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This article explores Non-native English-speaking teacher (NNEST) beliefs regarding Native English-speaking teachers (NEST) stemming from a recent study into Brazilian teacher beliefs and practices. Two private English as a Foreign Language (EFL) schools in Northeastern Brazil provide the sites for this mixed methods research. The major findings from this study include a rejection on the part of NNESTs of NESTs as superior language teachers, a perceived asymmetrical power relationship between Brazilian teachers with experience living abroad and those without this experience, and a potential relationship between what I label language ideologies and teacher beliefs. Implications of these findings for English as a Second Language and EFL teachers and teacher educators include recommendations for modification of teacher education, including making teacher beliefs about language teaching and learning central to the curriculum. The article concludes with a call for further research into questions surrounding EFL teacher beliefs, particularly in the private EFL milieu.

The present study makes use of the Rasch model to investigate the presence of DIF between male and female examinees taking the University of Tehran English Proficiency Test (UTEPT). The results of the study indicated that 19 items are functioning differentially for the two groups. Only 3 items, however, displayed DIF with practical significance. A close inspection of the items indicated that the presence of DIF may be interpreted as impact rather than bias. Therefore, it is concluded that the presence of the differentially functioning may not render the test unfair. On the other hand, it is argued that the fairness of the test may be under question due to other factors.

Linguistic research into the identity of social type can take on numerous different forms. The intention here is to use lexicon as the main focus of observation. This paper considers local identity categories that are directly related to the focus of the research: pottery production in southern Italy. These categories were elaborated as a result of ethnographic observation and fieldwork. The current production of pottery is characterized by the presence of both modern and traditional types of production. At the same time, the linguistic repertoire of the community is characterized by the presence of different varieties of language. Not all craftsmen using traditional production methods use traditional dialect. This paper sought to approach the question of identity by combining an analysis of linguistic variation with an examination of pottery production as well as a consideration of the identity assumed by the craftsmen themselves.

This paper reports the findings of a study designed to investigate the types of supportive discourse moves employed by Persian speakers in their Requestive Speech Acts. 372 respondents took a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) with six scenarios ranging from formal to informal degrees of Perceived Situational Seriousness, and returned 2232 Requestive Speech Acts (RSAs). The acts were then analyzed according to models proposed by Færch and Kasper's (1989), Blum-Kulka, et al. (1989), and Scollon and Scollon (2001). Results, after analysis of the data, indicated that Persian speakers use external and internal discourse moves to negotiate face in RSAs. It was concluded that Perceived Situational Seriousness was the determining factor in the choice of the type and number of discourse moves in a given RSA.

This study investigates how different situations and audiences establish different speech styles in the speech of Cypriot Greeks (CG) who are bilingual in the Cypriot dialect and demotic Greek. Particularly we examine linguistic accommodation in the speech of CG towards the Greek use of clitic pronouns as objects. Linguistic accommodation towards the Greek variants is examined in the speech of CG in two situational contexts: (a) in a situation where Greeks are energetically participating in the conversation, and (b) in a situation where Greeks are present but asked not to participate in any way in the conversation. In order to investigate the effect of audience in the speech of CG, they are recorded when addressing three different audiences where the importance of Greeks is increasing from the first to the second and third audience.

This research was undertaken to study one functional aspect of L2 performance, i.e., Iranian learner's complimenting in L2 (English). In other words, the study aimed to discover if Farsi speakers carry over their Farsi potentiality to their L2. 65 senior university students majoring in English and taking the specialized course called "essay writing" participated in the study. First, they were taught how to write reviews on their classmates' essays and then their reviews were analyzed on the basis of the framework provided by Johnson and Roen (1992), and Chafe and Danielwicz (1987). The results indicated that Iranian learners (female and male) did not differ in the use of complimenting formulae and strategies. With regard to the gender of the addressees, the use of formulae and strategies of complimenting were not statistically different either. The results indicated that learners did not transfer their L1 potentiality into L2, showing that classroom teaching provides a condition for learning pragmatic issues which is different from L1 and yet uniform.

This paper reports a study which investigated the effect of centralized English tests on one of the immediate stakeholders, namely, teachers. Data for the study were collected from 20 high school English language teachers by administering an assessment literacy test and conducting face to face interviews. Moreover, centralized and teacher-made tests were collected for the purpose of content analysis. Findings from the analysis of the three data sources showed that (a) participants’ level of assessment literacy as measured by an assessment literacy test was lower than expected, (b) participants’ test construction practices were heavily influenced by the content and format of centralized summative tests, and (c) participants’ teaching practices were in fact preparing students for tests with less emphasis on oral/aural skills. The paper concludes that the heavy shadow of centralized tests and their strong negative backwash effect have downplayed teachers’ agency in favor of the dominant structure.