درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Despite consensus in focus on form (FOF) instruction over the facilitative role of noticing, controversy has not quelled over ways of directing EFL learners’ attention towards formal features via implicit techniques like input-enhancement or explicit metacognitive feedback and interactive peer-editing on the output they produce. This quasi-experimental study investigated the impact of input enhancement (IE), metalinguistic feedback (MF), and peer-editing (PE), on 73 intermediate female Iranian EFL learners’ recognition of relative clauses (RCs). The participants, in three intact classes ranged in age between 18 and 30, were randomly assigned as IE (N=23), MF (N=29), and PE (N=21) groups. The 18-session treatment in all groups was based on identical teaching materials and methodology following a reading to writing orientation focused on RCs. The only difference was related to the focus on form that was through enhanced reading texts in the IE group, metalinguistic feedback on discussion of content in the MF group, and peer-editing in pair-discussion of the content in the PE group. Two parallel sets of 40-item multiple choice researcher-made validated tests focused on RCs were employed to measure the participants’ recognition of RCs at the onset and the end of the study. The one-way between-groups analysis of covariance demonstrated significantly higher gains in the MF and PE groups compared to the IE group; the MF achieved higher levels of mastery. The findings highlight the effectiveness of MF and offer implications for more effective teaching of RCs to Iranian EFL learners.

Essay genres are often employed to assess learning at higher education. Students are sometimes required to write essay in examinations and assignments. The expectations of assessors in writing essays are students’ ability to present analytical and reasoned arguments and to engage with alternative viewpoints. In fact, in evaluating essays, assessors consider the extent to which a student is able to meet these expectations. However, students may have challenges meeting these expectations and instructors, particularly instructors in the discipline, may not be prepared to provide students with an explicit linguistic description of how these expectations are met. Thus, this study draws from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to scaffold students’ challenges in meeting the expectations of essay genre. In fact, it uses Dreyfus et al’s (2010) 3 x 3 linguistic toolkit to analyze essays written by postgraduate students in the department of English at one university in India. The 3 x 3 linguistic toolkit is used to zoom in student’s challenges in controlling the resources of SFL’s three metafunctions (ideational, interpersonal, and textual) at the level of whole text, paragraph, and sentence. After the analysis, the findings revealed that students face challenges controlling the resources of the three modes of meaning at all levels. These challenges include difficulties in grammar, lexical choices, punctuation, following expected organization, answering the question, the use of signposts to create a coherent text, and the use of engagement resources to develop a consistent argument. This study has implications for teaching and assessing academic writing.

Mixed in method, the present study investigated whether there was any significant difference between students’and teachers’perceptions of Iranian medical English for Academic Purposes (EAP) students’ language needs. In so doing, 220 EAP students of medicine, 30 subject-matter teachers of EAP, and 20 teachers of English for General Purposes (EGP) teaching medical EAP completed a Likert-scale questionnaire. Fifty of the students and 20 of the teachers also attended a semi-structured interview. The results of both descriptive statistics and inferential statistics indicated that, overall, there was a significant mismatch between the students’and the teachers’perceptions of medical EAP students’ needs. However, both teachers and students perceived reading comprehension as the most important language skill. Moreover, the students, in general, were found not to be satisfied with the EAP program presented to them. The results might prove fruitful for curriculum designers, materials developers, and teachers in (medical) EAP contexts to hear students’voices and to incorporate them in their programs, syllabi, and teaching.

Although L2 writing has attracted salient attention and monopolized many studies in EFL contexts, there is still no full image of its complicated nature.  Trying to play a supplementary role in achieving that image, this study aimed at finding whether Persian and English argumentative and descriptive academic writings were inter/intra-lingually associated and if genre played a role in provoking any differences in the means of total scores obtained from the essays. In so doing, 50 Iranian senior MA TEFL students at the intermediate level were asked to write down two argumentative and two descriptive essays in Persian and English. Each essay was assessed against IELTS task 2 writing band descriptors. Then, the data were analyzed through the Pearson product-moment correlation and paired-samples <em>t</em>-test. The results revealed there were significant positive correlations between the total scores obtained from Persian and English argumentative and descriptive essays. The findings supported the existence of a common underlying proficiency (Cummins, 1980), out of which L1 and L2 writing skills emerged. The results also illustrated there were significant differences between the means of some of the total scores. It was supposed these differences might be due to the possible genre-sensitive nature of common underlying proficiency.

This study explored the effect of teaching Self-Regulated Strategy on the writing accuracy and cohesion of Iranian EFL learners. In so doing, this study followed the SRS instruction model, using a transition word chart, examples, and a graphic organizer. To achieve the objectives, 50 intermediate Iranian EFL learners participated in this study. The design was experimental which used a proficiency, pretest-posttest and random sampling. The analyses of writing tests in the control and experimental groups revealed that SRS instruction had a positive impact on the participants’ writing ability. The effect of SRS instruction was significant on the participants’ writing accuracy and cohesion. The findings draw language instructors’ attention to the meta-cognitive dimension of writing and importance of teaching self-regulatory strategies as a way for achieving autonomy in writing.

The nature of heterogeneity issues within the context of Iranian, English language learning contexts in high schools is one of the under-researched lines of inquiry. For this aim, a researcher-made, Likert-type questionnaire whose items were initially validated through a multi-stage, exploratory research design among 30 teachers was distributed among some 67, Iranian EFL teachers with different degrees of experience (less vs. more) to find the teachers’ concerns/challenges and their strategies to tackle them. The findings suggested that the concerns behind heterogeneous classes were not consistent regrading weak and strong students. In the second place, it became evident that the order of tendency towards adopting the four enunciated strategies was not the same in the two less and more experienced teachers. Possible interpretations regarding teacher outlook as mapped on ‘teacher experience’ to target heterogeneity issues were presented in the end.

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses are currently well-established university programs. These courses are run independently by English Language Teaching (ELT) instructors and content instructors without any collaboration. However, ELT instructors and content instructors do not receive the same level of collegiality and social support from the organizations and students. This paper probed burnout among Iranian EAP teachers, including content instructors and ELT instructors in 28 state universities and its variations in relation to their demographic and organizational characteristics. To this aim, the Persian version of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was administered to content instructors (N=185) and ELT instructors (N=86) in the state universities in Iran. The results of the study indicated that while most of EAP teachers, both content instructors and ELT instructors, had low burnout, a considerable number had mid-levels of emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment. The findings of the study also indicated that the ELT instructors had higher emotional exhaustion than the content instructors, and it was also found that the content instructors with more than 13 years of experience and the ELT instructors with more than 20 years of experience in teaching such courses had the lowest burnout. Based on the findings of the study, educational administrators are suggested to take remedial and preventive actions against EAP teachers’ burnout and enhance ELT instructors’ occupational well-being. It also seems necessary to assist EAP teachers in adapting to the requirements of teaching EAP courses through pre/in-service teacher training courses to obviate the need for extensive experience for gaining expertise in it.