ابراهیم خدادادی

This study aimed to explore the relationship between language acquisition and grade four senior high school (G4SHS) students’ achievement in English as a foreign language (EFL). To this end the 41-item English Language Acquisition Scale (ELAS) designed by Khodadady and Younesi (2017) was administered to 518 G4SHS students. Also to find the probable relationship between ELAS, its latent variables and participant achievement in EFL classes in EFL classes 126 participants were randomly selected out of population to answer schema-based cloze multiple choice items test ( S- test) designed by Khodadady and Ghergloo ( 2013). To know which of the G4SHS students who took the ELAS took the S-Test as well the researcher was matched the codes of the ELAS S-test and ELTAS carefully. The results showed that the ELAS consists of five factors, i.e., Qualified, grammatization, Humanistic, Engagement and Orientation. Also the ELAS and its underlying factors show significant relationships with English achievement scores. The results of the study are discussed .

This study tried to find out what factors underline the characteristics of acquisition of English language in EFL classrooms. To this end, the Characteristics of English Language Acquisition Scale (ELAS) consisting of 41 items was designed by the researchers of this study and administered to 388 pre University Iranian EFL students at various private and public schools in Neyshabour and Zebarkhan. Factor analysis was run to determine the number of factors underlying the scale. The application of Principle Axis Factoring and rotating the extracted factors showed that the characteristics loaded acceptably on twelve factors underlying the learners’ EFL acquisition, i.e., learning boosters, facilitation, determination, voluntary, teaching methodology, affective factors, attitudes toward foreign speakers and their culture, learner engagement, adjustment, enhancement, teachers' output and individual differences. The results are discussed and suggestions are made for future research.

To analyze and evaluate textbooks, researchers have either proposed scales and checklists to be filled by teachers and learners or conducted qualitative investigations of the match between SLA theories and textbook activities. This study, however, employs the microstructural approach of schema theory to scrutinize the reading passages of “Mosaic 1 Reading”. To this end, 17 passages of the textbook were randomly chosen and their constituting words were explored as semantic, syntactic, and parasyntactic schemata. The passages were also analyzed in terms of their readability indices. The results showed that they consist of 3722 schema types, 2979 (80%) of which are semantic in nature. Although the textbook aims at “academic success” at English language “proficiency levels”, it provides no objective definition of what they stand for. In terms of readability, however, the passages vary in difficulty from grade three in primary school to college level. Further, the textbook is discussed in terms of its constituting schemata and suitability to the Iranian context and suggestions are made for future research. The findings of this study have important implications for language teaching, testing and materials development. They show that language proficiency must be defined in terms of schema types and the bulk of class time must be spent on teaching semantic schemata rather than syntactic and parasyntactic ones. Similarly, for testing the reading comprehension of these passages, the number and type of test items must be based on the percentage of semantic and syntactic schema types and subjective criteria such as teachers’ intuition or experience must be avoided both in teaching and testing the comprehension of passages.

تحقیق حاضر تکرار طرح پژوهشی دیگری است برای پیدا کردن عوامل زیر بنایی خصوصیات موثر معلمان زبان انگلیسی (CEELT) بعد از انتخاب نمونه آماری همگونتر و نماینده تر. به این منظور پرسشنامه CEELT تالیف شده توسط معافیان و پیش قدم (2008) به 1469 زبان آموز ایرانی که انگلیسی را به عنوان زبان خارجی در مدارس دولتی و موسسات خصوصی مختلف در مشهد تحصیل می کردند داده شد تا سه فرضیه مرتبط با استحکام روابط بین خصوصیات، تعداد عوامل استخراج شده و خصوصیاتی که روی بیش از یک عامل لود می کنند مورد بررسی قرار گیرند. وقتی که از روش تحلیل عاملی برای استخراج عامل سازه ای استفاده شد چهل و هفت خصوصیت مورد مطالعه به دلیل داشتن همبستگی درونی زیاد با یکدیگر تنها روی پنج عامل برقراری ارتباط صمیمی، عادل بودن، صلاحیت شغلی، تسهیل و برگزاری امتحان لود کردند. نتایج حاضر بیانگر چندین التزام پژوهشی است. اول اینکه همبستگی بین متغیرها و آمار KMO که مبین کافی بودن نمونه گیری است بایدگزارش شوند. دوما نمونه آماری می بایستی شامل حداقل یک هزار شرکت کننده و ترجیحا دارای نسبت سی نفر برای هر خصوصیت مطرح شده باشد و بالاخره تمام خصوصیاتی که روی بیش از یک عامل لود می کنند می بایستی گزارش شوند. لودهای چند عاملی بیانگر ضرورت اتخاد نگرشی چند بعدی نسبت به آموزش زبان و برقراری ارتباط معنادار بین خصوصیات معلمان و توانایی هایی از قبیل پیشرفت تحصیلی و بسندگی هستند.