درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This study aimed at identifying the most frequent test-taking strategies used by successful Iranian male and female university entrance exam EFL applicants. To this end, 150 English major male and female freshman students who got admission to three reputable state universities of Isfahan, Shiraz, and Tehran were selected conveniently and purposively. The model used in this study was developed by Barati (2005) consisting of planning, monitoring, evaluation, and test-wiseness strategies. After selecting the participants, the modified questionnaire developed based on Barati’s test-taking strategy taxonomy was distributed among the participants. Based on the analysis of results, it was revealed that the EFL learners made frequent use of planning, monitoring, evaluation, and test-wiseness strategies, but only the level of use of planning and monitoring strategies reached statistical significance. Moreover, male and female EFL learners were only significantly different in their use of evaluation strategies, but in terms of using planning, monitoring, and test-wiseness strategies, males and females were not significantly different from one another. The findings of the study bear useful implications for EFL learners, teachers, materials designers, and test constructors.

This study intended to compare the effects of prescriptive and collaborative models of observation on EFL teachers’ perception of their self-efficacy. From among 80 participants, 40 teachers, including 20 novice and 20 experienced teachers, were randomly assigned to the collaborative observation group (experimental group) and another group of 40 teachers, which comprised of 20 novice and 20 experienced teachers, were randomly assigned to the prescriptive observation group (control group). A sequential explanatory design was employed so that both quantitative and qualitative data collection/analysis procedures could be employed. The quantitative data were collected through The Ohio State Teacher Efficacy Scale (OSTES) (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001), and the qualitative data were elicited through semi-structured interviews. The results of both quantitative and qualitative data revealed (i) the significant difference between prescriptive and collaborative observation in terms of teachers’ perception of their self-efficacy, and that (ii) in the collaborative observation group, there was a significant difference between novice and experienced teachers’ perception of their self-efficacy. The study has implications for both teachers and teacher educators, suggesting that collaborative observation could enhance EFL teacher development.              

This study attempted to evaluate and compare language learning apps and the related traditional books on the same subject. The apps included Murphy’s English Grammar and Cambridge Discovery Readers and the traditional materials were English Grammar in Use and Developing Reading Skills. The study, thus, aimed to do a comparative analysis between traditional ELT materials and the digital versions. In doing so, it aimed to evaluate ELT mobile apps and consider their effectiveness for English language learning. The analysis was conducted based on the frameworks adapted from Hubbard (2006) and Reinders and Pegrum (2015). Based on these frameworks, the overall features and functions of the selected applications were analyzed in terms of three categories: ‘content and design’, ‘L2 approaches’ and ‘technology’. The analysis demonstrated that these ELT apps seemed to be effective in that they could provide a personal and learner-centered learning opportunity for learners as they would make them independent from any time and any place. Needless to say, by realizing mobility as a more situated, field-dependent and collaborative form of learning, the effective design and use of ELT mobile applications should continue to be studied in order to suggest the right direction to effective MALL.

Technology-supported collaborative writing has gained popularity in L2 writing pedagogy. The study investigated the effects of Edmodo as an online social platform on the writing accuracy of 50 Iranian intermediate EFL learners, who were chosen through the convenience sampling method. The researchers utilized a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design and assigned the participants to an experimental and a control group. The participants of the control group sent their assignments and received feedback asynchronously through email; whereas, the learners of the experimental group used Edmodo to work collaboratively on their writing assignments. Finally, after eight treatment sessions, the scores of the pretest and posttest were analyzed through using a paired-sample t-test and MANOVA. The results revealed that the application of Edmodo had a significant effect on writing accuracy. Moreover, the participants’ attitudes were assessed by running a Likert-scale questionnaire. According to the findings, they had a positive attitude towards integrating Edmodo into their writing curriculum. This study could bring about pedagogical implications for EFL writing courses.

The aim of this study was to provide evidence on the construct validity of the ‘What is Happening in this Class’ (WIHIC) questionnaire in the context of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) in Iran. The field of language teaching has made a number of claims about the role of language learning environments (particularly the classroom) in L2 acquisition and use, but it does not provide teachers and researchers with reliable and valid instruments to assess the accuracy of these claims. To serve the purpose of the study, a sample of 607 Iranian EFL learners from both university and institute contexts was requested to complete the WIHIC questionnaire, and the obtained data were then submitted to exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis for construct validation. The results indicated that the deletion of one dimension and several items from the original WIHIC questionnaire enhanced its psychometric properties, thus confirming the validity of the questionnaire with six factors. In addition, the psychometric properties of the validated questionnaire were found to be invariant across the teaching context (i.e., university versus institute contexts). The implications of these findings for research on language learning environments are discussed, and some suggestions are made for further validation studies.

EFL learners’ ability to use advanced and varied vocabulary is a crucial issue in writing performance. This study aimed to investigate the effect of writing task type on lexical diversity and sophistication. The relationship between lexical sophistication and lexical diversity in the narrative, argumentative, and descriptive task types written by upper-intermediate EFL learners was also explored. To this end, 70 EFL upper -intermediate learners, enrolled in advanced writing tasks, were selected as the participants. They undertook narrative, descriptive, and argumentative writing tasks in a counterbalanced way. Then, Vocabulary Diversity (Voc-D) and Measure of Textual Lexical Diversity (MTLD) were used to measure lexical diversity. Lexical sophistication was measured using CELEX log frequency and Beyond 2000 Words (K3+). The writings were pasted into Coh-Metrix measure MTLD, Voc-D, and CELEX. VocabProfiler was also used to measure K3+ of the writings. In lieu of the purposes of the study, the research design involved repeated measures and correlation. Using Multivariate Analysis of Variance and Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient, the findings revealed that lexical diversity varied significantly across the three writing tasks. The highest scores of MTLD and Voc-D belonged to the narrative, argumentative, and descriptive writing tasks, respectively. Moreover, EFL learners used more advanced words in argumentative task type according to the measurement of CELEX and K3+ level words. However, learners' lexical sophistication in narrative and descriptive writings did not emerge as significantly different when measured by K3+. The significant positive relationship between lexical sophistication and lexical diversity was evident in all three task types.

The use of storytelling on students’ first language literacy and development were extended to foreign/second language learning, and a large number of researchers interested in the field attempted to use storytelling and story reading strategies in teaching oral language skills to foreign/second language learners. Despite the existence of a number of studies on the impact of storytelling on English language skills, the number of studies on the impact of storytelling and story reading approaches on pre- intermediate EFL learners’ oral language production and comprehension seems to be scanty. To do so, a quasi- experimental study was employed. Ninety Iranian language learners, from 6 intact classes (each consisting of 15), were divided to three sub-groups: storytelling, story reading and conventional groups. To one group, stories were told, one group only read the stories, and the third group received no stories. The data were collected through researcher developed oral language production and comprehension tests. One-way-ANOVA test and three independent samples-tests based on Bonferroni test were employed to analyze the data and locate the sources of the differences. Findings revealed that storytelling outperformed story reading groups on both production and comprehension tests. Story reading group outperformed the conventional group. It can be concluded telling and reading stories are effective techniques for improving EFL learners’ oral language production and recognition.

Teacher education philosophy plays an important role in enhancing the teachers’ awareness of the practices particularly in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). This study meant to observe the possible effect of the awareness of teacher education philosophy on EFL teachers’ professional skill in the light of Kumaravadivelu’s postmethod parameters, tapping teachers’ gender, academic qualification, teaching experience, and age. Through a mixed-method approach employing the posttest-only equivalent-groups design, 60 EFL teachers from four language institutes in Isfahan, Iran, were randomly appointed to experimental and control groups. The philosophy of adult education inventory for treatment of experimental group and a book for placebo of control group were used. A questionnaire, an interview, and classroom observation checklist were tools for data collection. T-test, ANOVA, and Mann-Whitney tests exposed a significant difference between EFL teachers’ awareness of teacher education philosophy and their professional skill. Female teachers, bachelor holders, the most experienced teachers, and teachers in the third age range showed better perception of the teacher education philosophy. The implications derive education policy-makers to demarcate quality resources, teacher educators to modify training approaches, and EFL teachers to develop their professional related presentations.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty members and students had to leave their face-to-face (FTF) classes and move into emergency distance education (EDE) contexts. Due to this drastic change in the system of education, investigating the probable effects of EDE on the quality of education seems essential. As such, this study has attempted to probe the effect of EDE on the language skills of Iranian EFL students. To do so, drawing on the maximum variation sampling, the present study embarked on a qualitative descriptive research method, triangulating data through written open-ended questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to collect data from 170 EFL students from different universities in Iran. The sample included BA students majoring in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) and English Literature, aged above 18. Using Thematic Analysis (TA), students’ responses were transcribed, codified, and interpreted. The findings of TA revealed that along with several disadvantages and challenges that Iranian EFL students experienced in EDE with regard to learning English language skills, EDE provided some opportunities and benefits for their learning. The analysis of students’ responses also indicated that they deemed speaking skill as the most negatively influenced language skill and listening skill as the most positively affected skill. Furthermore, the findings represented that most of the students held teachers and administrators responsible for the problems and challenges they experienced in EDE contexts. The findings of the present study can encourage administrators, teachers, and students to prepare themselves for EDE against the possible subsequent waves.

Metacognitive reading strategies play a significant role in reading comprehension and educational success. Being noticeably absent from many Iranian classrooms and largely unaware of by many language learners and teachers, metacognitive reading strategies have fallen into oblivion in English language teaching, research, learning, and assessment. The present study was an attempt to measure the metacognitive reading strategy (MRS) awareness among Iranian university students majoring in English Translation Studies. It also aimed at determining whether gender and learners’ different academic levels would make any difference in using various types of MRS. Furthermore, it investigated the relationship between Iranian EFL learners’ awareness of MRS and their reading comprehension performance. A sample of 45 EFL university students majoring in English Translation at Chabahar Maritime University participated in this study. They were asked to complete the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) questionnaire adapted from Tavakoli (2014) and to take a TOEFL Junior Standard Reading Comprehension Test. The results revealed that although the overall strategy use among these students was low (M=2.42), support reading strategies were used the most and problem-solving strategies were the least frequently used ones. Additionally, no significant difference was found between males and females as well as different academic levels in the use of MRS. No significant relationship was found between students’ overall use of metacognitive reading strategies and their reading comprehension achievement. The study concludes with a number of pedagogical implications and lists several guidelines for future research.