We investigated the home culture effect with respect to students' perceptions about themselves and their instructors. This study was concerned with the cross-cultural analysis of Iranian and Iraqi students' perceptions of teacher success, credibility, and stroke variables. Willingness to Attend Classes (WTAC) was evaluated. Two-hundred-seventy-six Iranian and 150 Iraqi English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university students participated in the study. Results of the multi-group modeling showed measurement invariance, both metric and scalar, across the groups. Afterwards, descriptive statistics indicated that both groups held high perceptions of their own WTAC and their teachers' stroke, effectiveness, and credibility. Next, correlational results indicated that the sub-components of perceived teacher credibility, stroke, and success variables were significantly and positively associated with Iranian and Iraqi students' WTAC. These outputs were approved in the SEM results, and the hypothesized relations between the variables were approved; perceived teacher stroke, success, and credibility factors were positive significant predictors of Iranian and Iraqi students' WTAC. On the whole, these findings provided empirical backing for the theoretically-rich claim that students' home culture background significantly predicts the way their belief systems are shaped and reshaped. Hence, teacher educators should be concerned with training teachers who not only effectively teach language to the students but also fulfill students' expectations of a successful teacher who is able to provide culturally-appropriate quality communication in the classroom and build a relationship of trust between him/herself and the students with the ultimate aim of enhancing studentrelated academic outcomes.Keywords Cross-cultural analysis . Teacher credibility . Teacher success . Teacher stroke . Students' willingness to attend classes . English as a foreign language

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To expand the literature on the rather new concept of student burnout, the present study examined the influence of teacher immediacy and stroke variables on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ experience of burnout. To fulfill this aim, a group of 631 undergraduate EFL students from various universities in Iran answered questionnaires including the Immediacy Behavior Scale, the Student Stroke Scale, and the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey. The results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of immediacy and burnout scales demonstrated the validity of the two scales in the Iranian EFL context. Subsequently, Pearson multiple correlation coefficients and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to analyze the data. It was found that student burnout subscales negatively and significantly correlated with teacher immediacy and stroke subscales. Moreover, the results indicated that teacher immediacy and stroke variables, in combination with their subscales, could predict student burnout. On the whole, it can be concluded that teacher immediacy and stroke concepts, characterized as positive teacher interpersonal communication behaviors enhancing rapport and positive interaction between the teacher and students in EFL contexts, are potential preventers of negative student-related outcomes such as burnout.

This mixed methods research study investigated if explicit instruction could affect EFL teachers’ perceptions and practices of classroom justice considering its three-dimensional conceptualization based on the social psychology theories of justice, encompassing the distributive, interactional, and procedural justice. To this end, 77 Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers, chosen through maximum variation sampling, attended a four-session online justice-training course. The data were collected both before and after the course intervention through close- and open-ended questionnaires. Quantitative data analysis results, obtained through running paired samples t-tests and Wilcoxon signed ranks tests, indicated that except for the distributive component, the treatment was effective in significantly enhancing the Iranian EFL teachers’ procedural, interactional, and total classroom justice perceptions. Content analysis of the posttest qualitative data, done through MAXQDA, revealed that the participants approved the course usefulness, its significance, and uses of justice enactment strategies in their classroom. Furthermore, they confirmed positive changes in their conceptions and practices of justice because of attending the course and showed enthusiasm in attending more such courses in the future. The convergence of the quantitative and qualitative results in this study demonstrated the effectiveness of the justice-oriented training course for enhancing EFL teachers’ just classroom behaviors. Hence, the results would be fruitful for teacher educators aiming to promote the pre- and in-service EFL teachers’ professional effectiveness through explicit instruction on classroom justice and its use in teacher education programs.

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