درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This study aimed to investigate the syntactic errors that the Iranian deaf and hearing-impaired (DHI) make in their L2 writings. To this purpose, 60 male and female Iranian DHI students with different social status were selected, through convenience sampling procedure, as participants from among the students of a deaf community in Bandar Abbas, Iran. Their general writing performance was assessed through a proficiency test (pre-test) before they received a six-week writing instruction, in which they were provided with model written utterances and common syntactic points such as sentence order, word order, subject/verb agreement, etc. At the end of the treatment, they were given two topics and asked to write short paragraphs (post-test). Then, different syntactic errors were spotted, analyzed and categorized based on Keshavarz’s linguistic taxonomy of errors. The obtained results indicated that the writing quality of the participants improved from pre-test to post-test. It was also found that majority of the participants committed more syntactic omission errors than syntactic addition errors and syntactic substitution errors. It was further found that syntactic errors in written language were not affected by the gender and social class of the participants. The findings of this study provide empirical evidence for teaching syntactic order to deaf and hearing-impaired students in order to enhance their L2 writing performance.

The present study aimed at investigating the relationship between interpersonal intelligence of Iranian bilingual and multilingual EFL learners and their reading comprehension achievement. To do so, 60 intermediate EFL students were selected from a group of 80 based on their OPT scores. They were non-randomly divided into two experimental groups. Data collection took place during the summer semester 2017. Once the interpersonal intelligence questionnaire and the reading comprehension test scores had successfully been collected, the results of Pearson product correlation coefficient analyses showed that there was a significant relationship between Iranian bilingual and multilingual EFL learners’ interpersonal intelligence and their reading comprehension achievement: higher interpersonal intelligence was associated with higher levels of reading comprehension achievement and higher statistical significance among bilingual learners. Therefore, it was suggested that Multiple Intelligence Theories could still serve as determining factors in planning programs to teach reading in spite of the theoretical, conceptual, and empirical criticisms of the idea.

This study aimed to determine the university students’ level of social presence, preferred synchronous learning tool, and learning performance and their differences according to sex, age, year, major, Blackboard experience, and perceived computer literacy. The relationship between students’ social presence, preferred synchronous tool, and learning performance was also determined. The respondents were 29 students enrolled in the ESL online elective class, Global Business Communication, at a university in South Korea. There were two sets of online surveys used in this study. The statistical tools used in this study were the mean, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test, Mann-Whitney Test, and Kruskal-Wallis Test. The results showed that the students maintained a Moderately High level of social presence throughout the duration of the course, chose KakaoTalk as their preferred synchronous learning tool, and concluded the course with an overall average grade, or learning performance level of “B”. There was a significant difference regarding the students’ learning performance when they were classified according to Blackboard experience; and no significant relationship existed between the students’ social presence, preferred synchronous tool, and learning performance.

This study is aimed at (1) examining the preferred English learning styles among secondary school students; (2) exploring the mismatches in teachers’ English teaching styles and students’ learning style preferences. A quantitative approach was used to seek answers to the research questions. The sample of this research involved 204 students and 5 teachers of English from 5 different secondary schools in Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR. All student and teacher participants were invited to rate their agreement levels on a five-point rating scale, towards Reid’s (1995) six learning style preferences. The data collected were analyzed based on descriptive statistics. The findings reveal that student participants had more than one preferred learning styles. They preferred Kinesthetic, Group, and Audio learning styles in their English classes. For them, learning through doing, learning and working together with classmates, doing or resolving challenging tasks as well as listening to teachers and someone’s instructions through interaction made them learn more effectively. The study also finds that mismatches in styles between teachers’ teaching styles and students’ learning style preferences do exist in four out of the five sampled schools. Teachers are more oriented to Visual styles. For instance, they favor writing things on board, asking students to read from textbooks, provide activities that make students read rather than listen to instructions, while students are likely not to prefer the Visual learning style.

Applying both teacher- and computer-generated feedback to foster EFL learners’ writing remains a less explored issue. The purpose of this study was two-fold. Firstly, it examined whether blending both online automated feedback (OAF) and teacher feedback had a significant effect on EFL learners’ writing ability or not. Secondly, it explored their perceptions on the use of the blended OAF and teacher feedback. To this end, this study employed a mixed-method design using essay writing, questionnaire, and interview to investigate the impact of blended OAF and teacher feedback on EFL learners’ writing ability in an essay writing course. Thirty intermediate EFL learners participated in the study; they were given the first writing pre-test, and then were assigned into experimental and control groups randomly. The experimental group was given access to the integrated OAF and teacher feedback on their two-paragraph problem-solution essay writing during the treatment phase while the control group received teacher-only feedback. The results of the independent samples t-test and RM ANOVA showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in terms of the overall score for the two final essay writings, and also demonstrated a significant improvement in writing scores across four essays during the treatment. The qualitative data also revealed the participants’ positive perception towards the effectiveness of the blended OAF and teacher feedback on their writing. Overall, the findings of this study can contribute to a better understanding of the impact of the blended feedback in enhancing EFL learners’ writing ability.

The intention of the present paper is to seek whether gender has any impact on the effectiveness of applying Guthke's Lerntest approach in reading comprehension. For this purpose, after selecting 60 intermediate EFL learners, they were arbitrarily categorized to four clusters of males and females, two experimental and two control groups, each consisting of 15 male and 15 female learners. Both control and experimental groups took part in a reading performance class, but just the main groups (experimental) were subjected to interventionist model of dynamic assessment (DA) on their reading tests, and control groups were assessed through static testing method. A pretest and a posttest were given to the intermediate level and, a questionnaire comprising 16 items was given to the experimental groups to elicit their attitudes towards the application of Guthke's Lerntest approach. To examine the hypotheses of the current research, independent t-test and Likert -scale were used. The results of the study revealed that EGM and EGF learners were not very much different with regard to their performances on the reading post-test. In addition, the learners held highly positive attitudes towards DA practices in their EFL setting.

This study examined the development of text complexity for the past 25 years of reading comprehension passages in the National Matriculation English Test (NMET) in China. Text complexity of 206 reading passages at lexical, syntactic, and discourse levels has been measured longitudinally and compared across the years. The natural language processing tools used in the study included TAALES, TAALED, TAASSC, and TAACO. To compare the differences across the years at various levels of text complexity, ANOVA and MANOVA tests were conducted. The results suggested that lexical level text complexity revealed the most evident changes throughout the years, lexical sophistication, density, and diversity levels of the most recent years of reading passages have increased remarkably compared to the early years. The syntactic level text complexity indicated a moderate elevation toward the recent years of reading passages. For the discourse level text complexity, regarding cohesion, insignificant fluctuation occurred throughout the years and the general trend was not necessarily increasing. Combined, the results indicated that text complexity of the reading comprehension passages in the NMET over the past 25 years had been steadily increasing by including more low frequency and academic vocabulary, diversifying vocabulary in the passages, and complicating sentence and grammatical structures. The results were further examined against the general curriculum standards and guidelines to analyze whether the changes were reflected in the policies. It showed that the exams required a much larger vocabulary size than the number indicated in the guidelines, suggestions for test designers and pedagogical practices were provided accordingly.

Writing effective and persuasive manuscripts for submission to the high-indexed Iranian and international English-medium journals for the purpose of publication deserves having to-the-point knowledge and proficiency, which the Non-Native English writers of the non-English speaking countries seem to be lacking. Therefore, researchers need to identify problems and challenges that the group of writers encounter in the field of English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP). Therefore, this study aims to identify the ERPP needs of the Physical Education Ph.D. students and writers. Hence, interviews were conducted with a group of Physical Education content experts and Ph.D. students to identify the writers’ problems and challenges. The interviews were tape recorded as the participants had already been informed of the recordings and research aim. The tape recordings were then transcribed and analyzed in the thematic analysis and the grounded theory methods. The data analysis came up with four major themes (gained in the selective coding stage), 20 sub-themes (gained in the axial coding stage) and 83 themes (gained in the initial/open coding stage). The four major themes were `problem with language,’ `problem with content,’ `problem with journals,’ and `the demotivating factors.’ The fourth major theme, i.e., `the demotivating factors’, consisted of the sub-heading the technological illiteracy problem, which should be regarded as the novelty feature of this paper. The research is useful for material designers and instructors of the English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) and others to offer tailor-made education to the tertiary level Physical Education students.

The present study examined the comparative effects of Etherpad-based writing instruction and face-to-face writing instruction on EFL learners' writing quality and writing self-efficacy. It also aimed at finding the learners' attitude towards the influence of Etherpad and their reason for success/ failure in this writing course. To this end, ninety students were selected through convenience sampling and randomly assigned to one of the two instruction groups. In addition to an IELTS writing task, Self-efficacy in Writing Scale (SWS) was administered. During the course, the students received instruction on writing an argumentative essay. After the treatment, the SWS and another IELTS writing task were given. Subsequently, a semi-structured interview was conducted with twenty Etherpad-based learners to find their attitudes towards the reason for their success/ failure and the effectiveness of Etherpad. The results revealed that the Etherpad-based group significantly outperformed the face-to-face group in the writing posttest and demonstrated a higher level of writing self-efficacy. The interview data showed that the students attributed their success to both internal and external factors. Whereas, they ascribed their failure to internal factors rather than external ones. It was also revealed that the students found Etherpad as a predictor of their success in writing performance.

Individual characteristics and differences, namely strategy-use behavior have been gaining much attention among researchers due to influences that they may have on test takers’ performance on reading tests. From a language testing perspective, however, further experimental studies are needed in this regard. This study investigated the relationship between test-takers’ strategy-use behavior and their reading test performance. Five hundred and twenty Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners (both male and female) participated in this study. They were assigned to high- and the low-reading ability groups based on their scores on a teacher-made reading comprehension test. They were also required to sit for a teacher-made TOEFL-based reading comprehension test and answer the adapted version of Phakiti’s (2008) Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategy Questionnaire with 30 items immediately after the test. The reliability of both instruments was approved through Cronbach alpha and the validity was assured through content and construct evidences of validity. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) on the questionnaire indicated that three factors were identified as cognitive (comprehension, retrieval, memory) and three as metacognitive strategies (planning, monitoring, evaluation) for both ability groups. Moreover, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis showed that metacognitive strategies had a regulating function on cognitive strategies in both groups. Furthermore, the results showed that in the high ability group Comprehension (COM) and Memory (MEM) strategies and in the low-ability group, Retrieval (RET) strategies were the best predictors of reading test performance. Finally, some implications and suggestions for further research are presented.

ELT coursebooks are the fertile soil for the transmission of cultural perspectives and also strong tools for shaping L2 learners' behaviors and expectations. This study investigated the existence of covert/ hidden curriculum in two of the widely used ELT coursebook series-- Top Notch and English File . To do so, the content of the series was analyzed via Moran's (2001) model of dimensions of culture and Chao’s (2011) main categories of culture . The results indicated that the series, along with covering different dimensions of culture, are biased mainly in favor of the western products, persons and perspectives, and that despite their global EFL/EIL audience, they vividly base their dialogues, reading and listening on the norms and values of the English-speaking countries, with almost no attention to the local, especially Asian values. The study, discussing the implications of such culture- related covert curricula in the ELT coursebooks, makes relevant suggestions for the design of ELT coursebooks in the present global village.