درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

La réalisation d’un mémoire est considérée comme la tâche finale des étudiants en master, à la fin de leur cursus afin de mériter un diplôme universitaire. Or, cette activité cause divers types de difficultés notamment aux étudiants allophones. Cette étude a pour but d’analyser les problèmes auxquels se trouvent confrontés les étudiants iraniens en master de didactique du FLE lors de la préparation et de la rédaction de cet écrit académique. Pour atteindre l’objectif assigné, 3 dispositifs de recueil de données ont été combinés : les commentaires de 4 professeurs sur 7 textes de mémoire, un entretien semi-directif effectué auprès de 12 étudiants et un questionnaire rempli par 33 étudiants. 3 dispositifs d’analyse de données ont alors été exploités : une grille d’évaluation basée sur les compétences nécessaires à la rédaction d’un mémoire, une grille d’analyse des entretiens ainsi que le logiciel SPSS. Les résultats de notre étude montrent que selon les étudiants, les problèmes engendrés lors de la préparation du mémoire sont significativement plus élevés par rapport à ceux causés lors de la rédaction du mémoire. Par ailleurs, les problèmes d’ordre linguistique pour rédiger un texte académique sont récurrents. A cette complication se greffent les difficultés d’ordre scientifique/méthodologique (pratiques de citations, choix et mise en place des méthodes de recherche ainsi que des dispositifs d’analyse des données). D’autre part, les obstacles sur le plan spatio-temporel peuvent être considérés comme un malaise auquel se heurtent les étudiants iraniens lors de la réalisation de l’étude de terrain. Le manque d’accès à des ressources diversifiées pour élaborer le cadre théorique ainsi que la non-maîtrise des logiciels de traitement de texte comptent également parmi les problèmes des étudiants.

The relevance of metalinguistic knowledge in effective teaching of the four language skills is evident. As such, the present study sought to determine the degree of Iranian EFL teachers’ metalinguistic knowledge by focusing on the role of academic degree in English Language Teaching (ELT) and teaching experience. The study drew on a mixed-methods research design, and the data were collected through a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview, exploring teachers' perceptions and evaluations of metalinguistic knowledge. Additionally, in order to evaluate the declarative knowledge of teachers regarding their grammatical awareness, a test of English Grammar Knowledge was administered among 94 novice and experienced EFL teachers with and without an academic degree in ELT teaching in private language institutes. The results of the questionnaire and interview indicated that while the importance of having grammatical knowledge was evident for participants, experienced teachers displayed more positive views toward grammar awareness. Furthermore, the teachers' performance on the grammar test showed that while formal education helps teachers improve their knowledge, it is not the only determining factor for high levels of declarative knowledge of language. On the contrary, teachers' background knowledge was found to result in high levels of metalinguistic knowledge. Additionally, the results revealed that years of teaching experience does not determine the levels of teachers’ metalinguistic knowledge. The study provides implications for EFL teachers and teacher trainers.

Considering one of the earliest calls for applying pragmatics in the second language, Kasper and Rose’s (2002) study “Is Pragmatic Teachable?”, pragmatic features have been analyzed during the last 20 years in EFL/ESL contexts. The amalgamation of studies has been conducted on many speech acts around the world within the two decades, among which apology is considered as the second most-appreciated speech act in Iran. The aim of the current meta-analysis is twofold: first, to unravel the overall effectiveness of the instruction in an Iranian EFL context on the speech act of apology, and second, to explore whether treatment types and research designs moderate this effectiveness. To this end, out of a total number of 31 studies, 12 papers were chosen based on the exclusion and inclusion criteria, which were coded for the analysis. The results of the study revealed that the instruction of apology is effective for this speech act, and it documented a medium effect size. Furthermore, it was found that research design is a good predictor for this effectiveness, and the quasi-experimental group displayed a large (g = 2.39) and positive effect. Although treatment types (e.g., explicit & non-explicit) produced medium and large effect sizes, they are not a suitable predictor for the overall effectiveness of instruction on the aforementioned speech act. The study concludes with pedagogical implications and suggestions for future studies.

This study aimed at examining the main and interaction effects of increased intentional reasoning demands, planning time, and also language learning aptitude on syntactic complexity, accuracy, lexical complexity, and fluency (CALF) of 226 EFL learners’ performance on letter writing tasks. The participants were first randomly assigned to three experimental groups to be given a task with differing degrees of reasoning demand (low, medium, and high) to each group. Then, within each reasoning group, we reassigned an equal number of high- and low- aptitude learners to Planning and No-planning groups by random stratified sampling. The results revealed that (a) increasing task complexity with regard to the amount of intentional reasoning demands resulted in greater lexical and syntactic complexity and less fluency while no significant effect was observed on accuracy; (b) increasing task complexity through planning time led to significantly lower syntactic complexity and fluency; (c) reasoning demands and planning time had a significant interaction effect on accuracy; and (d) the interaction effect of language aptitude was significant with neither planning nor reasoning factor, but a three-way interaction effect was found on accuracy. The findings are discussed in relation to cognitive task complexity (CTC) models which were the main impetus for this study.

This study aims at investigating the challenges of conducting qualitative research (QLR) from Iranian ELT (English Language Teaching) Ph.D. students’ and ELT faculty members’ viewpoints in the Iranian higher education context. The participants of the study consisted of 100 Ph.D. students majoring in ELT and 50 ELT faculty members. The study followed a mixed-methods approach with the exploratory design. The instruments utilized for collecting the data were a semi-structured interview and a researcher-made questionnaire. To analyze the qualitative data, a grounded theory approach was employed (Charmaz, 2006), and to analyze quantitative data, both descriptive and inferential statistics were utilized. The results of the study indicated that from the ELT Ph.D. students' perspectives, the Iranian educational system, professors, and lack of time, respectively, are factors affecting the possible weaknesses in undertaking QLR. While from the ELT faculty members' points of view, lack of time is the only reason for weaknesses in undertaking QLR. The results also demonstrated that from the viewpoint of ELT Ph.D. students, data interpretation, data analysis, data collection, data coding, and determining the validity of research, respectively, are the most challenging parts of conducting QLR. Moreover, from the perspective of ELT faculty members, data analysis, data collection, data interpretation, and data coding, respectively, are the most challenging parts of undertaking QLR. The implications of the present study for the universities in the context under investigation are discussed. At the end of the paper, some suggestions for further research are presented. 

While the advantages of cooperative learning activities have been extensively acknowledged in L2 literature, this type of pedagogy has not received due attention in the Iranian EFL context. Indeed, the traditional reading method still dominates in most Iranian EFL university classes even though it fails to meet its main objective which is training competent EFL readers. In an attempt to address this challenge, the current case study incorporated cooperative learning pedagogy into two EFL reading comprehension classes in a medium size university in Iran and sought learners’ behaviors and reflections toward the student-centered activities they engaged in during an academic semester. To serve that end, two volunteer cohorts of learners (less and more experienced) from two EFL reading comprehension classes were recruited. Class observation field notes along with focus group interviews comprised the data collection instruments of the study.  While the learners’ behaviors and activities were recorded in observation field notes throughout the semester, the two focus groups were interviewed right after the course had finished. Data analyses indicated that the learners expressed favorable attitudes toward the new approach they were involved in, even though some issues were raised by the interviewees. Some pedagogical implications and recommendations are proposed for efficient incorporation of cooperative learning activities in EFL reading comprehension classes which have traditionally been dominated by teachers based on the findings of the current study.

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) presents teaching techniques and procedures along with the underlying theory and principles and is comprehensible to readers who are new to the field of English Language Teaching (ELT). David Nunan (2015) proposes rich illustrations of theoretical constructs through providing practical examples of how to develop teaching materials and tasks from sound principles; he also presents content through various textual types including classroom vignettes which show language teaching in action, question and answer sessions. The book consists of twelve concise chapters: Language Teaching Methodology, Learner-Centered Language Teaching, Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, Pronunciation, Vocabulary, Grammar, Discourse, Learning Styles and Strategies, and Assessment.

Psychological barriers have always had negative effects on English learning. This research was done to compare the efficiency of TBILT and TBLT on learners’ fear of negative evaluation. The statistical population included all 4200 Babol Azad University students of whom 320 were volunteers to participate in English language classes via public invitation. Then, 90 students were selected using available sampling model and were placed randomly in three groups (two experimental and one control). Before starting teaching, Leary’s fear of negative evaluation questionnaire with Cronbach’s alpha of .769 was administered, and then using three methods namely TBILT in the first experimental class, TBLT in the second one, and Traditional method (GTM) in control group, the teacher taught in 20 sessions, 90 minutes each. After the post test, the two-way single variable co-variance and the Post Hoc Tukey Test revealed that both experimental groups did much better than the control group (p <.001). On the other hand, the TBILT group acted much stronger than the TBLT one (p <.001).