درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This article intends to identify the use and typify the functions of tag questions (TQs) in Persian everyday conversations and dialogic interaction. The analyses were made based on two data sources: A documentary film titled Commander in which the participants are engaged in free interactions, and an audio-recorded instrument named CALLFRIEND which consists of Iranian native speakers' communication on the phone. The datasets were transcribed using CHAT conventions by the researcher. Also, two raters were involved in the coding process and several rounds of coding and discussions were carried out in an effort to fine-tune the functional classification. This study found some overlap between Persian TQs and the ones from other languages, which confirms speakers' presupposition accounting for the largest portion of the corpora. However, there have been found some functions, namely holding the floor, scorning hearer, and ordering or encouraging, which do not conform to any existing classifications of tag questions. The study was implemented within the principles of Conversational Analysis, and the researcher has explored the relationship between the functions and their settings in which conversations were uttered, the expected response, and any other influential sociolinguistic factors.

Professional identity has been perpetually an underlying factor in teacher development. The maintenance of a strong professional identity is a key factor in teacher development which is ultimately a fundamental aspect in the prosperity or failure of any educational system. As a dynamic phenomenon, teachers’ professional identity can be influenced by a variety of factors and particularly any type of educational reform. The present study with an explanatory mixed method design was used to investigate transitions in Iranian EFL teachers’ professional identity in the context of Fundamental Reform Document of Education (2012). For the quantitative phase of the study, a researcher-made questionnaire developed based on the four components of professional identity namely, self-image, self-esteem, job motivation and task perception proposed by Kelchtermans (1993) was distributed among 98 Iranian EFL teachers. Considering the ongoing nature of the professional identity, the questionnaire was assigned to the teachers during the pre-reform and post – reform era. In the qualitative phase, in order to capture a comprehensive picture of the salient factors of teachers’ professional identity and their underlying reasons, a set of semi-structured interviews with 7 volunteer teachers were conducted. The findings revealed that the introduction of the curriculum reform made no change in teachers’ professional identity in terms of self-esteem and task perception, but it slightly affected teachers’ self-image and job motivation. The findings also revealed a potential transition path in Iranian EFL teachers’ professional identity development. Finally, some implications for policy-makers and material developers and suggestions for future researchers were discussed.

This study investigates the benefits of e-collaborative and collaborative writing tasks on the perception of Iranian EFL learners in a process-oriented approach. The study involved 74 intermediate Iranian EFL students at Islamic Azad University, Isfahan Branch. They were divided into three groups by random assignment as two experimental groups and one control group. The experimental groups were required to perform their tasks in collaboration; only one of these two groups had access to the Telegram Application outside the classroom. The control group, however, followed the conventional method of learning how to write. The participants were required to write two journals during the course. They were asked to write about their understanding, attitude, and experience on the writing activity. There were 136 diary entries to be analyzed in order to discover the themes in them. These themes were literally the emerging concepts in the diary entries related to research question of the study about the participants’ perception. After the identification of these dominant themes, content analysis was performed to interpret the data. According to the results of the study, a high percentage of students’ satisfaction showed positive perceptions of e-collaborative activities, and they reported that the instructional implementation of an e-collaborative writing project with a five-stage writing process did assist EFL learners to accomplish a collaborative writing task.

Various models of Dynamic Assessment (DA) have been used in L2 pragmatic instruction and have proved their significant contributions to pragmatic production; however, there is a paucity of research regarding their implementation for pragmatic comprehension. Therefore, this study sought to investigate the effects of interactionist and interventionist models of DA on the accuracy and speed of pragmatic comprehension among a convenience sample of 60 advanced EFL learners who were randomly assigned into two DA groups and a control group. A listening pragmatic comprehension test developed and validated by Garcia (2004) was used both as a pretest and as a posttest. During the 14-session treatment, the interactionist DA group received metapragmatic instruction about 28 conversations, and learners interacted with each other and the teacher. Assistance and scaffolding were continuously provided by the teacher as the more knowledgeable other (MKO) within the learners’ Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The interventionist DA class received its treatment based on DA procedures as presented by Lantolf and Poehner (2010). However, the Non-DA group only received metapragmatic instruction about the conversations from the instructor without any DA-based intervention or interaction. Data analysis using one-way ANCOVA revealed that study groups differed in their pragmatic comprehension accuracy and speed: DA groups significantly outperformed the control group. The interventionist DA group did significantly better than the interactionist DA group for pragmatic accuracy but nor for pragmatic comprehension speed. The pedagogical implication of the study is that teachers can utilize interventionist and interactionist DA to foster learners’ pragmatic comprehension accuracy.

The current study investigated the Iranian Teaching English as a Foreign language (TEFL) Ph.D. candidates’ (TPCs) professional identity development during the TEFL Ph.D. education program (TPEP). Applying a mixed-method design, the current study used two kinds of instruments: a four-point, Likert-scale, a researcher-made questionnaire on TPCs’ professional identity development, and the semi-structured interviews. First, the survey was mailed to 80 university instructors. Then, to yield an in-depth understanding of how TPCs develop their professional identity, TPCs with more than 10 years of intensive experience were asked to participate in the interview.  Following the quantitative data analysis, the qualitative data obtained through semi-structured interviews were analyzed using descriptive qualitative content analysis techniques. The results indicated that the majority of the participants believed that TPEP caused them to gain social legitimation from their community of practice, to get socialized to their global community, and raised their social status; therefore, they believed that not only professional but also personal development took place. Furthermore, it developed their pedagogical knowledge; however, it created small changes in the likelihood of TPCs’ career advancement and led to a small increase in their job satisfaction and security. The findings of the study can have some pedagogical implications for teacher education programs in that they can be used to emphasize their strengths, eliminate their weaknesses, and incorporate ample opportunities for TPCs’ reflection on their current and aspiring professional identities and improve their performance in classes.