درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The current study was an attempt to investigate whether the Unit-of-Translation has any effect on Iranian upper-intermediate EFL learners’ achievement in Bizarre News translation. In addition, it investigated whether there was any difference across gender regarding the effect of Unit-of-Translation on Iranian upper-intermediate EFL learners’ achievement in Bizarre News translation. To this end, 45 out of 88 EFL learners from three upper-intermediate language learners at two Language Institutes in Boumehen, Iran were selected based on Oxford Placement Test. Then, they were divided randomly into three groups; one control group (N=15) and two experimental groups (N=30). The first experimental group was male. The second experimental was female, and the third group was administered as the control group. The experimental groups received the instruction for unit of translation. The instruction was given in five sequential sessions about 50 minutes. In contrast, the control group received no special instruction. At the end of the course, a post-test was administered. To analyze the data, one-way ANOVA and independent samples t-test were run. The findings revealed that the Unit-of-Translation had a positively significant effect on Iranian upper-intermediate EFL learners’ achievement in Bizarre News translation. The results also indicated that concerning the effect of Unit-of-Translation on Iranian male upper-intermediate EFL learners had a better achievement in Bizarre News translation compared to their counterparts in the female group.

One prominent criterion to achieve efficient learning and instruction in an educational setting is the appropriate material(s) specifically developed for that particular group of learners, particularly in an English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) context. This study aimed at developing new EOP materials for pre-service cabin crew in an aviation school. To do so, initially the researchers performed the evaluation of the current EOP textbook through a checklist and interviews with 20 English teachers who did not express much satisfaction about it. Consequently, having been convinced about the unsatisfactory results, the researchers developed new materials for this group of learners. The new materials was later implemented on 30 learners as the experimental group as opposed to another 30 as the control group being instructed by the current material. The findings demonstrated significant differences in the experimental group achievement of language proficiency at the end of the course compared to their language proficiency at the beginning of the course. Moreover, the results expressed significant differences between the achievement of control and experimental groups at the end of EOP courses, in favor of the experimental group. The newly developed EOP materials for flight attendants could be widely instructed in the airlines and aviation schools based on the obtained findings.

This study aimed at identifying the most frequent test-taking strategies used by successful Iranian male and female university entrance exam EFL applicants. To this end, 150 English major male and female freshman students who got admission to three reputable state universities of Isfahan, Shiraz, and Tehran were selected conveniently and purposively. The model used in this study was developed by Barati (2005) consisting of planning, monitoring, evaluation, and test-wiseness strategies. After selecting the participants, the modified questionnaire developed based on Barati’s test-taking strategy taxonomy was distributed among the participants. Based on the analysis of results, it was revealed that the EFL learners made frequent use of planning, monitoring, evaluation, and test-wiseness strategies, but only the level of use of planning and monitoring strategies reached statistical significance. Moreover, male and female EFL learners were only significantly different in their use of evaluation strategies, but in terms of using planning, monitoring, and test-wiseness strategies, males and females were not significantly different from one another. The findings of the study bear useful implications for EFL learners, teachers, materials designers, and test constructors.

Almost all language schools in Iran enforce teacher supervision with the purpose of promoting good teaching practices and higher standards of quality education. Despite its widespread practice, the body of research on language teacher supervision in Iranian EFL setting is scant. The present qualitative study explored language school managers’ attitudes toward EFL teacher supervision in Iranian language schools. Based on a researcher-developed protocol, semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven language school managers from Tehran and Karaj, Iran, whose managing experiences ranged from 5 to 18 years, with the purpose of identifying their attitudes, experiences, and challenges regarding supervision. The interviews drew upon emergent methodology to categorize the interviewees’ value-laden comments into five major attitudinal themes of becoming a supervisor, the requirements and responsibilities of a teacher-supervisor, evaluating a supervisor’s performance, challenges regarding teacher supervision, and supporting supervisors. The findings revealed that there are not any transparent criteria and rubrics for language school managers to draw upon to select teacher-supervisors, and supervisors are mostly selected based on their teaching potentials, experience, and merits. Moreover, the findings demonstrated that apart from observing classes and providing feedback, too many other responsibilities are assigned to supervisors in Iranian language schools. To improve the ongoing supervisory practices, the interviewees suggested the need for the development of transparent criteria and rubrics for supervisor selection.

There have been few representative studies investigating Iranian senior high school students’ L2 selves shaped by the ELT reform. Thus, the current study was an attempt to ponder on the ideal-self, ought-to self, and L2 experience orientations of Iranian EFL high school students. Moreover, it intended to seek whether there was any relationship between three L2 motivational variables of Iranian EFL high school students across gender and residential background. To this end, 200 males and 184 females from Iranian senior high schools in South part of Iran were selected through purposive sampling. Based on a mixed methods design, the study was conducted to gain the breadth and depth of the issue under investigation. The results showed that there was no substantial gap between male and female learners in L2 motivational preference of English learning. In addition, there was a significant difference between female and male students’ views on ought-to self. Moreover, it was observed that there was no marked difference between the L2 experience of female and male L2 learners. Regarding residential background, there was a significant difference among the mean ranks of the urban residential participants at three L2 motivational orientations but, there was not a significant difference among the mean ranks of the rural residential participants. The findings of the study recommend the incorporation of L2 motivation in teaching methods to improve the learning environment and learner investment in language learning.

ELT coursebooks are the fertile soil for the transmission of cultural perspectives and also strong tools for shaping L2 learners' behaviors and expectations. This study investigated the existence of covert/ hidden curriculum in two of the widely used ELT coursebook series-- Top Notch and English File . To do so, the content of the series was analyzed via Moran's (2001) model of dimensions of culture and Chao’s (2011) main categories of culture . The results indicated that the series, along with covering different dimensions of culture, are biased mainly in favor of the western products, persons and perspectives, and that despite their global EFL/EIL audience, they vividly base their dialogues, reading and listening on the norms and values of the English-speaking countries, with almost no attention to the local, especially Asian values. The study, discussing the implications of such culture- related covert curricula in the ELT coursebooks, makes relevant suggestions for the design of ELT coursebooks in the present global village.

It is widely acknowledged that collocations play a crucial role in second or foreign language learning by enabling learners to know more about language chunks and lexical strings. Although many studies have examined L2 learners’ collocational competence, comparatively less research has been carried out to probe into the effective instruction and exercises for enhancing the acquisition, retention, and production of lexical (e.g. make a mistake ) vs. grammatical ( on purpose ) collocations. Therefore, the present study attempted to explore the effect of L2 definitions, fill-in-the-blanks, and sentence writing exercises on the acquisition, retention, and production of lexical vs. grammatical collocations. The data were collected from 66 EFL participants who were studying English at a private language institute. First, an Oxford Placement Test (OPT) was given to homogenize the learners. Then, the participants were divided into three groups, each receiving one of the three different types of exercises including definitions, fill-in-the-blanks, and sentence writing exercises. Data analysis using multivariate ANOVA (MANOVA) indicated that learners who received the sentence writing treatment significantly outperformed those learners who received definition and fill-in-the-blank exercises in the acquisition, retention, and production of lexical vs. grammatical collocations. Moreover, fill-in-the-blanks could help the participants learn, retain, and remember both types of collocations significantly better than the L2 definitions. These findings have some pedagogical implications for learning and teaching lexical and grammatical collocations.

The present study investigated the impact of language learning strategy instruction on the enhancement of less successful Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ L2 achievement. To this end, 40 less successful EFL students took part in the study, 20 of whom were trained based on CALLA (Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach) and the rest formed the control group. A complete TOEFL PBT test was administered to the 40 participants of the study to homogenize them in terms of language proficiency.The results of two independent samples t-tests and two separate paired samples t-tests indicated that explicit strategy instruction had a significant positive impact on L2 achievement of less successful Iranian EFL learners as the participants in the experimental group significantly outperformed their counterparts in the control group. The results of the current study might contribute to the educational policymakers, materials writers, syllabus designers, curriculum developers, and foreign language teachers to incorporate learning strategies in their policies, curricula, syllabi, materials, and instructional tasks if they intend to boost EFL learners’ L2 achievement.

Listening skill, which gains momentum with the increase of digitalized resources in the globalizing world, puts language learners who can make use of listening strategies one step ahead. This paper sought to investigate the listening strategy use of EFL undergraduate students in relation to their foreign language listening performance. 157 EFL students at a state university, who were aged between 18-23 participated in the study. This descriptive study employed a quantitative approach. Nakatani’s (2006) Oral Communication Strategy Inventory (OCSI) was used for data collection purposes. A listening test was also administrated to the participants in order to measure their listening comprehension. The statistical analyses revealed that the participants mostly employed negotiation for meaning strategy followed by scanning and getting the gist strategies. The results also indicated that only getting the gist strategy was a significant predictor of L2 listening performance. A statistically significant difference between high and low-achieving L2 listeners was also found on negotiation for meaning, getting the gist, scanning, and nonverbal strategies.

The upheaval time of COVID-19 highlighted the importance of an effective way of teaching English to the front-line healthcare workers such as medical doctors and researchers with different digital-divide status, particularly in non-English-speaking countries because they were first-hand users of critical pandemic-related information in mostly-English articles published online by scientific journals. This study attempted to investigate the pedagogical effects of utilizing the two main User-Generated Content (UGC) platforms in E-learning, namely LMS vs. LXP, on the results of the Electronic Ministry of Health Language Examinations (E-MHLE) among Iranian English for Medical Purposes (EMP) learners across their digital-divide status (digital natives vs. digital immigrants) during the COVID-19 pandemic. A series of focus-group E-interviews were conducted to determine the reasons behind the lowest scores among the participants and to find out possible suggestions for success in high-stake E-tests. To this end, 272 EMP learners who were users of LMS and LXP were conveniently selected from a university of medical science to participate in this sequential explanatory mixed-method research. The results of descriptive and inferential statistics showed that the LXP group outperformed the LMS one in the results of E-MHLE. Moreover, the digital natives obtained higher scores than the digital immigrants in both groups but the difference was not significant in the LXP. The findings of the E-interviews were thematically analyzed and discussed. The findings of this study might offer practical and realistic benefits to the whole EMP community, particularly policymakers for the post-COVID-19 era. 

This quantitative study aimed to investigate the combined effects of two types of strategic planning, namely collaborative and teacher-led planning conditions and task complexity on Iranian intermediate language learners' oral production in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. To achieve this purpose, 90 EFL learners were selected through convenience sampling from a language institute in Shiraz, Iran, and randomly assigned to two control and four experimental groups. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design in the form of pretest, treatment, and posttest. In the first step, all participants took part in a speaking pretest in which they were required to narrate a story based on a series of picture description tasks. While the experimental groups underwent 10 treatment sessions of picture description task performance along with two planning types i.e., teacher-led and collaborative planning conditions, the control groups were not allowed to plan the task performance. In the last session, the language learners took a posttest whose results were compared with those of the pretest. The findings revealed that the language learners in the collaborative planning groups outperformed the other groups in terms of both fluency and complexity. Further, teacher-led groups did better than the other groups in terms of accuracy. This study carries crucial implications for EFL teachers, material developers, syllabus designers, and speaking skill examiners.