Personality of a Good Language Learner: a Case Study in EFL Context

This case study aims to explore how the personality traits of a good language learner contributed to her success in language learning. Using a case study design, this study involved one student who met the criteria of a good language learner who became a champion of English competitions. This study used the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality test and semi-structured interviews to collect the data. The study showed that Meta's extrovert personality was described as talkative, confident, enthusiastic, and assertive. She understood a problem by talking about it and heard others' ideas in solving problems. As a sensing personality, she was objective and made decisions based on logic and facts to decide both sides. As a thinking person, she always worked with plans, and in making plans, she analyzed the pros and cons. She was objective and consistent in doing what she had planned. Her judging personality described how she dealt with their outer world. She had a decided lifestyle that had helped her achieve her goals in language learning by planning her language learning activities.

University Students’ Preferable Types of Teacher Humor in English Classes

The current study aimed to explore what types of teacher humor EFL students prefer in their classes. The study was designed as a mixed-method approach, using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to collect data in two different Vietnamese universities. One hundred fifty-eight university students responded to the survey, and eight out of them were recruited as the participants for the interviews. The study results revealed that the types of jokes (M=4.41), riddles (M=4.08), and language play (M=4.15) were most favored. Besides, the participants' demographic information, including their gender and majors, affected their preferable types of teacher humor. Specifically, males showed more positive attitudes towards teacher humor than their counterparts. In terms of students’ majors, there were differences between non-English majors and English-majored students’ perceptions of irony, teasing, language play, visual and physical humor. Regarding the students’ positive attitudes towards teacher humor, EFL teachers should learn more about valuable strategies for using teacher humor in their classes due to the fact that they do not need to have a sense of humor to use it effectively.

North Bali Students’ Online Learning Self-Efficacy, Engagement, and Satisfaction

This study aimed to investigate the relationship among online learning self-efficacy, engagement, and students’ satisfaction in online learning. The design of this study was mixed-method research through surveys and open-ended interview with the purposive sampling technique. The quantitative data were analyzed using multiple regression. The respondents were 24 postgraduate students from North Bali, Indonesia. The quantitative data were analyzed using correlation and regression techniques, and an open-ended interview was conducted. The research results showed a positive correlation between online learning self-efficacy, engagement, and students’ satisfaction. The study concludes that students’ satisfaction can be enhanced by increasing students’ online learning self-efficacy and engagement either individually or simultaneously. The implication of this study revealed that strategies in self-efficacy and engagement during learning-related emotions could play a mediating role in academic satisfaction. Additionally, learning-related emotion impacts the metacognitive learning procedures, which thus intervene the impact of satisfaction in online learning.

The Relationship between Iranian EFL Teachers’ Emotional Intelligence and their Teaching Style

The present study aimed to detect and compare the most preferred teaching styles by Iranian English teachers in public schools and private language institutes and investigate the possible relationship between EFL teachers’ teaching styles and aspects of their emotional intelligence. The participants were 100 EFL teachers from public schools and private language institutes in Iran, Shiraz. The Persian version of the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory and Grasha’s Style Inventory (TSI) was used to measure the teachers’ emotional intelligence and teaching styles, respectively. Concerning teaching style preference, formal authority style for EFL teachers of schools and facilitator style for teachers of the private institute was the most preferred styles. In addition, the least preferred styles were ‘delegator’ and ‘formal authority’ styles for public school teachers and private institute teachers, respectively. Regarding emotional intelligence, the lowest mean scores were observed in the Stress Management dimension, and the highest was related to the General Mood dimension. Furthermore, ‘general mood’, as a dimension of emotional intelligence, was highly correlated with ‘formal authority’ and ‘expert style’, both of which were public school teachers’ preferred styles. Public School teachers were relatively weak at using ‘personal model’, ‘facilitator’, and ‘delegator’ teaching styles. Thus, it is recommended that they adapt themselves to these styles.

Generating Creativity in Elementary School Teaching: A Case Study of Teacher Professional Development in Indonesia

Creativity plays an important role in education for both students and teachers. In this study, the researchers aim to investigate how teachers generate elementary students’ creativity in the classroom. The study involved ten elementary school English teachers from ten schools in Sintang, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. This descriptive qualitative study employed snowball sampling by which the researchers invited one teacher to participate in this study and later the teacher suggested other potential participants that could be considered as the research samples. In gathering the data, the researchers identified teachers’ perspectives in generating creativity using questionnaires and interviews. The questionnaires results were in the form of a Likert Scale and a diagram was employed to display the overall tendency. Further, interviews were descriptively analysed to support the results of the questionnaires. The results of this study demonstrated that in generating creativity in the classroom, the following criteria should be fulfilled: (1) students’ mistakes should be welcomed and accepted as important part of learning; (2) students are expected to perform not only by constructing novel ideas, but also creating a product (outcome) that facilitates their creativity in the classroom. Other results close to the previous two main points are related to open-ended and real-life (authentic) tasks, resources availability, the atmosphere of care, and the teachers as a guide. In this study, the researchers provide data about how elementary school teachers generate creativity for elementary school students. It is suggested that further research should nurture and provide an atmosphere of care and physical environment to generate creativity.

Rural EFL Teachers’ Emotions and Agency in Online Language Teaching: I Will Survive

This article explores rural English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ emotions and agency in online language teaching. Based on Hargreaves’s emotional geography framework, teachers’ emotions and teacher agency are both captured through teachers’ narration about their feelings, salient challenges that they encountered, and their coping strategies. Research data were collected using semi-structured interviews with two English teachers working in rural upper secondary schools in Nunukan, Indonesia. The collected data were analyzed with an inductive approach. The findings portray how rural EFL teachers experience various emotions which are mainly caused by physical and sociocultural distance, how agency helps these teachers with abilities to reflect on their feelings and to take crucial actions, and to what extend the need for immediate professional development programs to develop online teaching skills is.

An Analysis of the Persian Translation of the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, Based on Juliane House’s (1997) Quality Assessment Model of Translation

As quality is one of the most important aspects of translation studies, the researchers aim at analyzing the quality of the Persian translation of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, which is one of the best-selling novels in the world based on House’s (1997) model of translation quality assessment. As it was time-consuming to apply this model to the whole book, twenty sections out of forty-five sections of the English version were selected randomly. In this qualitative-descriptive research, both source text and target text were compared in tables regarding quality. The study revealed that the translator had translated the text overtly, confirming House’s idea, who noted that literary texts should be translated overtly. However, the cultural filter was applied to some parts of the text that were not acceptable in the target culture. Therefore, covert translation was acceptable in some parts. According to the analysis based on House’s model, the Persian translation was almost of good quality. The register, as well as the related sub-branches, was observed well in most parts of the target text. The text, in respect of textual means, was also cohesive and coherent; however, the lexical choice in some parts needed improvement. The researchers also found out that some part of the source text information was not transferred to the target text without any particular reasons. Thus, it was illustrated that although House’s translation quality assessment model is the best translation quality assessment model among other models, it needs improvement. House’s model was not able to analyze the text in respect of information transfer. Therefore, this could be a weak point in House’s model. In short, the translated text was not of high quality as it needs improvement in respect of information transfer and lexical choice.

Investigating the Effects of Subjective Norms and Trialability on English Teachers` Attitude toward the Use of Technology

Despite the availability of many technological resources in academic settings and their determinant effect in the improvement of teaching and learning, it seems that teachers rarely used them. The aim of the present study is to investigate the effect of psychological variables on teachers` attitudes regarding technology use. In this research, most applicable models like the 'technology acceptance model', 'theory of reasoned action', and 'innovation diffusion theory' are used as the foundation for developing a conceptual framework. Variables such as 'perceived usefulness', 'perceived ease of use', 'trialability', 'subjective norms', and 'attitude' are recaptured from these models. The participants of the present research are high school English language teachers in Shiraz. The researcher uses stratified sampling to identify a representative sample from the population. The present study is administered by using five questionnaires to assess variables. The data are analyzed by means of path analysis. According to the obtained result, perceived ease of use is found to be affected by subjective norms and trialability, which in turn influenced the attitude of teachers toward using technology in their teachings. The results propose that the most influential factor on attitude is trialability (β= 0.38). On the other hand, perceived usefulness has a significant, influential effect on attitude. Subjective norms has an indirect but important effect on attitude.

How Does She Learn English? A Case of a Successful Blind Language Learner

<div><p class="StyleABSTRAKenCambria">This study reports on a case study of a blind EFL learner. The purpose of the study was to explore a detailed situated data to examine to what extent it is feasible to be a successful language learner despite being visually impaired and lacking some learning resources. Interview data and the narratives of this EFL learner have revealed that her success was mainly based on her agentic interaction with the environment and learning context, her high motivation and strategic behavior, and her sustained efforts. The findings provide further insight into the role of learner in exerting control over contextual resources that frame learning and on how different factors interact with each other in the language learning process in the construction of learner identity and the strategies used by learners.</p></div>

Higher-Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)-based Formative Assessment: A Proposed Model for Language Learning Assessment

<div><p class="StyleABSTRAKenCambria">The integration of higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) in language learning assessments has become a crucial issue in 21st-century learning. However, not many teachers are aware of the need to incorporate HOTS in assessments due to their insufficient knowledge and the absence of good examples. Further, there is not much research and literature on HOTS-based formative assessment that can be used as references. This research aims to fill the existing gap by providing a model of higher-order thinking skills (HOTS)-based formative assessments for English learning, especially in junior high schools. By employing research and development design, this research describes the validation of the assessment model. The proposed model of assessment may be used as a prototype for assessing language learning.</p></div><p> </p>