درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

در فرایند آموزش زبان فرانسه، یکی از اساسی ترین مهارت هایی که می باید فراگرفته شود، مهارت خواندن است. توسعه و گسترش استراتژی های خواندن و فراگیری برقراری ارتباط نوشتاری از اهداف این مهم می باشد. آموزش مهارت خواندن در ایران در بیشتر مواقع به گونه ای است که در خدمت دیگر مهارت ها به کار گرفته می شود. بنابراین، زبان آموزان چنین مهارتی را به درستی فرا نمی گیرند. در این مقاله به ترسیم استراتژی های اثربخش در ارتقا مهارت خواندن زبان فرانسه به عنوان زبان خارجی می پردازیم. کسب مهارت خواندن از سوی زبان آموزان موجب استقلال آنها در دریافت مفاهیم متن می شود.

Self-regulation is the ability to regulate one’s cognition, behavior, actions, and motivation strategically and autonomously in order to achieve self-set goals including the learning of academic skills and knowledge. Accordingly, self-regulated learning involves self-generated and systematic thoughts and behaviors with the aim of attaining learning goals. With that in mind, this study aimed to examine the effect of self-regulation instruction to the intermediate EFL readers on their ability to make within-text inferences while reading. Zimmerman’s model of self-regulation with its three cyclic phases of forethought, performance and self-reflection constituted the theoretical basis of this study. Two intact intermediate classes in an English language institute were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group was trained in self-regulatory processes which were directed at EFL reading comprehension for ten sessions, while the control group received the routine, traditional reading instruction involving pre-, while-, and post-reading tasks and activities. The results of parametric one-way between-group ANCOVA showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group on the post-test of EFL reading comprehension, particularly in term of within-text inferencing. This finding revealed that self-regulation instruction aimed at EFL reading comprehension significantly contributed to learners’ ability to make correct within-text inferences while reading in English as a foreign language.

Due to the potent role of critical thinking in learners’ academic success and its connection with factors conducive to learning such as argumentation ability, the present study seeks to primarily probe the correlation between Iranian EFL learners’ critical thinking ability and their argumentative writing achievement, and investigate the predictability of the students’ argumentative writing achievement based on their scores on critical thinking scale. Furthermore, the effect of gender on Iranian EFL learners’ argumentative writing achievement was investigated. In so doing, 'Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal' (2002) as well as an argumentative writing assignment was employed, and the participants of the study included 178 EFL learners in three universities in Mashhad, Iran. Structure Equation Modeling (SEM) was utilized to analyze the data. The results substantiated the positive correlation between critical thinking ability and argumentative writing revealing that these two variables significantly and positively related to each other; among the predictors (subscales of the critical thinking) of argumentative writing, inference, assumptions, arguments were the stronger predictors. Finally, gender was not found to significantly affect Iranian EFL learners’ argumentative writing achievement. The conclusions and implications of this study are pointed out with reference to foreign language teaching context.

Testing pragmatic competence has always posed daunting challenges to researchers and practitioners. As a step to address the gap in pragmatic testing, this paper delineates the procedural stages of developing and validating a context-sensitive Multiple Choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT). Following a unitary view of validity, tenable argument and empirical evidence was accumulated to support the construct validity of the test. While 136 advanced learners of English took the developed test, it exhibited reasonable internal consistency (α= .72). Furthermore, the results of correlational studies revealed acceptable association between the scores of this MDCT with both a written version of the same test and a previously validated test of pragmatics from the literature endorsing its concurrent validity. Also, the MDCT proved efficient in differentiating between native speakers and EFL learners as suggested by the results of an independent samples t-test. Finally, a pretest-posttest experimental study with 26 intermediate EFL learners was designed to check the sensitivity of the test towards developments in learners’ interlanguage after which a t-test analysis corroborated the construct validity of the test. This array of evidence denotes that the suggested MDCT can be reliably used in EFL contexts as a valid measure of pragmatic competence.

در حیطه ی فراگیری زبان سوم٬ نتایج متناقض تحقیقات نشان می دهد که در میان محققان در مورد مزایا و یا معایب دو زبانگی در فراگیری زبان سوم اجماعی وجود ندارد. بنابراین دغدغه ی اصلی مطالعه حاضر بررسی تفاوت های احتمالی بین دوزبانه ها و تک زبانه ها در خصوص دانش دستور می باشد. این تحقیق تلاشی بود برای بررسی اینکه آیا زبان آموزان تک زبانه فارسی و دوزبانه فارسی- آذری در یادگیری بند نسبی زبان انگلیسی تفاوت معنی داری دارند. برای انجام این مطالعه، در مجموع دویست دانش آموز دختر در حال تحصیل در کلاس دوم دبیرستان به طور تصادفی از دو ناحیه ی آموزش و پرورش شهرهای تبریز و شیراز در ایران انتخاب شدند. تمامی شرکت کننده ها از نظر سطح زبان انگلیسی، جنسیت، و سن همگن بودند. یک آزمون استاندارد تعیین سطح زبان انگلیسی، یک پرسشنامه و دو تکلیفِ ساختارِ نحوی در هر دو گروه اجرا شد. تجزیه و تحلیل داده ها نشان داد که تفاوت معنی داری بین زبان آموزان در ارتباط با بند نسبیِ انگلیسی وجود دارد. در نهایت، کاربردهای این پژوهش برای کسانیکه در امر یادگیری و آموزش زبان انگلیسی فعالیت دارند مورد بحث قرار گرفت.

The main objective of this study was to investigate how Iranian EFL learners used their literacy practices and multimodal resources to mediate interpretation and representation of an advertisement text and construct their understanding of it. Fifteen female adolescents at an intermediate level of proficiency read the ""مبلمان برلیان"" (“Brelian Furniture”) advertisement text and re-created their understandings in pictures and sentences. The data was analyzed based on Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (1996, 2001) theory of social semiotics. The findings suggest that students situated the meanings of the advertisement texts in specific contexts that reflected their own social and cultural experiences. Furthermore, the students demonstrated that the use of multimodal resources had the potential to enhance language and literacy learning in a way that was transformative and was affected by their identities. In addition, the use of multimodal/multiliteracies pedagogy permitted the students to enter into text composition from different paths. Finally, multimodal/multiliteracies pedagogy could foster critical literacy practices by offering EFL students the opportunities to create new identities and challenge discursive practices that marginalize them. The implications of the findings are also discussed