درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The present study sought to cast light on differences in strategies of compliment responses used across Persian and American English. For this purpose, 110 participants, under three groups of Persian native speakers, American native speakers, and Persian learners of English, answered a Discourse Completion Test (DCT), followed by a semi-structured interview with the Persian learners of English to cross-check the findings of the DCTs. The collected responses from the DCTs were coded at macro and micro-levels. Moreover, a macro-level of Persian cultural schemas was used for the Persian groups. The chi-square test revealed the independent performance of the three groups. Judged by the written DCTs while performing in English, the learners’ responses displayed cases of utilizing the native Persian cultural schemas. More specifically, the English learner respondents employed different instances of ta’arof and shekaste-nafsi . Confirmed by the interview, such failures resulted from insufficient exposure to the American English culture and more importantly from their lack of instruction and awareness of cross-cultural pragmatic differences.

The importance of language teacher identity has been widely recognized recently as teachers’ professional development is highly influenced by the ways teachers view themselves. Critical orientation towards identity has also received considerable attention recently. The present study, thus, investigated the effect of a Critical Teacher Education Course (CTEC) on EFL teachers’ identity (re)construction. The participants included thirteen teachers who were first interviewed using a 20-question interview checklist whose items enabled the researchers to elicit teachers’ professional identity with a focus on critical pedagogical orientation. The teachers then attended an in-service CTEC held for ten sessions. The course was primarily dialogue-based where different premises of transformative education and critical pedagogy were introduced and discussed. This was followed by the second interview session in which the teachers were asked the same questions as the first interview. In the meantime, the teachers were also required to critically reflect on their classroom practices through reflective journals. The data were subjected to content analysis (inductive category development). The findings revealed that prior to their participation, the teachers viewed teaching English as a neutral act unaffected by contextual factors, whereas after the CTEC, they became more aware of the social, cultural, economic and political factors that might affect the whole process. Secondly, compliance with the rules and regulations, policies, and the status quo marked teachers' identities. However, they changed to more integrative teachers with critical orientations after CTEC. The findings might imply that EFL teacher training/education programmes become more localized, dialogic, interaction-based, negotiation-oriented and integration-driven.

In case not enough caution is exercised in the assessment of second or foreign language learners’ writing performance, one cannot trust the accuracy of decisions made accordingly. As experts or trained raters are often not available or it is not cost-effective to employ them in most educational contexts, writing assessment is often carried out by language instructors, who may not enjoy an adequate competence in teaching and assessing L2 writing. This makes the investigation of the accuracy of ratings done by language teachers a must. In so doing, 30 language teachers in three groups, each with a different background in teaching English and L2 writing, were selected, and their ratings of 30 IELTS samples were compared against those of expert raters using One-Way ANOVA tests. A statistically significant difference was found among the raters for the total writing score as well as the four components, with the L2 writing teachers demonstrating the closest performance to that of the expert rater and with language teachers with no or very little background in teaching L2 writing demonstrating the lowest accuracy. Moreover, the only significant correlations were found between the ratings done by the writing teachers and those of the expert rater, indicating that only they could interpret the scoring criteria not significantly different from the expert rater. The results demonstrate that language teachers are not generally suitable writing raters as they are affected by their own teaching background and understanding of the rating criteria.

The present study was an attempt to explore the ‘washback effect’ of task-based assessment (TBLA) on EFL Iranian learners’ pragmatic development. To this end, through conducting KET (Key English Test), 60 out of 120 EFL Iranian learners studying in an English language school, were randomly selected. They were assigned to treatment group (N=30), and control group (N=30). The treatment group was assessed through TBLA and the control group was assessed via non-task based assessment for 20 ninety-minute sessions. The class sessions were held twice a week. The obtained data was examined through independent sample t-test. The findings implied that TBLA as a pedagogical measurement tool can well replace the classic assessment procedures, since all educational efforts including testing and assessment procedures are planned to maximize the educational gains and developments.

Standard political discourse is replete with ambiguity and vagueness. Politicians frequently use vague language to hide their inadequate knowledge, show their low interest in the issue, and/or evoke emotion. This study reports on a qualitative content analysis of vagueness in two Iranian presidents' political interviews within a pragmalinguistic and sociopolitical paradigm. The data consisted of nine question-answer exchanges extracted from seven internationally live broadcast interviews. A total of 57 instances of vague language use were analyzed in terms of 21 pragmalinguistic vagueness strategies. Implications are that vagueness in political discourse is motivated by a multiplicity of factors such as face management, sociopolitical and situational adaptation, conflict avoidance, and personal characteristics of the interviewers and the respondents. Vagueness was also found to be a sign of diplomatic prudence or wisdom.

Annually, a good number of Iranian students who have completed their undergraduate studies in non-English-related majors apply and enroll in Master’s level Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) programs. Although evaluating MA TEFL program in Iran from university instructors’ and students’ perspectives has so far been the subject of several studies, the experiences and views of these TEFL major-changers have not been duly explored. To address the existing gap, in this qualitative research, the experiences of major-changers studying TEFL at MA level in three state universities in Tehran have been investigated. Besides, six TEFL university instructors were asked to share their perspectives concerning major-changers attending MA TEFL programs. In the main , the findings revealed that motives like interest in pursuing an English teaching career rather than a job related to their former major; gaining the required competency through attending crash courses held by university exam preparatory institutes; facing challenges in acquiring the specialized discourse of the community; and witnessing realities which ran counter to their prior supposition, as discussed by the major-changers and the instructors, formed part of the lived experiences and views of these major-changers.