درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Planning, monitoring, and evaluating one’s performance constitute individuals’ metacognitive strategies. Recently, metacognition has been conceptualized not only at the individual level but also at pair and group levels. The concept of socially-shared metacognition has arisen based on the idea that group members observe, control, evaluate, and regulate each other’s actions to promote the group’s problem-solving. This article investigated the impact of motivational scaffolds on a group of Iranian EFL learners’ individual and socially-shared metacognition. Two groups of 30 female intermediate learners participated in this study. In the experimental group, the participants received the teacher’s motivational scaffolds as she provided instructions and feedback throughout individual and collaborative oral and written tasks. On the other hand, the participants in the control group were asked to take part in the routine oral and written classroom activities. The participants’ think-aloud protocols in individual and pair activities were analyzed, and instances of metacognitive activities were identified. The data were analyzed through two Mann-Whitney U tests, and the results indicated that motivational scaffolds statistically significantly enhanced the use of metacognitive strategies at both inter and intra-individual levels. Implications for classrooms are discussed

To direct m-game to be a possible didactic option for Iranian TVT (Technical Vocational Training) trainees, in this study m-game-mediated (Mobile Game-Mediated) materials delivery was incorporated into the conventional teaching method in the blended ESP reading skill platform. So, 52 male trainees fromTechnical and Vocational College of Isfahan were selected by convenience sampling. Afterwards, 48 trainees were defined as homogeneous using Englishtag Test to learn ESP in 16 triads under two different blended learning scenarios in 18 sessions in the academic year 2014-2015. While the first group of the trainees practiced in the blended learning situation with ready-made displaying device and materials, the second-group trainees practiced the same content through the medium of their own self-made PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) and materials; in this way, their learning performance assessed continuously in and outside the classroom. To employ tree-prong approach, interest survey and focus-group interview were embraced, as well. Overall, descriptive and inferential analyses of the collected data disclosed that trainees who were involved in the process of materials development were more excited and learned more than their counterparts who practiced via prefabricated devices and materials. Consequently, self-made (vs. prefabricated) m-game-mediated blended platform was found to be more liable to teaching and learning ESP reading skill.

In response to the competitive demands for establishing their international academic and financial credentials, the universities globally distribute some online introductory information about themselves. To this end, the university homepages have increasingly turned into the rhetorical space for the development of promotional academic texts in recent years. In this study, we examined university overview genre that provides the visitors with brief presentation of the simple facts while endorsing a specific perspective of the university and strengthening its position in the academic community. The corpus comprised 70 overviews extracted from the academic websites of the first top 500 universities. We analyzed and coded the texts to specify their overall rhetorical framework, functional moves and constituting steps, and optimal order of moves. The findings indicated that overview genre incorporates six obligatory moves including 'source of reputation', 'historical origin', 'current status of development', 'commitments, goals and orientations', 'global state', and 'services and supports'. Also, the results demonstrated that the academic genre did not follow a single, invariant pattern of sequenced moves in a clearly linear order. The findings further suggest that the nature of overview genre could be characterized by its twofold informative and persuasive functions. Finally, implications of the findings of the study are presented

Second or foreign language (L2) learners’ development of interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) competence to understand and properly interpret utterances under certain social and cultural circumstances plays a pivotal role in the achievement of communicative competence. The current study was designed to explore the effects of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and asynchronous computer-mediated communication (ACMC) course modules delivered through social media networks (SMN) on the development of the Iranian L2 learners’ comprehension of implicatures. The participants of the study were 90 English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) undergraduate students attending three intact classes. The classes were randomly assigned to one control and two experimental (SCMC and ACMC) groups. An open-ended implicature comprehension test was used to assess students’ ILP development in this pretest-posttest comparison-group study. The control group received the traditional teacher-fronted instruction, and the S/ACMC groups received instruction via synchronous and asynchronous modules of SMNs for 4 months, respectively. Students’ attitudes towards the CMC-based courses were also sought. Split-plot ANOVA results indicated that both experimental groups developed significant ILP ability to comprehend and interpret L2 implicatures after the instruction; however, by comparison, the ACMC group improved more considerably. It is concluded that, first, comprehending L2 implicatures is not impervious to computer-mediated instruction and, second, different CMC affordances may result in differential ILP developmental effects in teaching L2 pragmatics. The findings can help L2 teachers decide how to use CMC affordances and SMN modules to raise L2 learners’ pragmatic awareness

عوامل عاطفی، به عنوان مهمترین عوامل درمطالعات یادگیری زبان انگلیسی به عنوان زبان دوم و به عنوان زبان خارجی به شمار می آیند. این عوامل موثر عبارتند از انگیزه، اعتماد به نفس، اضطراب و غیره. تحقیق و پژوهش در ویژگی های یادگیرندگان برای بیش از یک قرن در جریان بوده است. در ادامه این مطالعات ، مطالعه پژوهش حاضر ، تلاش در کاوش نوع شخصیت و انگیزه زبان آموزان ایرانی دارد. در این مطالعه، نوع شخصیت و انگیزه دانشجویان با استفاده از شاخص Myers- Briggs و پرسشنامه انگیزه ""لین""مورد بررسی قرار گرفت. به این منظور، 60 زبان آموز از یکی از موسسات زبان در مشهد- ایران به عنوان شرکت کنندگان در این مطالعه انتخاب شدند. با توزیع دو ابزار در میان یادگیرندگان زبان خارجی و با توجه به نمرات ترم گذشته آنها اطلاعات گردآوری و با استفاده از نرم افزار SPSS آنالیز شد. نتایج تحلیل همبستگی رابطه معنی داری بین انگیزه، شخصیت و موفقیت دانش آموزان نشان داد..از تحلیل رگرسیون چندگانه نیز برای بررسی قدرت ارتباط بین متغیرها استفاده شد که در میان این عوامل عاطفی، نوع شخصیت به عنوان بهترین پیش بینی کننده موفقیت دانش آموز تشخیص داده شد. کاربردهای آموزشی و پیشنهادات برای تحقیقات آتی نیز در تحقیق ارائه شده است.