درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The present study attempted to investigate the impact of cooperation versus collaboration on college students` reading ability. To fulfill the purpose of the study, 90 participants were chosen from among 140 by means of administering the Nelson Proficiency Test. They were divided into three groups: cooperative group, collaborative group, and control group. A fifty-item multiple-choice reading vocabulary test was developed, validated, and used as the pretest. The results of the one-way ANOVA showed that there was no significant difference among the groups. Then after a number of cooperative and collaborative strategies used as the treatment in this study in six sessions of ninety minutes for each experimental group class, (control group without treatment) the posttest, which resembled the pretest in many respects, was administered to the three groups. The results of one-way ANOVA and Scheffee Test showed that the cooperative and collaborative groups worked better than the control group, and the collaborative one performed best.

Nowadays there are several challenges for English teachers as well as researchers regarding how to teach foreign language pronunciation more effectively. The current study aimed to explore the effect of computer-assisted pronunciation teaching (CAPT) on Persian monolinguals and Turkmen- Persian and also Baloch- Persian bilinguals’ pronunciation considering production and perception. A sample of 48 female mono and bilingual 7th-grade students participated in this study and made the experimental and comparison groups. All the participants took the Oxford Placement Test and accordingly were in the beginner level of English language proficiency (95.83% of the participants’ scores ranged from 0 to 15). The experimental group experienced a technology-based instruction while the comparison group benefited from traditional listen and repeat method of pronunciation teaching. Two Two-way between-group ANOVAs were used to define the influence of CAPT on pronunciation production and perception of the mono and bilingual participants. The results of the study indicated that CAPT had a significant effect on pronunciation production while pronunciation perception was comparatively more enhanced through the traditional method. Regarding mono and bilingualism, it was also found that bilinguals significantly outperformed monolinguals in pronunciation production in both groups while there was no significant difference between them in pronunciation perception. There were also no interaction effects for pronunciation perception or production scores. The results generally showed that CAPT can be beneficial specifically when it is used along with traditional methods at schools in beginner levels.

Driven by the concept of mediation, this study is set out to use sociocultrual theory as the theoretical framework to explore the mediation role of textbooks, specifically, the series Northstar in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university classes in Vietnam. Learning journals with guided questions are employed to collect data on how different aspects of English textbooks assist students’ learning in the classroom. Besides, transcripts of recorded classroom obervations are analysed to interpret how the textbooks formulate and faciliate students’ ideas related to the given tasks and generate their interaction in both the target language and the mother tongue. It is found from the students’ journals that the textbooks assist them in understanding the lesson contents and the images help them with visualizing the lessons. Besides, the students make use of the tasks/activities when practising language skills, especially the listening skill. The transcripts reveal the process in which students refer to their previous knowledge related to the topics/tasks provided in the textbooks to interact with one other. More speficially, the tasks and the ideas of other group members mediate more thoughts of the students, leading to collective knowledge construction and task completion. From the findings, recommendations for the use of textbooks in the framework of sociocultrual theory are put forward.

The present study aimed at investigating the relationship between three main characteristics of teachers; namely, perfectionism, leadership and empowerment, amongst Iranian English and math teachers. To do so, two groups of teachers were selected to participate in this study. One consisted of 177 math teachers and the other comprised 200 English teachers. All were teaching in Khorasan Razavi province, both in high schools and institutes. In order to collect the necessary data, three instruments (i.e. the Almost Perfect Scale–revised Questionnaire, School Participant Empowerment Questionnaire, and Leadership Practice Inventory) were employed. Having analyzed the data, the researchers found that the correlation among all the three variables were statistically significant for both math and English teachers. However, there was a statistically significant difference between math and English teachers regarding their leadership and empowerment, while no statistically significant difference was found between math and English teachers concerning their perfectionism.

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of meaning-focused versus form-focused input-oriented and output-oriented task-based instruction on elementary level Iranian EFL Learners’ vocabulary comprehension and recall. For this purpose, a sample of 120 male students from a private school in Tehran was selected through convenience sampling and based on availability. The participants were divided into four groups, and each group was given a different treatment. The first group was taught through meaning-focused input-oriented vocabulary tasks; the second group was instructed through meaning-focused output-oriented tasks; the third group received form-focused input-oriented vocabulary tasks, and the fourth group received form-focused output-oriented vocabulary instruction. At the end of the treatment, the participants in all the four groups were given a vocabulary comprehension and a vocabulary recall posttest. The results indicated that meaning-focused tasks were more effective than form-focused tasks on both vocabulary comprehension and recall. At the same time, input-oriented tasks turned out to be more effective than output-oriented tasks on only vocabulary comprehension. In vocabulary recall, input-oriented tasks were more effective when they were form-focused, while output-oriented tasks were more effective when they were meaning-focused. The results of this study can have implications for teachers, learners, and curriculum designers.

Although the importance of reading in higher education as an index of success has been highlighted, the metacognitive knowledge or beliefs of graduate students have remained under-researched. This qualitative study reports on a study that, first, examines how graduate students of applied linguistics conceive of academic reading and academic readers in their graduate programs; second, what factors they believe can contribute to the development of those self-conceptions; and, third, if there was the possibility of adding a course on academic reading to their MA programs, how they would judge the advantages and disadvantages of such a course. In so doing, in-depth interviews were conducted with 31 graduate students at eight different universities. The findings revealed considerable changes in the participants' conceptions as the result of taking part in their graduate programs. They attributed those self-conceptions to their efforts and struggles as well as their teachers' help and guidance. Their perceptions of an academic reading course were positive. Pedagogical implications are discussed.

Investigating the processes underlying test performance is a major source of data for supporting the explanation inference in the validity argument (Chappelle, 2021). One way of modeling the cognitive processes underlying test performance is through the construction of a Q-matrix, which is essentially about summarizing the attributes explaining test takers’ response behavior. The current study documents the construction and validation of a Q-matrix for a high stakes test of reading within a generalized-deterministic inputs, noisy “and” gate (G-DINA) model framework. To this end, the attributes underlying the 20 items of the reading comprehension test were specified through retrospective verbal reports and domain experts’ Delphi techniques. In the ensuing stage, the Q-matrix thus developed along with item response data of 2625 test-takers were subjected to empirical analysis using the procedure suggested by de la Torre and Chiu (2016). Item-level results showed that, except for one item, the processes underlying the other items were captured by compensatory and additive models. This finding has significant implications for model selection for DCM practitioners.

The increasing impact of audiovisual media and film industry in particular has led researchers to think of audiovisual translation strategies. Huge investments in film industry need global markets. Hence, there is a need for qualified translations and systematic studies dedicated to this area are in great demand. This study aims to investigate translation strategies adopted in the translation of two awards-winning dramas. The selection criterion is based on winning international awards or compliments received in the target community. Although some may argue that these successes are rooted in the selected movies’ ideologies, the role of an accurate translation in transferring such elements is undeniable. The present study analyzes the translation strategies employed in the subtitled version of the following films: A Separation and I Daniel Blake. The theoretical framework of the current study is based on Gottlieb’s (1992) Classification of Interlingual Subtitling. The obtained results depicted that except dislocation and transcription, all Gottlieb’s strategies were applicable. The results also showed that the film’s genre plays an influential role in translators’ decisions. As these films were warmly welcomed by the target audiences, the frequent translation strategies will be useful and practical for the future of audiovisual translation industry.

This study focuses on realizations and discourse functions of the organizational linkers in the writing of research article abstracts from four disciplines. To this end, 120 research article abstracts from four disciplines namely, Applied Linguistics, Economics, Agriculture, and Applied Physics (30 from each discipline) were selected. All research article abstracts were extracted from empirical research articles published in international high impact journals. The corpus was analyzed adopting Gosden (1992) taxonomy. The most striking result is that the realizations and discourse functions of the organizational linkers, to a large extent, are guided by the nature of research article and discipline. This result adds substantially to the comparative understanding of research article writing across disciplines and evidences the need to tailor writing according to English for specific needs.