سجاد فرخی پور

Purpose: Considering rich theoretical underpinnings of positive psychology (PP), the current study aimed to investigate the effects of an extra educational curriculum on the basis of PP on distress and attainment of Iranian high school students who are living in dormitories in boarding schools. Methodology: This is an empirical study with a post-test only control group design in which a sample of 346 male students were selected through convenience sampling from two boarding schools in Qom city during 2018-2019. A translated and validated version of K10 distress questionnaire (Kessler et al, 2010) was administered to them and 67 students with high distress symptoms were identified and randomly allocated to a control group (N=23), experimental group one (N= 22) and experimental group two (N=22). First, the experimental group underwent 16 sessions (twice a week for 90 minutes) of PP curriculum integrated with religious counseling. Employing a post-test only control-group design, the group’s performance on a distress scale (Goldberg, 1981) and their mean scores were compared after the intervention. Kruskal-Wallis and ANOVA tests were used to compare differences between the groups. Findings: Findings revealed that positive curriculum alleviated distress symptoms of the experimental groups vis-à-vis the control (χ2 (2) = 52.851, p ≤ 0.001). Also, to investigate the effect of the intervention on educational attainment, their semester mean scores were analyzed through ANOVA (F = 8.244(2, 66), p≤0.001) where promising results were obtained. Conclusion: It was concluded that both interventions exerted meaningful effects on the attainment and distress of dorm-living students. Also, follow-up studies added proof on the permanence of the effects.

Despite the huge bulk of research conducted on translation quality assessment, the literature on the translation of the Holy Quran is in its infancy. Since jurists, commentators, and Quranic interpreters analyze individual Quranic verses as a whole discourse and in relation to other verses and Surahs, it is deemed necessary for translators to follow the same procedure and consider the wholeness of the text in their translation of individual verses. Coherence is among linguistic properties that contribute to the wholeness of the Quran as a unique discourse. A literature review shows that coherence has a direct effect on the quality of translations. Thus, this research intended to investigate the effect of coherence on the translation quality of some famous translations of the Holy Quran from an instructional viewpoint. To this aim, a mixed-methods study was employed in which the effect of coherence on reading comprehension of 12 Ph.D. candidates enrolled in an ESP course was studied. In the qualitative phase, utilizing linguistic markers, samples of coherent translations were extracted from the 30th chapter of the Quran. Then, two reading comprehension tests were developed from the coherent samples and the corpus without coherent markers. In the next step, these tests were administered to participants. The data were analyzed through a t-test. Findings showed that coherent translations enjoy post-posed/pre-posed concessive, sense continuity, backgrounding, explicitation, and addition as coherence markers. Also, quantitative findings showed a significant difference between the tests taken by the participants at two different times (t (11) = 4.204 and p = 0.001) proving the meaningful effect of coherence on translation comprehension.

The ability to read fluently is a critical skill for language learners in foreign language contexts. Learning to read Arabic texts for Persian language learners is not an exception. The importance of this reading is more recognized when these learners are faced with religious texts including the holy Quran. Iranian readers of the Quran have many difficulties in uttering and pronouncing Arabic words and letters which blocks their fluency. Traditional approaches toward reading fluency such as teacher model have not been very successful. Therefore, the current research has investigated the effect of dynamic assessment on promoting learning fluency of Iranian learners of Arabic. Deeply rooted in mediated interaction and learning in zone of proximal development (ZPD), dynamic intervention is a new instructional strategy toward language learning. The current research has adopted an inventory of mediational strategies (Aljaafreh and Lantolf, 1994) of interventionist dynamic assessment to intervene learning hotspots and promote fluency of intermediate Quranic learners of teacher training centers in Qum. To this aim 20 students were selected through convenience sampling and their scores were compared in a quasi-experimental design. These students were assigned to two experimental groups where one of them underwent dynamic intervention while the other was recruited in a traditional teacher modeling course. Their scores in the post-test were analyzed through t-test. The findings showed that dynamic intervention promoted reading fluency of Iranian Quranic readers more than traditional approaches. Dynamic intervention can be replaced with traditional instructional methods by Iranian Quranic teachers and promote reading fluency significantly.

To produce an adequate translation, language students are required to learn varieties of language features including syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Considering the curriculum language learners are face with, one can claim that almost all language students in Iran are taught these features in their academic settings including linguistic courses. Yet, there are some aspects of language which are disregarded in course books and syllabi and ignored by language teachers. Thus, language learners find it a formidable task to deal with these shrugged off aspects of their curricula. Genre of language is among these invisible features which have challenged translation students in translating specific texts. News reports is one of these genres that Iranian media translators, in spite of enjoying technical competence in language, are not familiar with knowledge and rhetorical conventions of it. So, the current is conducted to investigate the familiarity of these translators with genre features of news discourse and examine the effect of raising genre awareness on developing the quality of translation. To this aim, fourteen translation students studying translation for media purpose were selected through convenient sampling who were given some news reports to translate. Using Baker’s taxonomy (1992) and House’s quality assessment model (1997), the quality of their translations were assessed before genre awareness raising session and after it. The findings showed that the quality of translation ameliorated meaningfully after the instruction, indicating the importance of genre knowledge in linguistic competence. These findings have implications for syllabus designers and EAP and ESP teachers and students.