درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Despite consensus in focus on form (FOF) instruction over the facilitative role of noticing, controversy has not quelled over ways of directing EFL learners’ attention towards formal features via implicit techniques like input-enhancement or explicit metacognitive feedback and interactive peer-editing on the output they produce. This quasi-experimental study investigated the impact of input enhancement (IE), metalinguistic feedback (MF), and peer-editing (PE), on 73 intermediate female Iranian EFL learners’ recognition of relative clauses (RCs). The participants, in three intact classes ranged in age between 18 and 30, were randomly assigned as IE (N=23), MF (N=29), and PE (N=21) groups. The 18-session treatment in all groups was based on identical teaching materials and methodology following a reading to writing orientation focused on RCs. The only difference was related to the focus on form that was through enhanced reading texts in the IE group, metalinguistic feedback on discussion of content in the MF group, and peer-editing in pair-discussion of the content in the PE group. Two parallel sets of 40-item multiple choice researcher-made validated tests focused on RCs were employed to measure the participants’ recognition of RCs at the onset and the end of the study. The one-way between-groups analysis of covariance demonstrated significantly higher gains in the MF and PE groups compared to the IE group; the MF achieved higher levels of mastery. The findings highlight the effectiveness of MF and offer implications for more effective teaching of RCs to Iranian EFL learners.

عوامل عاطفی، به عنوان مهمترین عوامل درمطالعات یادگیری زبان انگلیسی به عنوان زبان دوم و به عنوان زبان خارجی به شمار می آیند. این عوامل موثر عبارتند از انگیزه، اعتماد به نفس، اضطراب و غیره. تحقیق و پژوهش در ویژگی های یادگیرندگان برای بیش از یک قرن در جریان بوده است. در ادامه این مطالعات ، مطالعه پژوهش حاضر ، تلاش در کاوش نوع شخصیت و انگیزه زبان آموزان ایرانی دارد. در این مطالعه، نوع شخصیت و انگیزه دانشجویان با استفاده از شاخص Myers- Briggs و پرسشنامه انگیزه ""لین""مورد بررسی قرار گرفت. به این منظور، 60 زبان آموز از یکی از موسسات زبان در مشهد- ایران به عنوان شرکت کنندگان در این مطالعه انتخاب شدند. با توزیع دو ابزار در میان یادگیرندگان زبان خارجی و با توجه به نمرات ترم گذشته آنها اطلاعات گردآوری و با استفاده از نرم افزار SPSS آنالیز شد. نتایج تحلیل همبستگی رابطه معنی داری بین انگیزه، شخصیت و موفقیت دانش آموزان نشان داد..از تحلیل رگرسیون چندگانه نیز برای بررسی قدرت ارتباط بین متغیرها استفاده شد که در میان این عوامل عاطفی، نوع شخصیت به عنوان بهترین پیش بینی کننده موفقیت دانش آموز تشخیص داده شد. کاربردهای آموزشی و پیشنهادات برای تحقیقات آتی نیز در تحقیق ارائه شده است.

Translation of literary texts, especially poetry, is one of the most difficult tasks; it requires mastery and knowledge of the language system and culture, and lack of this might lead to wrong translation. This study aimed to examine the loss and gain of the sociocultural implicit meanings in the English translations of the Mu’allaqat, and assess whether the translators of the Mu’allaqat have succeeded or failed in transferring the sociocultural implicit meanings from the source text (ST) to the target text (TT). The study examined four English translations of two poems; namely, Labid’s poem and Tarafa’s poem. The selected poems are considered as masterpieces of the Arabic ancient poetry loaded with cultural signs. This study combined New mark's approach (1988) of translation with Baker’s taxonomy (1992-2011), i.e. translation equivalence, in analysing the data. The findings of the study showed that there are two types of loss made by translators in translating the Mu’allaqat: inevitable loss and avertable loss. The findings also revealed that the loss of socio-cultural implicit meaning occurred because of the inadequate use of the communicative equivalence by the translators and absence of employing pragmatic equivalence.

One of the main concerns in educational settings has been the degree of the learners’ involvement in learning and the extent to which they actively participate in classroom talks and interactions. The present study is an emic-based ethnographic study aimed at providing insights about patterns of talk and different degrees of interaction in EFL university classes with a specific focus on teacher’s role. To this end, three different classes were observed for twelve consecutive sessions. Students were both male and female senior EFL students at Najafabad Azad University. The age of the participants ranged between 22 and 28. These classes were taught by the same instructor so that the researcher was directly involved in observing participants’ interactions in the targeted classrooms and in the data collection procedures. The participants’ oral behavior was carefully observed and recorded. To guarantee higher validity, some participants were also interviewed. The results of data analysis revealed that male and female students showed different degrees of contribution to classroom interactions. However, the students’ degree of involvement in the classroom discussions were linked to the related schemata, type of activity, and learners’ interest in the conversation topic rather than interactants’ gender. In addition, most of the involvements were teacher-initiated and directed. Notably, the findings can be of considerable value to teachers’ professional development and can highlight the importance and the value of using specific strategies that can be introduced and employed by the teacher to increase the degree of the students’ involvement in classroom interactions as well as motivate them to take responsibility of their own learning.

Abstract in every research paper has always been functioning as an attention-grabber which can encourage readers to keep reading the research or to dissuade it. Although abstracts are believed to play an important role in distributing the research findings, few studies have been done to evaluate the rhetorical organization of thesis abstracts, especially in the field of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). Thus, the purpose of the present study was to analyze the rhetorical moves of the MA thesis abstracts written from 1988 to 2015 in the field of TEFL in Allameh Tabataba’i University (ATU), an Iranian university. To this end, 300 MA thesis abstracts were analyzed based on Hyland’s (2000) rhetorical move framework. To track the rhetorical move trends of the thesis abstracts and for the ease of analysis, they were analyzed in three time intervals. The results revealed that while in the first interval (1988-1997) the most frequent rhetorical moves were the “Purpose”, “Method”, and “Product”, in the other two intervals (1998-2007 and 2008-2015) the “Purpose” was the most used rhetorical move. In addition, the least frequent rhetorical moves were the “Introduction” and “Conclusion” for the three intervals. The findings, on top of these, indicated that the rhetorical move patterns of thesis abstracts moved from Purpose-Method-Product (P-M-Pr) to Introduction-Purpose-Method-Product-Conclusion (I-P-M-Pr-C). That said, it can be concluded that in the examined thesis abstracts, the highest average of information was provided on the “Purpose” of the study, while the other moves, especially the conclusion move, was not deemed important; moreover, an increasing rate of information provision was detected on the “Method” and “Product” moves. This research bears some implications for L2 learners to better know their community of practice and writing instructors to prepare genre-based writing materials.

Second or foreign language (L2) learners’ development of interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) competence to understand and properly interpret utterances under certain social and cultural circumstances plays a pivotal role in the achievement of communicative competence. The current study was designed to explore the effects of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and asynchronous computer-mediated communication (ACMC) course modules delivered through social media networks (SMN) on the development of the Iranian L2 learners’ comprehension of implicatures. The participants of the study were 90 English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) undergraduate students attending three intact classes. The classes were randomly assigned to one control and two experimental (SCMC and ACMC) groups. An open-ended implicature comprehension test was used to assess students’ ILP development in this pretest-posttest comparison-group study. The control group received the traditional teacher-fronted instruction, and the S/ACMC groups received instruction via synchronous and asynchronous modules of SMNs for 4 months, respectively. Students’ attitudes towards the CMC-based courses were also sought. Split-plot ANOVA results indicated that both experimental groups developed significant ILP ability to comprehend and interpret L2 implicatures after the instruction; however, by comparison, the ACMC group improved more considerably. It is concluded that, first, comprehending L2 implicatures is not impervious to computer-mediated instruction and, second, different CMC affordances may result in differential ILP developmental effects in teaching L2 pragmatics. The findings can help L2 teachers decide how to use CMC affordances and SMN modules to raise L2 learners’ pragmatic awareness