درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Interaction has always been viewed as a key element in developing the knowledge of an L2 and establishing dynamic communicative episodes. However, it is not always materialized in foreign language learning contexts where access to English speakers is limited. Hence, this study investigated the effects of employing interactive and individual performance tasks on Iranian male EFL learners’ speaking ability. The participants were 32 homogeneous upper-intermediate EFL learners in two intact classes, randomly assigned to two experimental groups. The first experimental group performed problem-solving, reasoning-gap, and opinion-gap tasks individually, and the second group employed problem-solving, reasoning-gap, and information-gap tasks through team-work for 16 sessions. Two speaking pre- and post-tests were administered to evaluate the participants’ oral performance before and after the treatment. The statistical analysis of the data showed no statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the two groups on the speaking post-test, indicating that neither form of performance was superior to the other in the process of developing L2 oral proficiency. However, the results of two paired samples t-tests demonstrated that the learners’ speaking skill had significantly improved in both groups at the end of the experiment. Therefore, the researchers concluded that a careful execution of individual performance tasks in the absence of interaction could also contribute to developing speaking an L2.

A key aspect of effective communication is the use of appropriate speech acts.   This study investigated the difference between Persian native speakers, Iranian EFL learners, and English native speakers in terms of the speech act realization of refusal and uncovered the reasons for which, each group of participants produced the refusal speech act regarding the Rapport Management Approach. To this end, 100 (male and female) intermediate EFL learners were chosen based on their performance on the Oxford Placement Test. 100 Persian native speakers among 140 students studying Persian literature at Najafabad Azad University were randomly chosen and they were asked to fill out a Discourse Completion Test (DCT), consisting of 12 situations realizing the refusal of four types of eliciting acts. Additionally, 12 English native speakers (6 males and 6 females) were also contacted through emails to participate in the study. The English DCT was given to two groups of participants and the Persian DCT was given to Persian native speakers. The politeness model proposed by Brown and Levinson (1987) was adopted to show the differences between Iranian EFL learners, English native speakers, and Persian native speakers who were participants in this study. By using the SPSS software program, the results indicated 'negative' strategies as the most frequent ones and highlighted the significant role of face, social rights, and obligations in interaction. The findings revealed that among politeness strategies 'negative' strategies are the most frequent ones. The results also indicated that English native speakers use negative politeness strategies more than Iranian EFL learners. Therefore, English native participants regard themselves as having rights and obligations about other people more than Iranian EFL learners. The results of this study highlighted the importance of pragmatic knowledge in international communications.       

Pragmatic comprehension is a central albeit under-researched dimension of pragmatic competence in which most EFL learners suffer from serious deficiencies; therefore, the current study was launched to compare the effects of the Non-Computer Mediated Instruction (NCMI) with Computer-Mediated Instruction (CMI), Multiuser Virtual Environments (MUVEs), and Mobile Augmented Reality Games (MARGs) on Iranian EFL learners’ comprehension of English speech-acts. Moreover, this study attempted to cross-compare the effects of the implicit, explicit, and balanced combination of explicit and implicit instruction and synchronous vs. asynchronous CMI impacts on learners' speech-act pragmatic comprehension. Seven equal size groups of 20 upper-intermediate EFL learners took part in this study. Three NCMI groups (implicit, explicit, and balanced explicit-implicit), two synchronous and asynchronous CMI groups (SCMI & ACMI), one MUVE group, and a MARG group were taught based on their assigned 10 two-hour sessions treatments. A validated listening pragmatic comprehension test was used as a pretest and post-test. Data analysis using one-way ANCOVA showed that the utilised MUVE (OpenSim) was more effective than other types of treatments on learners’ pragmatic comprehension development, and both CMI and NMCI were also better than the used MARGs (Batman Bat-Tech Edition and Harry Potter-Wizards Unite). Moreover, those explicit and balanced explicit-implicit interventions were significantly better than the implicit instruction. Finally, the SCMI could enhance L2 pragmatic comprehension significantly better than the ACMI. These findings pedagogically imply the use of MUVEs, SCMI, and balanced explicit-implicit interventions can strengthen L2speech-act pragmatic comprehension.

This study examined the effect of rater training on promoting inter-rater reliability in oral language assessment. It also investigated whether rater training and the consideration of the examinees’ expectations by the examiners have any effect on test-takers’ perceptions of being fairly evaluated. To this end, four raters scored 31 Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ oral performance on the speaking module of the IELTS in two stages (i.e. pre- and post-training stage). Furthermore, following Kunnan’s (2004) Test Fairness Framework, a questionnaire on fairness in oral language assessment was developed, and after pilot testing and validating, it was administered to the examinees at both stages. The examinees’ expectations were taken into account in the second round of the speaking test. The results indicated that rater training is likely to promote inter-rater reliability and, in turn, enhances the fairness of the decisions made based on the test scores. It was also concluded that considering students’ expectations of a fair test would improve their overall perceptions of being fairly evaluated. The results of this study sought to provide second language teachers, oral test developers, and oral examiners and raters with useful insights into addressing fairness-related issues in oral assessment.

Acknowledging the critical role of working memory in language acquisition, this study examines the effects of multimodal input enhancement on working memory capacity (WMC) and collocation learning in adolescent and adult EFL learners. A cohort of 117 participants was randomly assigned to either experimental groups, receiving enhanced textual and auditory inputs, or control groups, experiencing standard inputs. Assessments included the Preliminary English Test, n-back test, and immediate and delayed collocation posttests. The results indicated that multimodal input significantly improved WMC and the recall and retention of collocations for all learners. Adolescents, in particular, excelled in both immediate and delayed tests and adapted their WMC more effectively in a multimodal context than adults. Additionally, an interaction between age and WMC was noted, affecting collocation recall and retention. These findings affirm the benefits of multimodal materials in enhancing cognitive functions and memory resources, thus improving language learning. The study offers practical insights for educational practices, advocating for the use of varied modalities in teaching materials to cater to different learning styles and cognitive needs. It also highlights the significance of designing age-appropriate materials and managing cognitive load in curriculum development, providing a tailored approach to language education for diverse learner populations.

Despite widespread studies on language assessment literacy (LAL), there are still many unexplored areas about LAL (Gan & Lam, 2022). One of these areas is identifying various aspects of LAL regarding different language skills and scrutinizing the English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ involvement with these aspects. Accordingly, this study attempted to (a) explore Iranian EFL teachers’ perceptions, preferences, and difficulties of oral/aural skills LAL and (b) develop a scale to measure these teachers’ oral/aural skills LAL. The study was carried out in two phases. First, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 Iranian EFL teachers to identify their perceptions, preferences, and difficulties of oral/aural skills LAL. Second, the researchers developed a questionnaire based on a review of the literature on assessing oral/aural skills and the results of interviews. The questionnaire was reviewed by experts, revised accordingly, and administered to 150 Iranian EFL teachers who were selected through convenience sampling. The reliability of the questionnaire and its construct validity were then checked. The results of both phases of the study were compatible. The outcomes showed that almost all teachers represented dissatisfaction about their oral/aural skills LAL and they were enthusiastic to participate in assessment training courses. Furthermore, it was found that due to their lack of knowledge about oral/aural skills assessment, traditional techniques of assessment were widely used by Iranian EFL teachers.

The current study attempted to investigate and compare the perceptions of Iranian in-service hard disciplines, soft disciplines, and English teachers of their prognostic, formative, and summative assessment literacy. To this end, a total number of 282 high school teachers (94 teachers from each disciplinary groups) were asked to complete the modified and validated version of Rahimi and Rastgoo’s (2017) questionnaire. To enrich the quantitative phase, 90 teachers (30 ones in each group of disciplines) were also interviewed. The results of one-way ANOVA and multiple comparisons revealed a significant difference between hard disciplines and English teachers in terms of their prognostic and summative assessment literacy. However, no significant difference was found among the three groups in terms of their formative assessment literacy. The content analysis of the interviews cast light on the commonalities and discrepancies of assessment perceptions and practices depending on the teachers’ disciplines. The findings can be transferred to teacher education programs to enhance the teachers’ subject-specific assessment competencies. 

This study investigated the effects of three vocabulary development strategies of keyword method, thematic clustering and developing morphological awareness on the Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary repertoire. Adopting a quasi-experimental design, sixty high-intermediate to advanced Iranian EFL learners were randomly assigned to three experimental groups and partook six online sessions of vocabulary instruction during a week. Using a pre-test and three post-tests, the vocabulary repertoire of the subjects was measured. The pre-test was administered a week before the commencement of the treatment sessions; the first post-test was administered immediately after each treatment; the second post-test was held 24 hours after each treatment and the third post-test was held one week after the end of the treatment sessions. Paribakht and Wesche (1993) model of measuring vocabulary enhancement was used to quantify the vocabulary repertoire of the subjects. Split-plot ANOVA test revealed that the subjects in the keyword group outperformed the subjects in the other two groups in all the three post-tests. Moreover, it was revealed that the thematic clustering group outperformed the developing morphological awareness group. The findings of this research may have pedagogical implications for English teachers, learners and material developers.

Many difficulties learners experience during language learning interfere with their performance, and those associated with their psychology play an integral role in this process. Underpinned by Bandura’s social cognitive theory and Dweck’s implicit theory of intelligence, this article explored how language mindsets influenced female EFL learners’ cognitive engagement through the mediation of risk-taking. Following a quantitative design and drawing on stratified sampling, the researchers ran the Power Analysis Calculator and selected 384 language learners from six institutes of Tabriz, Iran. The data were collected by three questionnaires, including the Language Mindset Inventory of Lou and Noels (2017), University Student Engagement Inventory (USEI) designed by Maroco et al., (2016), and the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) of Patton, Stanford and Barratt (1995). The PLS-SEM analysis showed that learners’ growth mindsets were directly related to cognitive engagement. Furthermore, risk-taking significantly mediated this relationship. This finding provides some implications for school psychology to develop in students self-theories that highlight growth and competence instead of limitation and inactivity.

Many studies have advocated the importance of teaching critical thinking (CT) skills, and have also provided some suggestions for its effective pedagogy. However, there is a dearth of research examining the efficacy of such instruction. This quantitative(quasi-experimental) and qualitative study aimed to investigate the impact of explicit instruction of critical thinking (CT) on university students’ critical thinking skills measured through the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA) used as both pre- and post-test. The participants comprised four groups of 15-16 students each. The groups received different CT treatments: Critical Linguistics (CL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (group 1), 11 Questions (group 2), CL and CDA followed by Peer Evaluation (group 3), and a control group (group 4) that only read about CT without practicing it. After receiving instruction on CT, the three treatment groups (1-3) critically analyzed 33 texts over 11 sessions. The results of the study indicated that Group 3 (CT & CDA followed by PE) had the highest improvement in their WGCTA scores from pre-to post-test, followed by Groups 2 and 1, while the control group showed no significant gain. The findings imply that reflecting critically on language learning materials can reveal hidden cultural and ideological elements within the texts. This can significantly enhance learners' advanced thinking skills, as well as support them in resisting cultural imperialism.      

The purpose of this cross-cultural CMC-based study is to investigate how the speech act of criticism is realized in the Instagram comments by Persian and English-speaking users in response to an announcement in Fall 2020 about school reopening during COVID-19. To this end, 400 Persian and English comments were collected in Fall 2020 from the Instagram pages of Iran and the U.S Secretaries of Education where they posted about the students’ return to school during the pandemic. The data were then analyzed based on Nguyen’s (2013) model of speech act of criticism. The findings show that both Persian and English-speaking users tended to use direct criticism over indirect criticism with an explicit expression of dislike and an explicit expression of disapproval as the most frequently used direct criticism strategies. Moreover, with regard to indirect strategies, Persian speaking users employed more request for change strategies while English speaking users outperformed hint strategies. Also, the uses of supportive moves and internal modifiers were similar in the two corpora. The findings of this naturally occurring observational study partially confirm the results obtained by elicited-based research method. The results showed that despite the similarities between the corpora, teaching criticism strategies and mitigating devices can help language learners perform the act of criticism more appropriately and avoid non-native like language use.