درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Academic writing is not just about presenting a set of ideas, but through the act of writing, the authors position themselves as individuals having particular identities which mostly reflect the dominant sociocultural values and practices of the discourse communities in which they are living and performing. The present study, using a mixed method approach, attempted to explore the evidences of voice and subject positioning, as reflections of authorial identity, in the argumentative writings of 41 advanced Iranian EFL learners. At first, the relationship between voice intensity and overall writing quality of the participants was assessed and the results indicated a positive relationship between the constructs. The multiple regression analysis conducted also revealed that assertiveness, as one of the main subcomponents of voice in writing, had the highest level of contribution in accounting for the writing competence of the learners. Afterwards, some representative instances of subject-positioning (i.e., ideational, interpersonal and textual) in the written texts were identified and discussed based on the ideological context of the study since it is believed that authorial identity and voice can vividly reflect the overall ideology of the specific discourse community in which they are constructed. Finally, it was suggested that raising the awareness of learners and even instructing them about the significance of authorial identity, voice and subject-positioning in writing can assist them in constructing more authentic texts in terms of idea presentation, consideration of readers and specific textual and linguistic features used.

As an inseparable part of teachers’ education career, practicum supervision can function as a double-edged sword that can generate pedagogical improvement or even make the worse worst in the class depending on the time and manner of its implementation. Given its significance and crucial role in EFL contexts, supervision has captured the attention of some scholars in this line of research. However, few studies (if any) have focused on EFL teachers’ beliefs about instructional supervision and its role in pedagogical development considering their experience level. To fill this lacuna, the current study examined the perceptions of 100 Iranian EFL teachers with different experience levels toward various supervisory practices and their contribution to teacher pedagogical growth using an Instructional Supervision Questionnaire (Kayaoglu, 2012). Furthermore, a semi-structured interview was carried out with 10 EFL teachers taken from the same sample. The results of analyses indicated that both novice and experienced teachers had a negative view concerning the existing supervision system in Iran. Additionally, no significant difference was found between the novice and experienced EFL teachers’ beliefs about classroom supervision (p > .05). The qualitative findings also revealed that both novice and experienced EFL teachers considered supervision as bureaucracy, fault-seeking, confidence-minimizing, and with little to no instructional worth. They also had similar beliefs as per the characteristics of an effective supervisory act. Moreover, supervision was perceived useful only when teachers were novice instructors, but ineffective as they became experienced.

While the bulk of literature repletes with studies on emotional intelligence and its effect on teachers' performance and students' academic achievement, few have been released as to the potency of the factors that can foster emotional intelligence inside classrooms. Accordingly, the present study aimed to investigate the extent to which spiritual intelligence could be a predictor of emotional intelligence. The data were collected through a merger of the Brief Emotional Intelligence Scale (BEIS-10) and Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory (SISRI).  The evolved 34-item questionnaire was translated into Persian to ensure maximum comprehension of participants. The sample of this study consisted of 847 undergraduate Iranian EFL learners from two provinces in Iran. Three phases were in this study. First, an exploratory factor analysis of SISRI-24 was performed. Second, confirmatory factor analysis of both inventories, individually, was done by IBM SPSS AMOS. This was followed by CFA of the 34-item questionnaire. Last, multiple regression analysis was modeled to find the predictive relationships. The results of PCA revealed a three-factor model of SISRI (18 statements). CFA also verified both inventories under investigation. The model fit estimated of the 34-item questionnaire was sufficiently adequate to approve the model. Multiple regression analysis also indicated that critical existential thinking could predict both appraisal and regulation of own emotions as well as utilization of emotions. Likewise, conscious state expansion could predict the utilization of emotions. It was also found that personal meaning production could predict the appraisal of other emotions. 

Cognitive diagnostic models (CDMs) have received sustained attention in educational settings because they can be used to operationalize formative assessment to provide diagnostic feedback and inform instruction. A large number of CDMs have been developed over the past few years. An important component of all CDMs is a Q-matrix that specifies a particular hypothesis about the relationship between each test item and its required attributes. The purpose of this study was to construct and validate a Q-matrix for the reading comprehension section of the Islamic Azad University English Proficiency Test (IAUEPT), as an advanced English placement test designed to measure language ability of Ph.D. candidates who tend to pursue their studies in the IAU. To achieve this, using item responses of 1152 candidates to twenty items of the reading section of the test, an initial Q-matrix was constructed based on theories and models of second/foreign language (L2) reading comprehension, previous applications of CDMs on L2 reading comprehension, and brainstorming and consensus of five content experts. Then, the initial Q-matrix was empirically validated using the method proposed by de la Torre and Chiu (2016) and checking mesa plots, and heatmap plot. Five attributes were derived for the reading comprehension section: vocabulary, grammar, making an inference, understanding specific information, and identifying explicit information. Finally, the analysis of the Generalized Deterministic Inputs, Noisy “and” Gate (GDINA) regarding absolute fit at item- and test-level as well as three residual-based statistics showed the accuracy of the Q-matrix and a perfect model-data fit.

Flipped classroom establishes a framework for personalized education tailored to students’ individual needs by incorporating simple technologies of audio/video recordings into instruction. Considering the challenges General English (GE) students and instructors face such as time limitation, students’ low motivation and diverse learning preferences, there seems to be an urgent need for studies on flipped learning. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of flipped classrooms on Iranian EFL learners’ learning outcome in a GE course. As such, fifty students of engineering majors in two intact classes participated in the study and were assigned to a control (n=25) and an experimental (n=25) group. The experimental group received instruction in line with the principles of flipped learning while the control group was taught using the conventional method. The participants’ level of learning outcome was measured before and after the treatment by an achievement test consisting of two parts: grammar and vocabulary. The data were analyzed by Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA). The results revealed a significant difference between the two groups’ performance on the achievement post-test in general and in its two sections (grammar and vocabulary) in favor of the experimental group. Further analysis showed that the effect size for the intervention was large (ηp 2=.19>.14) for general learning outcome; however, as for the components of the achievement test, the effect size was found to be large for vocabulary section (ηp 2=.16>.14) and middle for the grammar section (ηp 2=.134<.14), respectively. Possible interpretations of the findings are discussed and certain implications and applications for GE instructors and materials developers are suggested.      

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between listening assessment task types, time on task, and the use of listening strategy by Iranian EFL learners. For this purpose, a group of 44 Iranian EFL students (Males and Females; 14 to 25 years old) selected through convenience sampling from an English language institute in Sanandaj participated in this study. Then, they were randomly assigned into four experimental groups. In one group, note-taking was considered the listening assessment task, while in the second group oral reproduction was specified as the assessment task for assessing listening comprehension. After that, each group was further subdivided randomly into a shorter time-on-task group (20 minutes) and a longer time-on-task group (40 minutes). Next, all groups completed Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal, and Tafaghodtari’s (2006) Meta-cognitive Awareness Listening Strategy Questionnaire. A two-way ANOVA was run to examine the effects of both listening assessment task type and time on task on listening strategy use among the four groups. The results revealed that the students in the oral reproduction task with high time on task group significantly showed higher preferences for choosing Planning-Evaluation, Mental Translation, and Problem-Solving strategies and those in the note-taking with low time on task group preferred the Directed-Attention strategy, while those in the note-taking with high time on task group preferred Person-Knowledge strategy.

This study compared the use of lexical bundles in authentic spoken language data with those of two English learning textbooks developed for IELTS preparation courses in Iran. The aim was to see if the language chunks available in the said textbooks were representative of the real-life language for which learners need to prepare. To achieve this aim, firstly, a list of lexical bundles was compiled based on Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) and British Academic Spoken English (BASE). Further, the list was used as a reference tool to analyze the language data of two IELTS preparation books published and widely used in Iran. The results highlighted some considerable differences between MICASE and BASE with regard to the use of lexical bundles in terms of their frequency, structure, and function. Moreover, it was revealed that the books under investigation shared only a scarce number of similar lexical bundles with MICASE and BASE as a whole. Therefore, they failed to be representative of the authentic language that people use in real world. Finally, the implications of the study are discussed, and several practical suggestions are made in order to inform teachers, material developers, and syllabus designers of the importance of related corpus linguistic studies.

Researchers stated that learning and applying certain set of lexical bundles of native lecturers by non-native lecturers would help students improve their proficiency through incidental vocabulary input. The present study shed light on the lexical bundles in hard science lectures used by Native and Non-native lecturers in international universities with the main purpose of analyzing the structural and functional similarities and differences in their usage. The secondary purpose was to finalize and present a list of explored lexical bundles employed by Native lecturers in these lectures which could be helpful for students and also Non-Native lecturers. The corpus of this study consists of five and a half hours of three different native university lecturers’ lectures and about five and a half hours of three different non-native university lecturers’ lectures who were teaching hard science (nuclear physics and electronic engineering). The data were analyzed using n-gram tool in lextutor.ca website which is a free online software to analyze the lexical bundles of more than two corpora and compare them. Functional and structural analysis gave the following results. Findings showed that lexical richness of both Native and Non-Native lecturers was not good enough to expose students to rich environments to help them improve their English proficiency. In light of structural classification, the results revealed that dependent clause fragments in addition to verb structure phrases were the most widespread and Noun phrase + of-phrase fragments were the least employed structures of the identified lexical bundles in the lectures of Non-Native and Native lecturers. In terms of structural analysis, it was concluded that stance bundles were the most frequent function bundles used by both groups. Therefore, there were both similarities and differences in the structural and functional classifications of lexical bundles in the lectures of native and non-native lecturers.