درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Although uninterpretable features are claimed to be an area of difficulty for EFL learners, they are still one of the less explored areas of research in the field of L2 pedagogy. The present study sought to investigate the impacts of two techniques, namely contrastive analysis and dictogloss on EFL learners’ mastery of resumptive pronouns, an uninterpretable feature absent in English relative clauses but present in most Persian ones. To this end, 77 elementary EFL learners with similar background in English were selected and assigned to three groups: one control and two experimental. Before and after the instruction the participants were administered a 50-item Grammaticality Judgment test and a 20-item translation test which had been developed and validated for use in this study. The results showed that all three groups had significant progression after the treatments, but the comparison among the groups indicated no statistically significant difference. This may suggest that L2 exposure had a more important role in the participants’ performance than the instruction type (contrastive analysis and dictogloss). The findings seem to support the importance of exposure to such L2 structures over time and that instruction cannot always accelerate acquisition.

تاکید حال حاضر برمهارت های تفکر مرتبه بالاتر ، بسیاری از مدرسان زبان های خارجی را بر آن داشت که به بررسی تاثیر ترکیب روش های گوناگون تدریس و ارزیابی بر افزایش مهارت های تفکر بپردازند. در پاسخ به این نیاز رو به رشد برای مطالعه تاثیر راهبردهای مختلف تدریس بر مهارت های تفکر مرتبه بالاتر، پژوهش حاضر با هدف بررسی تاثیری که ادغام ارزیابی نمونه فعالیت ها، هوش چندگانه، و بازخورد از طریق گفتگو بر پیشرفت یادگیری مهارت ای تفکر مرتبه بالاتر می تواند داشته باشد انجام شد. برای این منظور، چهل زبان آموز سطح پیشرفته در دو کلاس به طور تصادفی به دو گروه کنترل و آزمایش تقسیم شدند که در گروه کنترل ، روش تدریس بر اساس بررسی مستمرنمونه فعالیت های نوشتاری و در گروه آزمایش بر اساس ادغام بازخورد از طریق گفتگو و بررسی مستمر فعالیت های نوشتاری مبتنی بر هوش چندگانه بود. نتایج این تحقیق نشان داد فراگیران در گروه آزمایش نسبت به گروه کنترل پیشرفت بیشتری در یادگیری مهارت های تفکر مرتبه بالاتر داشتند. این یافته ها لزوم درنظرگرفتن هوش غالب زبان آموزان را به عنوان یک معیار برای انتخاب فعالیت های کلاسی و ارائه بازخورد از طریق گفتگو برای ارتقای مهارت های تفکر مرتبه بالاتر مورد تاکید قرار می دهند.

The primary purpose of the present study was to explore whether there was any significant relationship between attitude, self-efficacy, and job satisfaction of Iranian EFL teachers on the one hand, and their choice of teaching strategies. Strategies mostly used by participants of the study with low, mid, and high levels of self-efficacy comprised another purpose of the study. To this end, a questionnaire was developed, piloted, validated, and its reliability was estimated for collecting the required data. Subsequently, based on cluster sampling, 420 male and female teachers from three different educational districts of Tehran responded to the questionnaire. Three separate MANOVAs were run to investigate the effect of teachers’ attitudes on strategies they employed for teaching grammar, vocabulary, and reading. This was followed by the same approach to study the effect of teachers’ self-efficacy and job-satisfaction levels, as well. The results revealed a significant relationship between three factors (attitude, self-efficacy, and job satisfaction) and teachers’ choice of teaching strategies. Moreover, based on the scores obtained from the answers to the questionnaire, participants were classified into three levels of low, mid, and high which corresponded with their degrees of attitude, self-efficacy, and job satisfaction. Accordingly, it was shown that high level of attitude, self-efficacy, and job satisfaction strongly affected teachers’ use of vocabulary teaching strategies; mid to high level of attitude and efficacy affected use of reading and grammar strategies. Also, it appeared that strategies for teaching vocabulary are used more frequently among teachers than grammar and reading.

Dynamic assessment (DA) which is rooted in Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory involves the integration of instruction and assessment in a dialectical way to achieve two main purposes: enhancing learners' development and understanding about their learning potential. However, the feasibility and appropriateness of mediation are two main concerns of DA. The former is concerned with the application of DA for a large number of students, while the latter is concerned with providing test takers with appropriate hints. The purpose of the current study was three-fold: to examine the difference between dynamic and nondynamic tests, to understand about test takers' potential for learning, and to find out how mediation works for high and low ability students. To achieve these aims, computer software was developed. The software is capable of both providing the test takers with graduated hints for each item automatically, and adapting the overall difficulty level of the test to the test takers' proficiency level. To test the efficiency of the software in employing dynamic assessment, 83 Iranian university students participated in the study. The results of the study indicated that the computerized dynamic test made significant contribution both to enhancing students' grammar ability and to obtaining information about their potential for learning. Based on the findings of the study, it can be concluded that the use of dynamic assessment can simultaneously lead to the development of the test takers' ability and provide a more comprehensive picture of learning potential. Accordingly, teachers are recommended to use dynamic assessment to make more informed decisions about their students.

Although decades of research have well elaborated on teacher professional development, we still do not have a thorough picture about what teacher professional development could entail and what components it consists of. The present study aims to develop and validate a teacher professional development scale in an Iranian English foreign language context. An initial tentative model with 130 items was piloted and tested through exploratory and confirmatory data analyses on a sample of 400 EFL teachers. This level resulted in the removal of 28 items in our sample loaded, resulting in a final 102 teacher professional development inventory. The developed inventory measures the extent to which EFL teachers are professionally developed and makes teachers aware of multiple characteristics of professionally developed teachers. These competencies are essential components of teacher professional development, enabling the teachers to utilize them in everyday teaching and learning practices in the classroom settings which, as a result, leads to student achievement. As teachers fulfill important professional roles, they need valid instruments to assess their day-to-day functioning in the class. With the instrument developed and validated in the current research, we, in fact, allow language teachers to assess their extent of professional development in different pedagogical contexts.

Pratiquer un enseignement utile et durable et maîtriser efficacement une langue étrangère est le désir de tous les enseignants et apprenants de langue étrangère. Cet article vise à examiner l’efficacité de l’activité en groupe dans le processus de l’enseignement/apprentissage du FLE chez les apprenants iraniens. Notre hypothèse principal repose sur le fait que, grâce à l’activité en groupe, les apprenants iraniens peuvent mieux parvenir aux capacités telles que l’autonomie actionnelle, la pensée de l’auto-évaluation, l’autocorrection, l’autocritique, l’évaluation des critiques des autres par rapport à eux-mêmes; de même ils peuvent profiter des critiques des autres sur la base de l’interaction avec leurs coéquipiers. Ainsi, Ce travail de recherche mettra l’accent sur les avantages et les inconvénients de l’activité en groupe. Les résultats acquis par l’étude du terrain nous amène à constater que le recours à des activités interactives maximisait la participation des apprenants, renforçait la motivation, développait la pensée critique. Ainsi, l’activité en groupe intégrait les situations du monde réel et immédiat au contenu et encourageait les apprenants à approfondir les connaissances enseignées.