درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This study was aimed at investigating the effect of collaborative assessment, as compared to that of static assessment, on the EFL learners’ reading comprehension, metacognitive strategies, and critical thinking. In this mixed-methods research design study, 62 intermediate EFL learners out of a population of 79 English language learners, were randomly selected and divided into two groups of experimental and control with 31 participants in each group. They were both female and male, who were administered a meta-cognitive strategy and critical thinking questionnaire and a reading comprehension test at the pretest and posttest stage of the study. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 participants and six sessions of the course were picked for observation. A multivariate ANOVA (MANOVA) test was run and the obtained results revealed that the students in the experimental group showed statistically significant gains on the reading comprehension and metacognitive strategy as compared with the participants in the control group but did not show any significant difference on their critical thinking. Similarly, the analysis of the interviews and classroom observations provided important themes which revealed that the students found collaborative assessment a very fruitful and practical way of promoting their reading skills and strategies mainly metacognitive strategies.

Investigating the “knowing”, a module of the KARDS model proposed by Kumaravadivelu (2012) for teacher education, of Iranian teachers of learner autonomy, this study is an attempt to illuminate some of the yet unexplored areas of teachers’ various types of knowledge of learner autonomy. Furthermore, it attempts to illustrate how Iranian Non-EFL teachers’ knowing affects their practices with regard to learner autonomy and how this could differ from that of Iranian EFL teachers. To that end 112 EFL and Non-EFL teachers were purposefully cluster-sampled. Based on convenient sampling but only after data saturation was reached were 12 teachers interviewed. Based on the result of the interviews and the data gleaned from the literature a questionnaire was developed. The sample were asked to complete the questionnaire and then through negative case analysis some were interviewed. The questionnaire tapped into the social, political, psychological and personal aspects of learner autonomy. The results indicated the informants, be it EFL or non-EFL, found learner autonomy to be a psychological construct, which can be traced back to their personal knowledge. Finally, with regard to the feasibility and desirability of learner autonomy implementation in the education system, the informants see learner autonomy as more of a desirable concept than feasible. It is hoped that teachers and teacher educators find the results as well as the suggestions-for-action made at the end of the study helpful and that the results have tangible implications for the Iranian education system when fed into professional development activities and strategic planning.

This study was an attempt to examine the relationship between EFL students’ EI, their gender, and writing performance. To this end, 30 female and 27 male English B.A. students, studying at Allameh Tabataba’i University, participated in this study. After checking the homogeneity of the participants through a TOEFL test, Bar-On EQ-i questionnaire (Bar-On, 1997) was administered in order to measure the participants’ emotional intelligence. Besides, their writing performance was measured by their writing course final grades. Three Pearson product moment correlation coefficients and a Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) were run to analyze the relationships and interactions among the variables of emotional intelligence, gender, and writing performance. The findings revealed that there was a positive relationship between the participants’ EI and their writing performance. Furthermore, the female participants had a higher emotional intelligence compared to the male participants. However, no difference was found between the male and female participants’ writing performance. The obtained results of this study have had several implications in the fields of English teaching, language testing, and syllabus design and materials development.

The use of effective multimedia instructions such as mobiles, computers, and the internet in language learning has turned out to be useful since the last decades. The impact of multimedia and synchronous approaches of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) on English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' learning of language skills and components has been studied to some extent. However, the impact of computerized mediated instruction through multimedia (text and graphics) on learning collocations requires further investigations. This study aimed at investigating whether synchronous and asynchronous multimedia components: text and text with added graphics had any effects on EFL learners' learning of collocations. In doing so, 150 male EFL learners at pre-intermediate proficiency level were selected through convenience sampling. They were divided into six groups. The results of the study showed that computerized mediated instruction was more effective than non-computerized instruction. Also, synchronous computerized instruction was more effective than asynchronous computerized instruction. The results also showed that presentation through text with added graphics was more effective than presentation through simple text. The results are discussed and some pedagogical implications are presented.

Lexical bundles, as building blocks of coherent discourse, have been the subject of much research in the last two decades. While many of such studies have been mainly concerned with exploring variations in the use of these word sequences across different registers and disciplines, very few have addressed the use of some particular groups of lexical bundles within some genres of academy. To address generic variations, this research focused on anticipatory it bundles as a particular structural group of bundles. More specifically, this study chose to investigate range, frequency, and function of these word clusters in applied linguistics research articles and postgraduate writing. Through the use of two big corpora of research articles and postgraduate theses, two text analysis programs, and a functional taxonomy of it bundles, this study found that it bundles were used relatively frequently in both published and postgraduate writing. Functional analysis showed that anticipatory it lexical bundles served a wide variety of functions in both genres investigated. This study also revealed that some anticipatory it lexical bundles commonly used by students in their postgraduate writing did not count as bundles in research articles, both in terms of variety and frequency. As for implications, the study calls for the incorporation of such clusters in L2 and/or EAP (English for Academic Purposes).

The present study investigated the effects of selected presentation techniques including the keyword method, the peg word method, the loci method, argument mapping, concept mapping and mind mapping on L2 vocabulary comprehension and production. To this end, a sample of 151 Iranian female students from a public pre-university school in Islam Shahr was selected. They were assigned to six groups. Each group was randomly assigned to one of the afore-mentioned treatment conditions. After the experimental period, two post-tests in multiple choice and fill-in-the-blanks formats were administered to assess the participants’ vocabulary comprehension and production. Two independent One-Way ANOVA procedures were used to analyze the obtained data. The results showed that the differences among the effects of the above-mentioned techniques were statistically significant in both vocabulary comprehension and production. These findings can have implications for learners, teachers, and materials’ developers.

تاکید حال حاضر برمهارت های تفکر مرتبه بالاتر ، بسیاری از مدرسان زبان های خارجی را بر آن داشت که به بررسی تاثیر ترکیب روش های گوناگون تدریس و ارزیابی بر افزایش مهارت های تفکر بپردازند. در پاسخ به این نیاز رو به رشد برای مطالعه تاثیر راهبردهای مختلف تدریس بر مهارت های تفکر مرتبه بالاتر، پژوهش حاضر با هدف بررسی تاثیری که ادغام ارزیابی نمونه فعالیت ها، هوش چندگانه، و بازخورد از طریق گفتگو بر پیشرفت یادگیری مهارت ای تفکر مرتبه بالاتر می تواند داشته باشد انجام شد. برای این منظور، چهل زبان آموز سطح پیشرفته در دو کلاس به طور تصادفی به دو گروه کنترل و آزمایش تقسیم شدند که در گروه کنترل ، روش تدریس بر اساس بررسی مستمرنمونه فعالیت های نوشتاری و در گروه آزمایش بر اساس ادغام بازخورد از طریق گفتگو و بررسی مستمر فعالیت های نوشتاری مبتنی بر هوش چندگانه بود. نتایج این تحقیق نشان داد فراگیران در گروه آزمایش نسبت به گروه کنترل پیشرفت بیشتری در یادگیری مهارت های تفکر مرتبه بالاتر داشتند. این یافته ها لزوم درنظرگرفتن هوش غالب زبان آموزان را به عنوان یک معیار برای انتخاب فعالیت های کلاسی و ارائه بازخورد از طریق گفتگو برای ارتقای مهارت های تفکر مرتبه بالاتر مورد تاکید قرار می دهند.