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The emergence of novel SARS-CoV-2 has had devastating consequences for populations in all parts of the world. The virus that causes Covid-19 has resulted in high mortality, particularly among vulnerable individuals. It has also given rise to a condition termed “long Covid.” This is a constellation of often debilitating symptoms that persists for many months after initial infection with SARS-CoV-2. Many adults with long Covid report an array of cognitive-linguistic difficulties that are commonly characterized as “brain fog.” These difficulties compromise daily activities and occupational functioning, and cause considerable psychological distress, with many affected individuals unable to work months after the acute phase of their illness. This case study examines a 61-year-old man who contracted SARS-CoV-2 in the early days of the first wave of the pandemic in the UK. It explores in detail the development of his illness over several months. A detailed analysis of his language is undertaken. It reveals a speaker with intact structural language skills and normal speech production abilities. However, there was an impairment of high-level language skills that affected the informativeness of his discourse. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the clinical implications of this case.

This rapid spread of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) across Europe means that secondary education teachers of subjects like science or history are increasingly required to teach their subjects in English. For some this is a positive impulse to professional development, but in all cases changing the language of instruction poses a challenge, sometimes triggering negative feelings and leading teachers to question their professional identity. After reviewing relevant research, we analyse the impact of a training programme for in-service CLIL teachers on their emotions and identity. Our findings show that the transition to CLIL was a cause of considerable insecurity in this sample, associated with threats to the teachers’ professional self-confidence and satisfaction. Future training should allow more space for consideration of emotional factors, with a view to helping teachers reshape their professional identity.

The purpose of the present study is to describe a traditional Spanish heritage language course design, provide an account of an interfaced approach to heritage language instruction (a communicative language teaching approach which promotes linguistic inclusivity combining both traditional explicit grammar instruction and aspects of implicit-learning focused instructional techniques), and compare student perceptions and performance across the two instructional treatments. Participants included 81 learners enrolled in lower-level and intermediate-level Spanish HL courses. All participants completed course-exit perception and satisfaction surveys over two semesters targeting the Traditional Instruction (TI) course design and the interfaced course-design (IFI). All participants also completed the Diplomas de Español como Lengua Extranjera (DELE) test at semester-onset and course-final points of time. Preliminary findings showed within-group gains in grammar and vocabulary only for participants who were exposed to the interfaced approach.

Translation evaluation is an indispensable part of teaching translation to determine whether the instructional objectives are met. The present study aimed at providing a meticulous, critical state of the art of the translation evaluation methods practiced by Iranian university teachers in undergraduate English Translation Program. Using an a priori coding scheme encompassing ten features of summative tests, the researcher conducted a thorough content analysis on a sample of 19 final translation achievement tests on each of the three major general translation courses administered in four different types of Iranian universities. The results revealed that the method commonly and currently used in the BA translation program does not seem to create a sense of satisfaction in either the students or in the teacher assessors themselves. The results of the present study may open new avenues for further research on academic translation evaluation, which is a crucial aspect of translation studies inquiry particularly in Iran.

Burgeoning research in the field indicates the importance of teachers’ personal epistemology as a foundation for their professional practices. Personal epistemologies refer to descriptions of the beliefs that teachers hold about the nature and sources of knowledge. Although this understanding is in place, most studies have focused on examining personal epistemologies drawn from practitioners in school contexts. Accordingly, there is limited research describing university academics’ personal epistemologies. To address this knowledge gap, in this conceptual paper I discuss my personal epistemology on the theoretical perspectives that underpin my instructional practices in English language teaching. Specifically, the paper focuses on the theoretical perspectives that shape the curriculum, as well as the pedagogical choices that are made in facilitating learning for student teachers in English as a Second Language (ESL) programmes in initial teacher education. Based on the discussion, I affirm the importance of personal epistemologies in framing professional development for university academics. This personal epistemology account may help instructors structure their own epistemic reflection practices as a strategy for enhancing their teaching practices.

Many educational systems in the world try to help in-service teachers develop their teaching practice by holding in-service teacher professional development (TPD) programs and designing research-based teacher evaluation systems (TES). The present study aimed at investigating Iranian EFL teachers’ perception of the impact of current in-service TPD programs and the TES on their teaching practice. It also tried to identify the EFL teachers’ and teacher educators’ ideas on how to help in-service teachers improve their expertise more effectively. To this end, in the quantitative phase of the study, 160 EFL teachers were asked to complete Teachers’ Attitudes about Professional Development Scale (Torff, Sessions, & Byrnes, 2005), and a researcher-made scale about the effectiveness of TES. The results of this phase indicated that the majority of the teachers believed that the current in-service TPD programs are not effective since they have meager impact on their teaching practice, and that the current TES cannot help them to develop professionally. In the qualitative phase of the study, 20 EFL teachers, and 10 teacher educators were interviewed. Overall, they believed that, to be effective, there should be a close link between TES and TPD programs. They further maintained that this strong link can make TPD programs more need-based, contextualized, and ongoing which can help teachers be lifelong learners.

This paper follows a line of logical argumentation to claim that what Samuel Messick conceptualized about construct validation has probably been misunderstood by some educational policy makers, practicing educators, and classroom teachers. It argues that, while Messick’s unified theory of test validation aimed at (a) warning educational practitioners and policy makers of the undesirable social consequences of test use and (b) entreating educators and test developers to think of a facet-driven item-banking-based construct-specific criterion-referenced common metric for any construct of interest in educational and other settings, his message has been misunderstood as a plea for alternative ways of evaluation and specifically a qualitative shift in educational assessment. The paper (a) draws on the conceptual differences between ‘test function’ and other construct-irrelevant peripheral ‘affordances’ to which any test can be put, (b) argues that the moment of truth for the qualitative camp has arrived, and (b) invites everyone to admit that even if qualitative assessment, ‘thick’ descriptions of achievement, and differentiated portraits and profiles of student performance might be much thicker than traditional norm-referenced psychometric tests, they are no match for any minimalistic facet-driven criterion-referenced common metric, nor is any of them an option. The paper suggests that the right way out is through an iron-clad criterion-referenced Occam's-razor-proof common metric for each construct of interest, perhaps the only option that is sure to transform the soft science of educational assessment into a hard science of educational measurement.