درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Digital technology has recently become a ubiquitous feature of the modern era posing problems to higher education institutions. Digitization of the academic life has brought forth the claims that there is an evident disparity between the digital naturals and digital immigrants and that the myth of the former is “undemystifiable”. The claim that the new digitized generation has its own distinguished learning preferences, skills of learning and beliefs about how learning in such an era should make higher education authorities revisit their curricula and “reshuffle the academic cards” so that the digital immigrants could catch up with the fast-running pace of the digitized train and provide the digital natives with what they need for a successful academic life. T he overall aim of the present work therefore is to investigate the extent to which the so-called digital natives really have control of the use of educational technology either as part of their self-directed learning practices or as part of a formal tertiary level teaching, the type of technologies they prefer to use, whether they possess the required digital skills that are important for their future careers, and how vital the digital skills are in boosting their employability. In line with the major findings of the present study, it could be concluded that the media change under the created discourse of “moral panic” has unveiled the singularity of this generation and has forced academic authorities to reconsider learning, teaching as well as both skills and employability of a such a generation for the betterment of a healthy academic higher education system.

The present study sought to investigate the differential effect of using native-accent and non-native accent materials on the Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ listening comprehension. To this purpose, 60 primary EFL Iranian learners participated in the study. The participants were randomly divided into a control group (N=30) and an experimental group (N=30). First, a Quick Placement Test which consisted of vocabulary, grammar, and reading items was administered in order to ensure the homogeneity of participants. As the intervention of the study, the control group was provided with the listening materials accompanied by the use of their native-accent audio files, whereas the experimental group was exposed to the same listening tasks and materials which were pronounced by the non-native teacher. The experimental intervention lasted for six forty-minute sessions. To collect the data, the listening component of Pearson Test of English General (PTE General) was used as the pre-test and the post-test to measure listening comprehension of the participants. The results indicated that using non-native accent listening materials was more effective than using native-accent materials in enhancing listening comprehension of the EFL learners. These findings were discussed in the light of English as an International Language (EIL) debate and the theory of inter-language speech intelligibility benefit.

Abstract<br />This study aimed to explore any type and level of association between Iranian EFL learners’ proficiency level and their intercultural sensitivity on the one hand, and the possible relation between vocabulary knowledge and sensitivity to cultural differences on the other. To this end, Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) was administered to 220 EFL leaners. Based on the results of this test, a homogenized sample of 150 EFL learners (70 male and 80 female) at intermediate and upper-intermediate levels was selected. Afterwards, the participants took Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) developed by Nation, and validated by Webb, Sasao, and Balance. Finally, Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS) by Chen & Starosta was administered. The results of Pearson correlation analyses revealed a statistically significant correlation between the participants' proficiency level and their intercultural sensitivity. The results of regression analyses also indicated that language proficiency contributes as much as 55.4 percent to the prediction of level of intercultural sensitivity. Moreover, a significant positive correlation was detected between EFL learners’ L2 vocabulary knowledge and their intercultural sensitivity level. Further, the results revealed that Iranian EFL learners’ L2 vocabulary knowledge can offer contributions up to 17.3 percent to the prediction of intercultural sensitivity level. These findings can offer prominent implications for all practitioners, material developers, and EFL instructors who are primarily preoccupied with linguistic competence. The results can motivate them to consider intercultural sensitivity as a complementary element to EFL learners’ linguistic knowledge, as well as their communicative commands.

The aim of this paper was to investigate the role of two cognitive factors, namely, personality traits and narrative writing intelligence (NWI) in L2 writing. The total of 416 English learners participated in this study in two different phases.<br /> For the purpose of this study, a narrative writing intelligence scale (NWIS) was designed and used to score the writings of the first group of participants which included 200 Iranian learners of English in an EFL institute. The first writing task, which was a film recounting, contributed to designing this scale. Randall’s (1999) definition of narrative intelligence was the guideline to design the primary draft of NWIS. All 200 written film recounting were scored by this scale. The scores were transferred to SPSS 18.0. and Exploratory Factor Analysis was run. NWIS’ construct validity and reliability were confirmed. Moreover, the underlying dimensions causing correlation among the observed variables were reduced in three factors which account for 57.47% of the variance of the scale. The factors were named as Unity of the plot, Identification (of characters, objects, and ideas), and Voice and Rhetoric. <br /> The second group, who were female university students of EFL, were given two tasks, namely, writing a memory and filling Big-Five Personality test. Their writings were evaluated twice; once by employing the NWIS and once by a tailor-made writing scoring guide taken from Weigle’s (2002) guideline. Transferring all scores to Amos. 20, a SEM model was proposed by the researchers. The result shows the proposed model has good fit indices.