درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Errors are one of the enigmatic parts in the process of foreign language (L2) learning as they are extremely versatile at each and every stage of the language learning proficiency. The present study, therefore, was an attempt to reveal Iranian EFL learners’ grammatical errors in writing at two levels of proficiency, namely lower intermediate and advanced, and then to investigate whether there was a relationship between the levels of EFL learners’ proficiency and the types of grammatical errors they committed in their scripts. The study was carried out at a private language institute in Gorgan, Iran. To this end, 60 female EFL learners (30 lower intermediate and 30 advanced females) whose age ranged between 13 and 17 participated in this study and wrote 150 word writing samples on a predetermined descriptive subject. The descriptive analyses of the data based on the scoring framework of the study demonstrated the types of grammatical errors at each level of proficiency. A Chi Square test was then run in SPSS Ver. 25 on the 16 common frequent error categories between both levels of proficiency, which verified the existence of a relationship between EFL learners’ levels of proficiency and the types of written grammatical errors they committed in their writing. The findings of the study might be of interest to EFL learners, EFL teachers, syllabus designers, and materials developers.

This study investigated the effects of eliciting tasks on listening comprehension among Iranian pre-intermediate English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. To do the current study, 30 participants out of 40 were selected through administering an Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT). After that, the participants were divided into two equal groups; one experimental and one control group. Then, a listening comprehension pre-test was administered to assess the participants’ listening comprehension at the beginning of the course. The experimental group received the treatment through eliciting tasks. Then, the control group received common instruction and was engaged in the ordinary program of the classroom. After twelve sessions of instruction, a post-test of listening comprehension was administered to gather the sufficient data. Data were analyzed through independent and paired samples t-tests and the results indicated that both experimental and control groups had better performance on their post-test compared to their pre-test. More importantly, the results showed that there was a significant difference between the post-tests of both groups. In fact, the experimental group outperformed the control group on the post-test thanks to eliciting tasks activities. The study has implications for language teachers and learners; e.g., Eliciting tasks help to develop a learner-centered classroom and a simulating environment while making learning memorable by linking new and old information.

Considering the paramount importance of writing logical arguments for college students, this study investigated the effect of dynamic assessment (DA) of Toulmin Model through teacher- and collective-scaffolding on argument structure and overall quality of argumentative essays of Iranian EFL university learners. In so doing, 45 male and female Iranian EFL learners taking part in the study were randomly assigned into three groups (two experimental groups including the teacher- and collective-scaffolding and one control group), each consisting of 15 learners. Toulmin Model of argumentation was used as an instructional tool in this research. The necessary data were collected through a pre- and post-test argumentative essay. During the experiment, the dynamic assessment groups wrote and revised their essays in response to teacher’s or peers’ supportive dialogue and zone of proximal development (ZPD) sensitive feedback on the argument structure of their essays; whereas, the control group did not receive such mediation and they were evaluated on their own independent performance. The results of statistical analyses carried out on post-test scores on argument structure and overall quality of the essays pointed out to the outperformance of the teacher- and collective-scaffolding groups on both variables. Furthermore, follow-up Post-hoc analyses revealed no significant difference between the teacher- and collective-scaffolding groups in terms of the overall quality of the argumentative essays. However, the statistically significant difference between the two experimental groups with regard to the argument structure indicated the outperformance of the teacher-scaffolding over the collective group. The obtained results support the fact that autonomy and improvement cannot be thrust upon learners, rather they need to be assisted wisely towards independence.

This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of metacognitive strategy instruction intervention on reducing language listening anxiety of Iranian EFL learners in the light of 2 listening metacognitive strategy instruction models of Integrated Experiential Learning Task (IELT) (Goh, 2010) and Metacognitive pedagogical Sequence (MPS) (Vandergrift, 2004). Participants were 63 B1 level learners who were chosen through random sampling and were randomly assigned to 2 experimental and 2 control groups. Before and after the intervention, Kim’s (2000) Foreign Language Listening Anxiety scale (FLLAS) and the listening section of Preliminary English Test (PET) were administered to all groups as pre and post tests. All four groups were taught by the same researcher and the listening comprehension material was constant over the groups. The first experimental group received IELT intervention, the second experimental group received MPS intervention, and both control groups received traditional product-based listening comprehension instruction while the active control group also received explicit instruction of the metacognitive strategies. ANCOVA results proved that although both IELT and MPS were effective in lowering anxiety level, the performance of MPS was of a large effect size, and it was a better model to lower learners’ anxiety. Both models significantly improved learners’ listening comprehension.

In this study, challenges in the translation of Islamic Shi’a texts of practical laws were investigated. The English translations of the books of Islamic laws written according to three Iranian Twelver Shi’a mujtahids namely, Grand Ayatollah Wahid Khorasani, Grand Ayatollah Sistani, and Grand Ayatollah Makarem Shirazi were examined. Next, the culture-bound terms concerning practical laws of religion in the three English translations were looked at to see what kinds of procedures have been used by different translators and which procedure(s) is/are the most frequent one(s). The results of this study indicated that the challenges found in the translation of Islamic law texts could be classified into two groups: lexical challenges and structural challenges. Moreover, it was found out that the main challenges include Islamic words, culture-specific items, units of measurement, common words with uncommon meanings, fixed expressions, and modal verbs. In addition, it was found that the translators of these texts have used six procedures more than others and those are transliteration, literal translation, cultural equivalent, functional equivalent, descriptive equivalent and recognized translation. The analysis of examples in this research suggests that among all procedures, the translator, in most cases, has used transliteration and literal translation to cope with the lexical gap.

The present study aimed to study the relationship between teachers’ creativity, classroom management, age and gender. To achieve these goals, 70 Iranian EFL teachers participated in the study by filling out two questionnaires: Creativity Fostering Teacher Behavior Index developed by Soh (2000) ,and Behavior and Instructional Management Scale developed by Martin and Sass (2010). Analysis of the questionnaires revealed that there is a statistically positive significant relationship between teachers’ creativity and classroom management. In addition, the findings indicated that there is statistically significant difference across the three age groups regarding their attitudes towards creativity and classroom management. Likewise, it was revealed that there is significant difference between Iranian EFL male and female teachers concerning their attitudes towards creativity. However, the findings also indicated that there was not any statistically significant difference between Iranian EFL male and female teachers regarding their attitudes towards classroom management. The findings have implications for EFL teachers.

This study investigated the relationship between five teaching styles and emotional intelligence among 102 Iranian English instructors from different universities in Tehran, Iran. To this end, the data were obtained through two phases of quantitative and qualitative data collection. To achieve quantitative data, the participants were asked to fill in two questionnaires, including the Teaching Styles Inventory (version 3.0) and the Emotional Intelligence Scale. The second phase of data collection was performed through collecting qualitative data by conducting a semi-structured interview on 10 English instructors. To analyze quantitative data, multiple regression analyses were run. Likewise, the qualitative data was analyzed through data reduction process in order to realize the instructors’ attitudes toward the different aspects of teaching styles and to find out to what extent their attitudes were similar to one another. The results demonstrated that among various teaching styles, including expert, formal authority, personal model, facilitator, and delegator, merely the delegator style had statistically significant association with emotional intelligence. Furthermore, the relationship between personal model style and emotional intelligence was considerable, though not statistically significant. The findings and their implications are fully discussed.