درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

In the realm of second language acquisition (SLA), task-based language teaching (TBLT) and input enhancement (IE) have been the focus of a great number of studies. However, the idea of investigating the effects of focus on form instruction through input-enhanced tasks along with pre-task planning time as one of the features of task-based language teaching has been rarely explored in the field of SLA. Therefore, the current research set out to examine the impacts of focus on form instruction via textually-enhanced reading tasks along with strategic pre-task planning on L2 learners’ grammatical development in terms of learning English passive voice. For the purpose of the study, 60 intermediate learners of English were selected and divided into two groups of thirty namely as enhanced and unenhanced. Then, each group was divided into two sub-groups of fifteen as +planning and -planning. The participants were provided with a pretest prior to the treatment, then, they were instructed via the materials chosen for the purpose of the study for ten sessions and at the end they were provided with the posttest of the study. Their performance on the pretest and posttest were analyzed to find out the possible effects of the instruction provided throughout the treatment phase. The results revealed that learners who were exposed to enhanced reading tasks along with strategic pre-task planning time outperformed the other learners. The findings of the present study can be of use for language teachers, syllabus designers, and task designers.

This meta-analysis was conducted to synthesize the effect of 22 primary studies which have been conducted to test the effect of the integrated skills approach (ISA) on language skills and components. Three questions guide this analyses: What is the overall effect of ISA on language skills and sub-skills? To what extent moderator variables such as learners level of education and proficiency modify the effect of the ISA? What is the magnitude of publication bias in this analysis? The overall effect size was found to be 1.18, which represents a large effect size based on Cohen, Manion and Morrison’ (2007) scale. The results of moderator analysis revealed that the ISA has the largest effect for advanced learners and at a tertiary level of education. The symmetrical funnel plot together with fail-safe N test shows that publication bias does not have any significant effect on the effect size reported in this study. The findings of this meta-analysis have clear implications for practitioners, policymakers, and curriculum developers.

The present mixed-method study examines the effect of Iranian EFL teachers’ teaching experience and academic degree on five dimensions of reflective teaching. In this line, a 29-item Likert scale Reflective Teaching Questionnaire composed of practical, metacognitive, critical, cognitive, and affective dimensions was administered to a convenient sample of 142 male/female B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. EFL teachers with 4-30 years of teaching experience. Moreover, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 16 EFL teachers yielding more in-depth triangulated data on their reflection levels and the related problems. The MANOVA results indicated the significant effect of teachers’ experience and academic degree on their reflective teaching with the least effect reported on the affective dimension. The results indicated significant interaction of the two research variables with the dimensions of reflective teaching. Moreover, the interview results indicated that lack of time, prescribed syllabi, and ineffective teacher training programs were the main obstacles of reflective teaching. The findings may bear implications for Iranian curriculum developers, materials writers, teacher trainers, administrators, and EFL instructors.

Discourse Markers (DMs) are pragmatic ties representing the relationship between different concepts in a discourse. As Fraser (2009) puts it, these lexical expressions are free morphemes that signal a special message about or in addition to the basic message. Given the importance of DMs in the written discourse of English as foreign language (EFL) learners, this study investigated the effectiveness of two methods of interaction in improving Iranian EFL learners’ use of discourse markers (DMs) in writing compositions. The data were drawn from comparing the compositions of two virtual groups of EFL learners who were exposed to two types of online interactions within which different flipped instructional activities were assigned. The data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The results showed that the learners who engaged in online discussions used higher numbers of DM in terms of both type and token. The results also showed an increase in the length of compositions in the case of those groups who embarked on online interactions and discussions of flipped content. The findings suggest that once supported by the provision of flipped content, online interactions help create authentic opportunities for learner-centered discussions, which lead to an increased authenticity level of the EFL learners’ language production. The findings might also underscore the significance of flipped content and online interactions in developing other aspects of EFL learners’ pragmatic competence.

Given the importance of assessment in language education, this study was aimed at investigating the effects of interventionist and interactionist Dynamic Assessment (DA) on Iranian EFL learners’ perfectionism, willingness to communicate (WTC) and foreign language anxiety (FLA). The participants of the study were 166 pre-intermediate female and male learners at two public schools and one private language institute in Karaj. The participants were divided into three experimental groups and were given three separate questionnaires to measure their perfectionism, WTC, and FLA before the treatment sessions. During 14 sessions, groups A and B received instruction using interactionist DA and interventionist DA, respectively. Group C was instructed conventionally as the control group. At the end of the treatment sessions, they were given the same three questionnaires as the post test. The collected data were analysed using one-way ANCOVA. The results showed no significant differences among the two approaches of dynamic assessment and the control group in terms of their effect on learners’ perfectionism and willingness to communicate. Although there was no significant difference between the interventionist and interactionist models of DA, they were both significantly more effective than the control group on learners’ FLA. The findings suggested that dynamic assessment could reduce learners’ anxiety in language learning and lead to an effective teaching and learning process. These findings can have implications for teachers, students, and material developers.

Medical practitioners’ ethnocentric orientations and English language skills contribute to the success or failure of intercultural communication in the context of health care. The present study aims to investigate the relationship between ethnocentrism and investment in learning English in the multicultural setting of English classrooms at an Iranian medical university. To this end, 200 Iranian medical students’ levels of ethnocentrism and investment in learning English were measured. The findings of this study revealed that the participants had relatively moderate levels of ethnocentrism and investment, and there was a strong negative relationship between the two constructs. Female medical students were found to be significantly less ethnocentric than male students, but were not significantly different from them in terms of investment. These findings were explained considering several contextual factors such as the participants’ linguistic loyalty, intercultural contact, and social comfort in English classrooms. Practical implications, direction, and limitations are discussed.

The aim of the present study is to investigate the effect of students' learning styles on their performance in various question types of the listening section of IELTS examination as well as their strategy selection. To this aim, 90 Iranian IELTS candidates from IELTS courses of an English language institute in Tehran, took part in the study as the sampling method was based on availability. The participants of the study comprised of 35 males and 55 females, and they mostly aged between 20 to 27 years old. The researcher first used Kolb's questionnaire to recognize the individual learning styles of candidates, which were accordingly categorized into four classes as activists, theorists, pragmatists, and reflectors. The results obtained from the one-way ANOVA showed that the dissimilarity of the style groups causes different performance in some question types of the listening test. In the note completion, multiple choice, and matching question types, the findings indicated a statistically significant difference. Therefore, it could generally be argued that in these three types of questions in the listening comprehension module of the IELTS examination, variation in different learning styles groups causes variation of performance in different question types. The results of the present study also reveal that the style preferences affect the individual differences in selecting the learning strategies

The study aimed at examining the effects of scaffolding ESP readers, by using graphic markers and highlighting syntactic and emphatic prosody, on their Foreign Language Reading Anxiety (FLRA) and fluency. A mixed-methods research design was used for a deeper understanding of the obtained data. An experimental design was planned with a control and an experimental group including 38 students of two fields, museum studies, and conservation of historic buildings in Shiraz University of Arts. Participants of the experimental group were scaffolded to develop reading fluency with different graphic markers, while members of the control group had their usual ESP classes. The participants’ FLRA and reading fluency levels were assessed prior to the study and after it ended. Statistical analysis of the results proved that scaffolding the students with graphic markers had the potential to lower their FLRA. Also, the results of fluency assessment frameworks including Words Read Correctly per Minute (WCPM), Multidimensional Fluency Scale (MDFS) and National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) confirmed the effectiveness of scaffolding the readers with graphic markers. For a deeper understanding, the data were explored using qualitative data classification and analysis by the NAEP framework. The qualitative analysis of the observations showed while graphic cues can scaffold the learners to notice their shortcomings toward an optimum level of fluency, they could not be the sufficient condition for achieving the goal. It was also concluded that online decoding, sight-word reading, and sensitivity to stress and intonation are pre-requisites of fluent and prosodic reading with expression.

The present research aimed to investigate gender-specific charactonyms in the Persian Translation of John Bunyan’s (1684) The Pilgrim's Progress, Part 2. It also aimed to reveal whether the TL preferred equivalents for the SL gender-specific charactonyms could convey the meanings and the characteristics of the names in the Persian translation. The material was borrowed from the book Seir-o Solouk-i Za’ir, Bakhshe Dovom (‘سیر و سلوک زائر، بخش دوّم’) translated by Golnaz Hamedi in 2002 (1381), and also its French and Arabic translations. Thus, SL gender-specific charactonyms were compared with TL equivalents in Evelyn Hatch’s (1992) macro-level analysis. According to Hatch (1992), characters, as one of the main elements of a story, play a significant role and affect the macrostructure of the story. The results showed that the Persian equivalents used by Hamedi (2002) ranged from transparent to problematic ones. Hamedi (2002) less preserved the meanings of the names and sometimes replaced the female charactonyms with already-used male charactonyms that affected the novel due to the change of the characteristics and additional information the charactonyms bear in their inner forms.