content developers and advertisement agencies tend
to apply certain visual and semiotic resources. They reinforce bias and false stereotypes towards
certain groups of people in terms of their age, race and social class originating in political, historical
and ideological perceptions and standpoints of higher institutions across the world. The findings also
highlight the importance of visual literacy being promoted to the target audience, including air
travelers and EFL learners.

The Relationship between Selective Attention and Simultaneous Interpreting Performance in Undergraduate Students of Translation

by Esmat Babaii and Hossein Bahri

Iranian Journal of Applied Linguistics

Complexity of simultaneous interpreting has long attracted the interest of researchers and led th... more Complexity of simultaneous interpreting has long attracted the interest of researchers and led them to explore different linguistic, psychological, cognitive, social, and neurological factors involved in enabling the human mind to perform such a difficult task. Within the framework of cognitive studies of interpreting, the authors of this study aimed at exploring the relationship between selective attention and interpreting performance of undergraduate students of Translation. Interpreting performance was evaluated in terms of content and presentation. A sample of 72 BA students participated in the study and completed a simultaneous interpreting and a selective attention task. Quantitative analysis of the data obtained from the participants led to the conclusion that selective attention had a direct relationship with both content and presentation of simultaneous interpreting performance in the sample as significant correlation was found to exist between the variables. The findings suggest that students with better selective attention are likely to perform better in interpreting tasks, especially in terms of the content of their performance which is concerned with completeness and accuracy of informational content of the interpreted message.

Why IELTS Candidates Score Low in Writing: Investigating the Effects of Test Design and Scoring Criteria on Test-Takers' Grades in IELTS and World Englishes Essay Writing Tests

International Journal of Language Testing

This study explored possible reasons why IELTS candidates usually score low in writing by investi... more This study explored possible reasons why IELTS candidates usually score low in writing by investigating the effects of two different test designs and scoring criteria on Iranian IELTS candidates' obtained grades in IELTS and World Englishes (WEs) essay writing tests. To this end, first, a WEs essay writing test was preliminarily designed. Then, 17 Iranian IELTS candidates wrote two essays on the same topic, one under the IELTS test condition and one under the WEs test condition. Each of the 34 obtained essays was scored six times, three times based on IELTS scoring criteria, each time by a different rater, and then, three times based on WEs scoring criteria. The results of repeated-measures ANOVA showed that test design and scoring criteria had significant effects on essay grades. The study concludes that some of the reasons why IELTS candidates usually score low in writing may be rooted in the test design and scoring criteria of the IELTS essay writing test, not necessarily in IELTS candidates' weaknesses in writing. The implications of the study focus on the importance and relevance of the results to IELTS candidates, international students, and the future of assessing writing in World Englishes contexts.

ELT as necessary evil: Resisting Western cultural dominance in foreign language policy in the context of Iran

Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 2022

English language teaching has always been treated as a socio-cultural issue in postrevolutionary ... more English language teaching has always been treated as a socio-cultural issue in postrevolutionary Iran. Fuelled by anti-imperialist sentiment, the political authorities diagnosed Western influence as the major ailment of the society. Having to accommodate for the undeniable virtue of learning English for international communication, educationalists prescribed limited, censured doses of culture-free, localized English input to bring up a new generation immune to the Western values. The analysis of the educational goals in Iranian macro educational documents and their realization in teaching materials reveals an organized effort to resist and undo the influence of neoliberal education and provide an alternative rooted in national-religious heritage of the country. To examine whether this localized version can survive amid neoliberal forces in education and compete with its imported goods, the present paper attempts to provide a bird's eye view about the interplay of policy, culture, and political ideology in the curriculum through content analysis of the Iranian macro official documents and their manifestations in local ELT textbooks, supplemented by the researcher's perspectives as an insider with prolonged engagement in this educational system. Hopefully, careful scrutiny of Iranian ELT program in its wider socio-cultural context contains lessons about avertable errors when proposing alternatives to neoliberal education.

Epistemology of Knowledge in Medieval Islamic Scientific Discourse: Biruni’s Treatment of Subjectivity, Relativity, and Uncertainty

Routledge, 2022

In his critic of Eurocentrism, Boruch (1984) confronts the myth that "the techniques of applied s... more In his critic of Eurocentrism, Boruch (1984) confronts the myth that "the techniques of applied social research in general and statistical evaluation in particular are more compatible with Western culture than Eastern" (p. 823). He demonstrates how modern concerns of current social research were attended to by many Eastern scholars centuries ago. Following this lead, I attempted to examine how social research was conducted in Medieval Islamic era. Using content analysis, I explored the nature of scientific thought, and the characteristics of valid evidence in the works of Biruni as a great thinker of Medieval Islam. I specifically investigated how Biruni tended to separate facts from speculations/beliefs in his search for knowledge. This entailed examining whether and how the presence of other, rival epistemologies were acknowledged or disputed in his writings. The analysis unveiled rhetorical strategies in Biruni's writing to signal subjectivity/objectivity of information and the way he attempted to resolve the observed controversies. To fulfill the purpose of this investigation, Biruni's research on India was analyzed for the 'scientific content' as well as the 'language' used for knowledge dissemination. The findings call for a serious reexamination of the information now presented to us as the (hi)story of science.

Exploring Cultural Schemas in Foreign Language Education Policy (FLEP) Documents of Iran

by Esmat Babaii and Mahmood Atai

Culture is an indispensable part of Foreign Language Education Policy (FLEP), especially in Engli... more Culture is an indispensable part of Foreign Language Education Policy (FLEP), especially in English Language Teaching (ELT). In addition, the spread of English around the globe has resulted in English users" tendency to embed their local culture in their English communication (Kirkpatrick, 2012). However, literature remains silent on culture representation in FLEP, especially in an ideologized country like Iran. To address this issue, due to lack of an explicit FLEP in Iran, the present study analyzed the cultural schemas addressed in the seven major national policy documents of Iran, namely 20-year National Vision, Comprehensive Science Roadmap, Support for Comprehensive Science Roadmap in the Domain of Languages, Cultural Engineering Document, National Curriculum, Fundamental Reform in Education, and Islamicization of Universities. Results of content analysis using MAXQDA Software unmasked Islamic-Iranian culture as the baseline for ELT in Iran. In order to further examine the representations and implications of "Islamic-Iranian culture" hidden in the documents, open coding, axial coding, and labeling along with constant comparative procedure revealed various Islamic cultural schemas. However, very few instances of Iranian cultural schemas were unveiled. The findings were discussed in light of the hidden curriculum and the power relations behind the extracted cultural schemas

The Role of Semantic Priming in Relative Clause Attachment Ambiguity Resolution in Persian

by Journal of Language Horizons, Mohammad Nabi Karimi, and Esmat Babaii

Alzahra University, 2022

The present study investigated the role of semantic priming in the processing of ambiguous senten... more The present study investigated the role of semantic priming in the processing of ambiguous sentences containing Relative Clauses (RCs) preceded by a complex Noun Phrase (NP) by Persian native speakers. To this end, in a self-paced reading task using E-prime software, 63 Persian native speakers read sentences containing ambiguous RCs in their L1, i.e. Persian. The type of semantic relationship in this study was the one between the RC and one of the NPs within the complex NP to find out whether priming one of the NPs through this semantic manipulation would affect Persian native speakers’ attachment preferences. The results of the off-line post interpretive (RC attachment preferences) and on-line data (reading times) revealed that semantic priming affects participants’ attachment preferences, which suggests that their parsing preferences are not guided purely by syntactic information. The findings are in line with constraint-based models of sentence parsing, which assume that, during parsing, multiple sources of information interact and each of them constrains the interpretation in a particular way. The results also support the predictions of the Spreading Activation Model and Lexical Priming Theory.

The Dynamic Assessment of Reading Comprehension: An Exploration of EFL Teachers' Perception and Practice

This study investigates EFL teachers’ perceptions regarding Dynamic Assessment (hereafter DA) pri... more This study investigates EFL teachers’ perceptions regarding Dynamic Assessment (hereafter DA) prior and subsequent to taking part in workshops and panel discussions. Twenty-five EFL teachers participated in a semi-structured interview, 10 of whom were selected through purposive sampling to take part in a five-session workshop, which was held to familiarize them with the principles of DA. Following workshop training sessions, a panel discussion was run for two sessions and teachers shared their ideas and discussed their problems in applying DA in their classes regarding reading skill. Their classes were video-taped for further analysis and they were also asked to keep reflective journals regarding their practice. After these treatment sessions, a second semi- structured interview regarding EFL teachers’ perceptions about DA was run. According to the results of the discussion sessions and interviews, using them as the base of work, an observation checklist was created to assess the EFL teachers' classroom practices and see whether they correspond to their attitudes or not. The results of this study showed that EFL teachers found workshop training sessions both informative and practical. They mentioned panel discussion groups as a good platform to discuss their practice- related problems with their colleagues and writing reflective journals as an awareness raising act which helps them improve their DA practices. Implications for teachers and teacher training courses are discussed.

The Effectiveness of Reflective Learning through Semi-structured Reflection Writing in Reading Performance and Metacognitive Awareness of Iranian EFL Learners

Reflective learning includes learning through reflection and representing the learning process ma... more Reflective learning includes learning through reflection and representing the learning process mainly through the medium of writing. This study investigated the effectiveness of reflective learning process in Iranian EFL learners' reading performance and enhancing their metacognitive awareness as one of the main benefits of reflective learning acknowledged in the literature. Participants of the study were 63 high school students assigned to experimental and control groups. A reading comprehension test and Persian version of Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) were administered at pretest and posttest. A semi-structured reflection sheet was introduced to the experimental group learners to guide their reflections. Independent samples t-test showed significant differences between the experimental and control groups' reading ability and overall metacognitive awareness. Among the metacognitive awareness components, MANOVA showed significant differences in regulation of cognition and three of its subcomponents. There was no significant difference in knowledge of cognition but two of its subcomponents indicated significant differences. Qualitative analysis of the reflections indicated the learners' perceptions of the reflective learning's effectiveness in terms of metacognitive awareness for enhancing reading performance. Reflective learning created a situation for the participants' engagement through writing about their learning and pacing it. They could assess themselves regularly, monitor their learning, manifest their perception, and deal more with their needs, strengths and weaknesses. They reflected their problems and tried to find solutions for them. It gave the teacher awareness of the learners' needs to meet them and provide them with appropriate feedback.

ELT Textbook Ideology

Springer, 2021

Critical discourse analysis tells us that no text is innocent and neutral, as far as advocating a... more Critical discourse analysis tells us that no text is innocent and neutral, as far as advocating a particular ideology is concerned (see Weiss & Wodak, (Eds.). (2003). Critical discourse analysis: Theory and interdisciplinarity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.). This main doctrine of critical discourse analysis is also true for textbooks, whatever the subject matter. Textbooks, as noted by (Apple and Christian-Smith, The politics of the textbook, Routledge, 1991, p. 2), are “the result of political, economic, and cultural activities, battles and compromises”. In fact, they are meant to influence their audience’s perceptions and orientations in accordance with the macro-level policy adopted in a given community. Considering the historical link between ELT and colonialism, on the one hand, and the contemporary concerns with the role of English in the globalization process, on the other, it is not difficult to see why the critical study of ideological import of English language teaching materials has become an attractive area of research, especially for those with a critical orientation toward English as an international language.

The Feasibility of Testing Academic Literacy in EAP Reading Comprehension Tests

The Journal of Asia TEFL, 2021

ESP and its celebrated offspring EAP (English for Academic Purposes) are now an indispensable par... more ESP and its celebrated offspring EAP (English for Academic Purposes) are now an indispensable part of the English language teaching enterprise in almost every major academic center around the globe. A brief review of the EAP literature reveals considerable developments in the areas of materials preparation and teaching methodologies (Charles & Pecorari, 2016; Guardado & Light, 2020; Hyland, 2006). These developments and modifications in syllabi and teaching procedures, which were informed by and in line with recent re-conceptualizations in the field, call for a new type of evaluation scheme.

Strategies in Performing a Multi-Level C-Test: Applying Think-Aloud Protocols

by Tatyana Permyakova and Esmat Babaii

Vestnik Tomskogo universitite, 2021

The aims of this study were: 1) to identify the cognitive strategies that Russian EFL learners ap... more The aims of this study were: 1) to identify the cognitive strategies that Russian EFL learners apply while taking a multi-level C-test; 2) to examine the correlation between the level of complexity of a C-test and the frequency of the usage of the cognitive strategies. The Think-Aloud Protocols method allowed to reveal seven cognitive strategies (predicting, summarizing, questioning, making connections, re-reading/using fix-ups, identifying a problem, and reflecting). The results of chi-square tests indicate that texts with different complexity levels can trigger different type of processing used by the test-takers.

The Role of Semantic Priming in Relative Clause Attachment Ambiguity Resolution in Persian

The present study investigated the role of semantic priming in the processing of ambiguous senten... more The present study investigated the role of semantic priming in the processing of ambiguous sentences containing Relative Clauses (RCs) preceded by a complex Noun Phrase (NP) by Persian native speakers. To this end, in a self-paced reading task using E-prime software, 63 Persian native speakers read sentences containing ambiguous RCs in their L1 Persian. The type of semantic relationship in this study was between the RC and one of the NPs within the complex NP to find out whether priming one of the NPs through this semantic manipulation would affect Persian native speakers’ attachment preferences. The results of the off-line post interpretive (RC attachment preferences) and on-line data (reading times) revealed that semantic priming affects participants’ attachment preferences which suggest that their parsing preferences are not guided purely by syntactic information. The findings are in line with constraint-based models of sentence parsing, which assume that during parsing, multiple...

A New Scoring Method for Item Response Theory Analysis of C-Tests

by Farshad Effatpanah and Esmat Babaii

Language Testing, 2024

This study aimed to propose a new method for scoring C-Tests as measures of general language prof... more This study aimed to propose a new method for scoring C-Tests as measures of general language proficiency. In this approach, the unit of analysis is sentences rather than gaps or passages. That is, the gaps correctly reformulated in each sentence are aggregated as sentence score, and then each sentence is entered into the analysis as a polytomous item. Rasch partial credit model is applied to analyze the test. To investigate the effectiveness of the new method, the results of this new strategy were compared with those derived from passage and gap levels as well as combining locally dependent items using the dichotomous Rasch model, the rating scale model, and the partial credit model. The obtained scores from the administration of a C-Test comprising four English passages, each containing 25 gaps, to 160 participants were subjected to dichotomous and polytomous Rasch model analyses. The models were compared regarding individual item fit, person/item separation and reliability, global fit (e.g., deviance), unidimensionality, local item dependence (LID), and person parameters. Results showed the effectiveness of the new scoring method. The suggested strategy increases the number of items compared to the super-item approach, provides information at the sentence level, and reduces the impact of LID.

Literature Use in Iranian and International Journals of Applied Linguistics: A Grounded Theory Study

Researchers' thorough familiarity with the related literature together with the appropriate imple... more Researchers' thorough familiarity with the related literature together with the appropriate implementation of previous studies in academic publications is of crucial importance. Simply put, scientific studies need to address the related literature in a proper manner to get published. The main objective of the current study was to delineate citation patterns in applied linguistics. To come up with a citation framework/typology for applied linguistics, the researchers employed constructivist Grounded Theory. In order to present a comprehensive picture of citation practices, the researchers decided to investigate a corpus of five international and two local journals published between 2015 and 2020. Initial results revealed 20 themes which were then further categorized into five major themes. The results revealed considerable discrepancies between the local and international studies in employing various citation forms which can be attributed to journal polices, target audience and researchers' expertise level. Furthermore, differences were detected in quantitative and qualitative studies in using various citation techniques which can be associated with the nature of such studies. Ideally speaking, the results of the currents dissertation can have manifold implications. To begin with, the findings can divulge journal policies about citations. Simply put, the emerged themes can be quite beneficial in detecting citation norms across various journals and disciplines ultimately leading to researchers' more thorough comprehension of the citation norms and patterns.

Medical Researchers React to Peer Review: Attitudes towards and Challenges of Iranian Surgeons Publishing in English

Despite the recent growth of attention to English for research publication purposes, little is kn... more Despite the recent growth of attention to English for research publication purposes, little is known about how researchers view the role of peer review in their success of publication. In light of this gap, the present study investigated Iranian surgeons' attitudes towards peer review and the challenges they face in getting their papers published. To this end, 26 Iranian surgeons were interviewed, and the transcribed data were analyzed through thematic analysis. The results revealed that firstly the surgeons attested to the positive and negative contributions of peer review in terms of changing or unchanging their attitudes, respectively. Secondly, the authors faced a myriad of challenges related to editors, reviewers, and socio-political-linguistic factors in getting their papers published. Moreover, they associated these challenges with positive and negative effects in being connected to their career-stage development and motivating them to conduct and submit more papers. The study concludes with implications for research and practice in how researchers can craft more quality papers to enhance their chance of publication in high-quality journals.

How 'good' or 'bad' Others can be: National identity and intercultural encounters in the Iranian protectionist educational policies

language and Intercultural Communication, 2023

Intercultural communicative competence has been offered as an open-minded replacement for ego-cen... more Intercultural communicative competence has been offered as an open-minded replacement for ego-centric biases stemming from dogmatic national prejudice and its associated selfaggrandisement. While being a commendable proposal, its implementation in foreign language education has not been a widespread success story. Recent attempts to theorise intercultural communicative competence seem to emphasise negotiability in communication at the expense of some persistent issues, such as (cultural/national) identity. This article examines the prospects of intercultural communication in Iranian language policy as a country with a history of troubled encounters with foreign powers, culminating in protectionist approaches to nationalism, identity and the treatment of Others.

Let Their Voices be Heard: IELTS Candidates' Problems with the IELTS Academic Writing Test

by Esmat Babaii and Sajjad Arefsadr

TESL-EJ, 2023

According to the IELTS official website, IELTS candidates usually score lower in the IELTS Writin... more According to the IELTS official website, IELTS candidates usually score lower in the IELTS Writing test than in the other language skills. This is disappointing for the many IELTS candidates who fail to get the overall band score they need. Surprisingly enough, few studies have addressed this issue. The present study, then, is aimed at shedding some light on why IELTS candidates usually score lowest in writing by investigating IELTS candidates' problems with the IELTS Academic Writing test. To this end, 10 Iranian IELTS candidates were interviewed concerning the difficulties they had with this test. The interview summaries were subjected to thematic analysis. The results suggested that IELTS candidates may face four main problems with the IELTS Academic Writing test: insufficient time, unclear and difficult-tounderstand task instructions, "distant" topics, and overvaluation of advanced vocabulary and grammar in the scoring system. The study suggests that IELTS candidates' problem of scoring lowest in the Writing test may not be entirely due to deficiencies in their writing skills, and that certain features of the IELTS Academic Writing test may aggravate undesirable testing outcomes. The implications of the results of the study are discussed.

Doctors' Orders vs. Politicians' Bafflegab: Analysis of Iranian President's and Deputy Health Minister's Speeches on the Coronavirus Pandemic

This study adopted a critical discourse analysis approach to analyze the potential ideological di... more This study adopted a critical discourse analysis approach to analyze the potential ideological differences between the Iranian President and Deputy Health Minister (DHM) in the representation of issues related to the Coronavirus Pandemic. The analysis was based on the meeting of the national task force against Coronavirus chaired by President Rouhani, held in 2020, and DHM's five press conferences and interviews during the same period. By integrating insights from van Dijk's model (2005), the findings revealed that the President's speech on the Coronavirus Pandemic was highly ideological. However, the DHM had a tendency to use more objective and neutral words in the descriptions of the COVID-19 and express his views in a transparent way. The findings of this study are significant in raising the public's awareness of the manipulative function of the language used by politicians to express political ideologies, even on a public health issue such as the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Metacultural competence and ELT curriculum: The case of Iranian undergraduate ELT program

by Esmat Babaii and Ali Dabbagh

International Journal of Language Studies, 2023

The present study aims at exploring the representation of metacultural competence (MC)-a competen... more The present study aims at exploring the representation of metacultural competence (MC)-a competence that allows negotiation of cultural conceptualizations-in the documents designed at policy and planning stages of ELT curriculum development in Iran. For the policy stage, due to lack of an overt foreign language education policy document, seven major policy documents of Iran (namely, 20-year National Vision, Comprehensive Science Roadmap, Support for Comprehensive Science Roadmap in the Domain of Languages, Cultural Engineering Document, National Curriculum, Fundamental Reform in Education, and Islamicization of Universities) were selected. For the planning stage, Iranian ELT curricula for undergraduate students were chosen. Content analysis of the selected documents revealed that the analyzed documents did not represent MC in detail and mostly attended to the 'cultural variation awareness' component and the 'acknowledge' and 'anticipate' principles, which were limited to negotiating Islamic ideology and disregarded Iranian cultural conceptualizations.

A Social Semiotic Analysis of International Inflight Magazines as a Tourism Discourse: A Cross-cultural Study

Teaching English as a Second Language Quarterly (TESLQ), 2022

Despite being an important category of multimodal tourism discourse, Inflight magazines and their... more Despite being an important category of multimodal tourism discourse, Inflight magazines and their
roles in promoting international airlines’ profile and their host country, are mostly underresearched.
Therefore, the present study aimed to examine the application of different visual and
semiotic strategies regarding social actors' race, age and social class and how people are represented
in different international airlines’ inflight magazines. For this purpose, 16 international airlines’
inflight magazine issues were selected depending on the host country's geographical location and
availability. Using Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006 [1996]) and van Leeuwen’s (2008) visual
grammar, the data were analyzed based on ideational, interpersonal and compositional levels. The
results revealed that inflight magazine designers, content developers and advertisement agencies tend
to apply certain visual and semiotic resources. They reinforce bias and false stereotypes towards
certain groups of people in terms of their age, race and social class originating in political, historical
and ideological perceptions and standpoints of higher institutions across the world. The findings also
highlight the importance of visual literacy being promoted to the target audience, including air
travelers and EFL learners.

The Relationship between Selective Attention and Simultaneous Interpreting Performance in Undergraduate Students of Translation

by Esmat Babaii and Hossein Bahri

Iranian Journal of Applied Linguistics

Complexity of simultaneous interpreting has long attracted the interest of researchers and led th... more Complexity of simultaneous interpreting has long attracted the interest of researchers and led them to explore different linguistic, psychological, cognitive, social, and neurological factors involved in enabling the human mind to perform such a difficult task. Within the framework of cognitive studies of interpreting, the authors of this study aimed at exploring the relationship between selective attention and interpreting performance of undergraduate students of Translation. Interpreting performance was evaluated in terms of content and presentation. A sample of 72 BA students participated in the study and completed a simultaneous interpreting and a selective attention task. Quantitative analysis of the data obtained from the participants led to the conclusion that selective attention had a direct relationship with both content and presentation of simultaneous interpreting performance in the sample as significant correlation was found to exist between the variables. The findings suggest that students with better selective attention are likely to perform better in interpreting tasks, especially in terms of the content of their performance which is concerned with completeness and accuracy of informational content of the interpreted message.

Why IELTS Candidates Score Low in Writing: Investigating the Effects of Test Design and Scoring Criteria on Test-Takers' Grades in IELTS and World Englishes Essay Writing Tests

International Journal of Language Testing

This study explored possible reasons why IELTS candidates usually score low in writing by investi... more This study explored possible reasons why IELTS candidates usually score low in writing by investigating the effects of two different test designs and scoring criteria on Iranian IELTS candidates' obtained grades in IELTS and World Englishes (WEs) essay writing tests. To this end, first, a WEs essay writing test was preliminarily designed. Then, 17 Iranian IELTS candidates wrote two essays on the same topic, one under the IELTS test condition and one under the WEs test condition. Each of the 34 obtained essays was scored six times, three times based on IELTS scoring criteria, each time by a different rater, and then, three times based on WEs scoring criteria. The results of repeated-measures ANOVA showed that test design and scoring criteria had significant effects on essay grades. The study concludes that some of the reasons why IELTS candidates usually score low in writing may be rooted in the test design and scoring criteria of the IELTS essay writing test, not necessarily in IELTS candidates' weaknesses in writing. The implications of the study focus on the importance and relevance of the results to IELTS candidates, international students, and the future of assessing writing in World Englishes contexts.

ELT as necessary evil: Resisting Western cultural dominance in foreign language policy in the context of Iran

Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 2022

English language teaching has always been treated as a socio-cultural issue in postrevolutionary ... more English language teaching has always been treated as a socio-cultural issue in postrevolutionary Iran. Fuelled by anti-imperialist sentiment, the political authorities diagnosed Western influence as the major ailment of the society. Having to accommodate for the undeniable virtue of learning English for international communication, educationalists prescribed limited, censured doses of culture-free, localized English input to bring up a new generation immune to the Western values. The analysis of the educational goals in Iranian macro educational documents and their realization in teaching materials reveals an organized effort to resist and undo the influence of neoliberal education and provide an alternative rooted in national-religious heritage of the country. To examine whether this localized version can survive amid neoliberal forces in education and compete with its imported goods, the present paper attempts to provide a bird's eye view about the interplay of policy, culture, and political ideology in the curriculum through content analysis of the Iranian macro official documents and their manifestations in local ELT textbooks, supplemented by the researcher's perspectives as an insider with prolonged engagement in this educational system. Hopefully, careful scrutiny of Iranian ELT program in its wider socio-cultural context contains lessons about avertable errors when proposing alternatives to neoliberal education.

Epistemology of Knowledge in Medieval Islamic Scientific Discourse: Biruni’s Treatment of Subjectivity, Relativity, and Uncertainty

Routledge, 2022

In his critic of Eurocentrism, Boruch (1984) confronts the myth that "the techniques of applied s... more In his critic of Eurocentrism, Boruch (1984) confronts the myth that "the techniques of applied social research in general and statistical evaluation in particular are more compatible with Western culture than Eastern" (p. 823). He demonstrates how modern concerns of current social research were attended to by many Eastern scholars centuries ago. Following this lead, I attempted to examine how social research was conducted in Medieval Islamic era. Using content analysis, I explored the nature of scientific thought, and the characteristics of valid evidence in the works of Biruni as a great thinker of Medieval Islam. I specifically investigated how Biruni tended to separate facts from speculations/beliefs in his search for knowledge. This entailed examining whether and how the presence of other, rival epistemologies were acknowledged or disputed in his writings. The analysis unveiled rhetorical strategies in Biruni's writing to signal subjectivity/objectivity of information and the way he attempted to resolve the observed controversies. To fulfill the purpose of this investigation, Biruni's research on India was analyzed for the 'scientific content' as well as the 'language' used for knowledge dissemination. The findings call for a serious reexamination of the information now presented to us as the (hi)story of science.

Exploring Cultural Schemas in Foreign Language Education Policy (FLEP) Documents of Iran

by Esmat Babaii and Mahmood Atai

Culture is an indispensable part of Foreign Language Education Policy (FLEP), especially in Engli... more Culture is an indispensable part of Foreign Language Education Policy (FLEP), especially in English Language Teaching (ELT). In addition, the spread of English around the globe has resulted in English users" tendency to embed their local culture in their English communication (Kirkpatrick, 2012). However, literature remains silent on culture representation in FLEP, especially in an ideologized country like Iran. To address this issue, due to lack of an explicit FLEP in Iran, the present study analyzed the cultural schemas addressed in the seven major national policy documents of Iran, namely 20-year National Vision, Comprehensive Science Roadmap, Support for Comprehensive Science Roadmap in the Domain of Languages, Cultural Engineering Document, National Curriculum, Fundamental Reform in Education, and Islamicization of Universities. Results of content analysis using MAXQDA Software unmasked Islamic-Iranian culture as the baseline for ELT in Iran. In order to further examine the representations and implications of "Islamic-Iranian culture" hidden in the documents, open coding, axial coding, and labeling along with constant comparative procedure revealed various Islamic cultural schemas. However, very few instances of Iranian cultural schemas were unveiled. The findings were discussed in light of the hidden curriculum and the power relations behind the extracted cultural schemas

The Role of Semantic Priming in Relative Clause Attachment Ambiguity Resolution in Persian

by Journal of Language Horizons, Mohammad Nabi Karimi, and Esmat Babaii

Alzahra University, 2022

The present study investigated the role of semantic priming in the processing of ambiguous senten... more The present study investigated the role of semantic priming in the processing of ambiguous sentences containing Relative Clauses (RCs) preceded by a complex Noun Phrase (NP) by Persian native speakers. To this end, in a self-paced reading task using E-prime software, 63 Persian native speakers read sentences containing ambiguous RCs in their L1, i.e. Persian. The type of semantic relationship in this study was the one between the RC and one of the NPs within the complex NP to find out whether priming one of the NPs through this semantic manipulation would affect Persian native speakers’ attachment preferences. The results of the off-line post interpretive (RC attachment preferences) and on-line data (reading times) revealed that semantic priming affects participants’ attachment preferences, which suggests that their parsing preferences are not guided purely by syntactic information. The findings are in line with constraint-based models of sentence parsing, which assume that, during parsing, multiple sources of information interact and each of them constrains the interpretation in a particular way. The results also support the predictions of the Spreading Activation Model and Lexical Priming Theory.

The Dynamic Assessment of Reading Comprehension: An Exploration of EFL Teachers' Perception and Practice

This study investigates EFL teachers’ perceptions regarding Dynamic Assessment (hereafter DA) pri... more This study investigates EFL teachers’ perceptions regarding Dynamic Assessment (hereafter DA) prior and subsequent to taking part in workshops and panel discussions. Twenty-five EFL teachers participated in a semi-structured interview, 10 of whom were selected through purposive sampling to take part in a five-session workshop, which was held to familiarize them with the principles of DA. Following workshop training sessions, a panel discussion was run for two sessions and teachers shared their ideas and discussed their problems in applying DA in their classes regarding reading skill. Their classes were video-taped for further analysis and they were also asked to keep reflective journals regarding their practice. After these treatment sessions, a second semi- structured interview regarding EFL teachers’ perceptions about DA was run. According to the results of the discussion sessions and interviews, using them as the base of work, an observation checklist was created to assess the EFL teachers' classroom practices and see whether they correspond to their attitudes or not. The results of this study showed that EFL teachers found workshop training sessions both informative and practical. They mentioned panel discussion groups as a good platform to discuss their practice- related problems with their colleagues and writing reflective journals as an awareness raising act which helps them improve their DA practices. Implications for teachers and teacher training courses are discussed.

The Effectiveness of Reflective Learning through Semi-structured Reflection Writing in Reading Performance and Metacognitive Awareness of Iranian EFL Learners

Reflective learning includes learning through reflection and representing the learning process ma... more Reflective learning includes learning through reflection and representing the learning process mainly through the medium of writing. This study investigated the effectiveness of reflective learning process in Iranian EFL learners' reading performance and enhancing their metacognitive awareness as one of the main benefits of reflective learning acknowledged in the literature. Participants of the study were 63 high school students assigned to experimental and control groups. A reading comprehension test and Persian version of Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) were administered at pretest and posttest. A semi-structured reflection sheet was introduced to the experimental group learners to guide their reflections. Independent samples t-test showed significant differences between the experimental and control groups' reading ability and overall metacognitive awareness. Among the metacognitive awareness components, MANOVA showed significant differences in regulation of cognition and three of its subcomponents. There was no significant difference in knowledge of cognition but two of its subcomponents indicated significant differences. Qualitative analysis of the reflections indicated the learners' perceptions of the reflective learning's effectiveness in terms of metacognitive awareness for enhancing reading performance. Reflective learning created a situation for the participants' engagement through writing about their learning and pacing it. They could assess themselves regularly, monitor their learning, manifest their perception, and deal more with their needs, strengths and weaknesses. They reflected their problems and tried to find solutions for them. It gave the teacher awareness of the learners' needs to meet them and provide them with appropriate feedback.

ELT Textbook Ideology

Springer, 2021

Critical discourse analysis tells us that no text is innocent and neutral, as far as advocating a... more Critical discourse analysis tells us that no text is innocent and neutral, as far as advocating a particular ideology is concerned (see Weiss & Wodak, (Eds.). (2003). Critical discourse analysis: Theory and interdisciplinarity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.). This main doctrine of critical discourse analysis is also true for textbooks, whatever the subject matter. Textbooks, as noted by (Apple and Christian-Smith, The politics of the textbook, Routledge, 1991, p. 2), are “the result of political, economic, and cultural activities, battles and compromises”. In fact, they are meant to influence their audience’s perceptions and orientations in accordance with the macro-level policy adopted in a given community. Considering the historical link between ELT and colonialism, on the one hand, and the contemporary concerns with the role of English in the globalization process, on the other, it is not difficult to see why the critical study of ideological import of English language teaching materials has become an attractive area of research, especially for those with a critical orientation toward English as an international language.

The Feasibility of Testing Academic Literacy in EAP Reading Comprehension Tests

The Journal of Asia TEFL, 2021

ESP and its celebrated offspring EAP (English for Academic Purposes) are now an indispensable par... more ESP and its celebrated offspring EAP (English for Academic Purposes) are now an indispensable part of the English language teaching enterprise in almost every major academic center around the globe. A brief review of the EAP literature reveals considerable developments in the areas of materials preparation and teaching methodologies (Charles & Pecorari, 2016; Guardado & Light, 2020; Hyland, 2006). These developments and modifications in syllabi and teaching procedures, which were informed by and in line with recent re-conceptualizations in the field, call for a new type of evaluation scheme.

Strategies in Performing a Multi-Level C-Test: Applying Think-Aloud Protocols

by Tatyana Permyakova and Esmat Babaii

Vestnik Tomskogo universitite, 2021

The aims of this study were: 1) to identify the cognitive strategies that Russian EFL learners ap... more The aims of this study were: 1) to identify the cognitive strategies that Russian EFL learners apply while taking a multi-level C-test; 2) to examine the correlation between the level of complexity of a C-test and the frequency of the usage of the cognitive strategies. The Think-Aloud Protocols method allowed to reveal seven cognitive strategies (predicting, summarizing, questioning, making connections, re-reading/using fix-ups, identifying a problem, and reflecting). The results of chi-square tests indicate that texts with different complexity levels can trigger different type of processing used by the test-takers.

The Role of Semantic Priming in Relative Clause Attachment Ambiguity Resolution in Persian

The present study investigated the role of semantic priming in the processing of ambiguous senten... more The present study investigated the role of semantic priming in the processing of ambiguous sentences containing Relative Clauses (RCs) preceded by a complex Noun Phrase (NP) by Persian native speakers. To this end, in a self-paced reading task using E-prime software, 63 Persian native speakers read sentences containing ambiguous RCs in their L1 Persian. The type of semantic relationship in this study was between the RC and one of the NPs within the complex NP to find out whether priming one of the NPs through this semantic manipulation would affect Persian native speakers’ attachment preferences. The results of the off-line post interpretive (RC attachment preferences) and on-line data (reading times) revealed that semantic priming affects participants’ attachment preferences which suggest that their parsing preferences are not guided purely by syntactic information. The findings are in line with constraint-based models of sentence parsing, which assume that during parsing, multiple...

Towards a More Childfriendly Discourse in Primary School Textbooks

PALA conference, 2021

According to Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday & Mattheissen, 2014; Schlepeggrell, 2004)... more According to Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday & Mattheissen, 2014; Schlepeggrell, 2004), child language is essentially different from that of adult, in terms of form-meaning congruence which is manifested through certain lexico-grammatical features such as lower 'lexical density', lower 'abstractness', and higher incidence of 'material' and 'behavioral' processes in which humans or personified creatures, not nominalized, impersonal or unspecified subjects, are the main participants in the processes.

Ideology in English teaching materials

keynote speech

Book review: ALEXANDRA GEORGAKOPOULOU, Small Stories,401 Citations

Book Review: Washback in Language testing, Cheng et al.

Discursive Identity Construction :What We Reveal and What We Conceal

Exploring Iranian EAP Teachers' Pedagogic Content Knowledge and Teaching Practices, and Students' Beliefs about EAP Teachers' Methodology

by Reza Taherkhani and Esmat Babaii

Issues in Language Teaching, 2017

The systematic study of EAP teachers" pedagogic content knowledge and their actual teaching pract... more 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 teachers" and content teachers" PCK, and teaching practices, and students" beliefs about their EAP teachers" methodology at Medical Sciences Universities across Iran. In order to answer the research questions, a wide range of instruments including questionnaires, observations, semi-structured interviews, and field notes were utilized. Sources included language teachers, content teachers, students taught by language teachers, and students taught by content teachers. Representative samples of 318 EAP teachers and 1573 students participated in the study. The results indicated substantial inconsistencies across the two groups of teachers with respect to their PCK and teaching practices. The findings also showed that students favored language teachers" methodologies and teaching practices. The findings promise implications for EAP instruction in Iran and highlight the pressing need for more systematic teacher training programs.