درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The present study was conducted to examine empirically and systematically the effect of explicit instruction of comprehension strategies on EFL learners’ reading anxiety and reading comprehension in Iranian high schools. To this end, two intact classes (65 students) participated in this study as members of control and experimental groups. The experimental group underwent 10 sessions of reading strategies training based on McNamara, Ozuro, Best, and O’Reilly's (2007) 4-pronged Comprehension Strategy Framework. Data were collected through the employment of Saito, Garza, and Horwitz's (1999) Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) and Preliminary English Test (PET) multiple-choice reading comprehension tests. All the students filled the FLRAS questionnaire and took the reading comprehension test two times, once as a pre-test one week before the beginning of instruction and the other as a post-test one week after the instructional treatment. After the post-test, a group of 7 students who received instruction participated in the focus group interview. T-tests were used to analyze the obtained statistical data. It was revealed that explicit reading strategy instruction was quite beneficial in improving EFL high school students' comprehension and reducing their anxiety level, while reading anxiety and reading comprehension were negatively correlated. The results of the interview with the focus group revealed the positive effect of strategy training on learners' reading comprehension and alleviating reading anxiety. This study rendered some educational implications for materials developers and instructors to invest on reading as a fundamental skill in education.

Despite the importance of interlanguage pragmatic rating (ILP) in the second language teaching and learning context, scant attention has been devoted to it. This study aims to investigate native EFL teachers’ major criteria in assessing the speech act of complaint produced by Iranian EFL learners. To fulfill this end, two groups of experienced native raters, including American (n=47) and British (n=30) EFL/ESL teachers, were elected for evaluating the complaint discourse completion tests (DCTs) made from video-prompts which were answered by EFL learners before. The content analysis of raters’ comments on the EFL learners’ productions revealed eleven different criteria including logical reasoning and comments, politeness, linguistic appropriacy, semantic formula, interlocutors’ relationship, register choice, formality, degree of intensity, cultural accommodations, degree of directness, and finally fluency and naturalness respectively from the most to the least frequent ones. The result of the t-test and chi-square analysis proved that British and American raters differed significantly in their degree of variations and preferences of these criteria. The results further showed that EFL learners’ responses seemed unreasonable and impolite to native raters which might be due to the different cultural norms between L1 and L2 societies and consequently encourage us to be aware of the importance of teaching sociopragmatic knowledge to the EFL learners.

هدف از مقاله حاضر بررسی توانش شناختی مدرسین متخصّص زبان انگلیسی می باشد که برای نخستین بار به عنوان بخشی از جدیدترین مدل تحت پژوهش راجع به تعریف تخصّص در آموزش زبان انگلیسی در حیطه زبان شناسی کاربردی مطرح است. بدین منظور، تحقیقات پیشین در این زمینه مطالعه گردید که ماحصل آن استخراج ده تم شناختی بود که سپس از طریق مصاحبه هایی که با صاحب نظرانِ این رشته انجام گرفت مورد بررسی بیشتر واقع شد. مصاحبه شونده ها شامل اساتید دانشگاه در رشته زبان انگلیسی، تعلیم دهندگان معلمین زبان و نیز مدرّسین برجسته زبان انگلیسی در ایران بودند. ده تم استخراج شده مورد تأیید ایشان واقع شد که در نهایت شامل موارد ذیل هستند: سرعت در شناخت الگوها، توجه گزینشی، دیدگاه کلی نگر، حافظه برتر، سرعت در کدگزاری اطلاعات، قدرت پیش بینی، نگرش به نقش معلم، آگاهی از موقعیت-محور بودن رویدادهای کلاسی، آگاهی از سطح دانش، و برقراری ارتباط بین دانش پیشین و دانش جدید. در این مقاله هر یک از تم ها به همراه گزیده ای از سابقه تحقیقات پیشین و توصیفاتی از نظرات مصاحبه شوندگان به تفصیل آمده است. هم چنین بر این نکته تاکید شده است که ویژگی های شناختی مدرسین متخصّص تنها یک بعد از چند بعد مدل توصیفی تخصّص در آموزش زبان انگلیسی می باشد که در یک رساله تکمیلی دوره دکتری تخصّصی این رشته در حال تدوین می باشد.

بی شک کارآمد بودن آگاهی فرا زبانشناختی در بهبود کیفیت نگارش و دانش دستوری یادگیرندگانی که زبان انگلیسى را به عنوان زبان خارجی می آموزند از دیرباز حوزه جذابی در زبانشناسی کاربردی بوده است(براون، ٢٠٠١ ). از این رو، هدف اصلى مطالعه ى حاضر بررسى اثر تدریس بصورت تاکید بر صورت به طور برنامه ریزی شده و برنامه ریزى نشده بر توانایى دانش آموزان برای یادگیری دستور و کاربرد صحیح آن در نگارش است. به همین منظور سه کلاس فشرده در دانشگاه اصفهان ایران که دوره های دستور و نگارش برگزار می کند برای تدریس ساختار مورد نظر (یعنی کلمات پیوند دهنده) از طریق روش های متفاوت تدریس تاکید بر صورت انتخاب شدند. نمونه های انتخاب شده شامل دانشجویان سال دوم و (٣٠ نفر در هر گروه) در رده ى سنی ١٩ تا ٢٤ بودند که در دانشگاه اصفهان مترجمی انگلیسی مطالعه می کردند. نمونه ها به ترتیب آموزش با تاکید بر صورت بطور برنامه ریزی شده و برنامه ریزى نشده و تاکید صفر بر صورت دیدند. نتایج پس آزمون پارگراف نویسی و پس آزمون متعاقب آن که با تاخیر گرفته شد نشان داد که شرکت کنندگانی که در گروهی قرار داشتند که تدریس برنامه شده می دیدند عملکردشان بطور قابل ملاحظه ای بهتر از آن دسته ای بود که در به کارگیری کلمات پیوند دهنده در نوشتن پارگراف هایشان آموزش برنامه ریزی نشده و صفر دیده بودند.

Three decades ago, the theory of education took a critical turn. From this perspective, classroom is no longer a public sphere of cultural assimilation but a site for identity struggle. The basic argument underlying such an approach is that education cannot be studied in isolation from an analysis of wider social and cultural influences. In such a context, this study investigated Iranian EFL teachers’ perceptions of the basic tenets of critical pedagogy. To this end, a mixed method approach was adopted and the data were gathered through in–depth interviews and questionnaires developed by the researchers. The participants of this study included 21 Iranian EFL teachers at the qualitative phase and 127 teachers at the quantitative phase. Qualitative data analysis included in-depth content analysis of oral data obtained from semi-structured interviews. Quantitative data analysis involved descriptive statistics and independent sample t-tests. The results indicated that Iranian EFL teachers were supportive of the basic tenets of critical pedagogy altogether. Also, mixed findings were obtained concerning their views according to their level of education and field of expertise. Based on the findings, several suggestions are made for classroom management, materials development, and teacher training programs.

Using a mixed methods design, the present study attempted to identify the factors influencing Iranian untrained EFL raters in rating group oral discussion tasks. To fulfil this aim, 16 language learners of varying proficiency levels were selected and randomly assigned to groups of four and performed a group discussion task. Thirty two untrained raters were also selected based on their volunteer participations. They listened to the audio files of the group discussions and assigned a score of one to six to each language learners based on their own judgments. They also provided comments on each language learners’ performance pointing to why they assigned such scores. The researchers had an interview with the raters after the rating session as well. The quantitative phase investigated whether linguistic features of accuracy, fluency, complexity and amount of talk were attended to by the raters in terms of having any relationship to the scores the raters assigned. Speech rate as an index of fluency and amount of talk turned out to be significantly correlated with the scores. Of more importance was the qualitative phase with the aim of identifying other factors that may account for the scores. The comments provided by the raters on each score and the interviews were codified based on Content Analysis (CA) approach. It was found that the raters attend not only to the linguistic features in rating oral group discussions, but they are also sensitive to the interactional features like the roles the participants take in groups tasks and the overall interaction patterns of the groups. The findings of this study may shed light on group oral assessment in terms of training the raters rating group oral tests and developing rating scales specific for group oral assessment.

Despite the general findings that address the positive contribution of teaching pragmatic features to interlanguage pragmatic development, the question as to the most effective method is far from being resolved. Moreover, the potential of literature as a means of introducing learners into the social practices and norms of the target culture, which underlie the pragmatic competence, has not been fully explored. This study, then, set out to investigate the possible contribution of plays, as a medium of instruction, to the pragmatic development through either explicit or implicit mode of instruction. To this end, 80 English-major university students were assigned to four experimental groups: two literary and two nonliterary groups. One of the literary groups (Implicit Play) received typographically enhanced plays containing the speech acts of apology, request, and refusal and the other (Explicit Play) received the same treatment in addition to the metapragmatic instruction on the acts. The medium of instruction for the nonliterary groups were dialogs containing the given functions; they were also given either enhanced input (Implicit Dialog) or input plus metapragmatic information (Explicit Dialog). Analyses of the four groups’ performance on a Written Discourse Completion Test (WDCT) before and after the treatment did not show any advantage for the literary medium, i.e., there was no significant difference between literary and nonliterary groups. It was rather the mode of instruction that mattered most, where explicit groups outperformed their implicit counterparts. These findings indicate that even though implicit teaching, that is, exposure to enhanced input followed by some awareness-raising tasks, is effective in pragmatic development, it cannot contribute so much to learning as can the explicit instruction

این مطالعه جهت بررسی کاربرد راهبردهای فراشناختی در مهارت صحبت کردن انجام گرفته و به طور خاص سعی در بررسی این موضوع دارد که در تمرینات یک سویه و دو سویه صحبت کردن چه راهبردهای فراشناختی به کار گرفته می شود. به همین منظور 60 دانش آموز سطح بزرگسال (زن) به طور تصادفی و از طریق آزمون یکسان سازی OPT انتخاب شدند و به دو گروه کنترل و آزمایش تقسیم شدند. برای بررسی به کارگیری راهبردهای فراشناختی از پرسشنامه فراشناختی (اکسفورد، 1990) استفاده شده است. گروه کنترل تمرینات یک سویه و دو سویه را به شیوه مرسوم انجام دادند و گروه آزمایش پس از دریافت راهبردهای فراشناختی به انجام تمرینات پرداختند. بعد از مرحله پس آزمون و مقایسه ANCOVA مشخص شد که مقدار میانگین مقایسه ای بین دو گروه تفاوت قابل توجهی داشته است. نتایج نشان می دهد که گروه آزمایش بهتر از گروه کنترل عمل کردند. از طریق آمار توصیفی و آزمون خی دو این نتیجه به دست آمده است که استفاده از راهبردهای فراشناختی در تمرینات یک سویه و دو سویه صحبت کردن متفاوت بوده و در هرکدام یک سری از این راهبردها به کار گرفته شده است.

Dynamic Assessment (DA) is theoretically framed within Vygotsky’s Socio-Cultural Theory (SCT) and relies on reunification of assessment and instruction. This process-oriented study of reading comprehension aims at investigating the impacts of applying computerized dynamic assessment (C-DA) which is an ongoing strand of DA on promoting at-risk advanced Iranian EFL students’ reading skills. The sample of this study comprised of 32 advanced BA students selected based on convenience sampling from Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) undergraduates from a university in Iran. In this study, the DIALANG software and the Computerized Dynamic Reading Test (CDRT) were utilized to identify the individuals’ proficiency level and to examine the effectiveness of the enrichment program (EP) in DA respectively. Upon completion of the CDRT, the learners were presented with two mediated and unmediated scores. The formula called Learning Potential Score (LPS) was also utilized in order to measure the students’ potential for learning. Analysis of the results showed that a pretest (unmediated) score was a sufficient indication neither for measuring individuals’ ability nor for preparing an effective lesson plan for them. The findings of this investigation may prove to be significantly useful for those who are concerned about individuals requiring a lot of attention, that is, at-risk or retarded learners within the realm of DA.

تعلیم و تربیت انتقادی در انگلیسی به عنوان زبان خارجی: اصول، برنامه ریزی، عملکرد لیلا اکبرپور دانشگاه شیراز رحمان صحراگرد دانشگاه شیراز پژوهش حاضر که بخشی از رساله دکتری نویسنده اول می باشد شرح تدوین یک کورس خواندن و درک مفاهیم بر اساس اصول تعلیم و تربیت انتفادی و تاثیر آن کورس بر دانش خواندن فراگیران زبان انگلیسی، انگیزش آن ها برای خواندن متون انگلیسی، چگونگی نگرش دموکراتیک آن ها به کلاس های درس انگلیسی و نیز نگرش آن ها نسبت به کورس پیشنهادی می باشد. در واقع، تحقیق حاضر گامی به سوی بررسی نتایج بر گرفته از مراحل نخستین رساله دکتری ذکر شده است که هدفش تدوین الگویی برای آموزش زبان انگلیسی در ایران بر اساس تعلیم و تربیت انتقادی می باشد. شرکت کنندگان در این پژوهش 61 تن از دانشجویان دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی واحد شیراز (در دو گروه) بودند. 31 نفر از شرکت کنندگان که گروه گواه را تشکیل می دادند بر اساس روش های معمول که در ایران برای آموزش خواندن به کار گرفته می شود و 30 تن دیگر که گروه آزمایشی را تشکیل می دادند بر اساس کورس انتقادی آموزش دیدند. نتایج تجزیه و تحلیل داده ها بر اساس پیش آزمون و پس آزمون خواندن و درک مفاهیم، پرسشنامه انگیزش، پرسشنامه نگرش دموکراتیک و نیزنتایج تحلیل کیفی مصاحبه ها نشان داد که علی رغم مشکلاتی که حین انجام پژوهش در گروه آزمایشی وجود داشت، کورس پیشنهادی بر دانش خواندن شرکت کنندگان، نگرش دموکراتیک آن ها به دروس زبان انگلیسی و ایجاد انگیزه درآنان برای خواندن متون انگلیسی تاثیری مثبت نشان داد. نگرش شرکت کنندگان نسبت به کورس پیشنهادی نیز در قالب چهار تم که از نتایج تحلیل داده های کیفی پدید آمد بررسی شده و گزارش گردید. پیام اصلی این پژوهش کار آمدی اصول تعلیم و تربیت انتقادی در ایران است که برخی پژوهشگران آن ها را در شرایط فعلی غیر کارآمد دانسته اند.

Abstract: The widespread use of test scores for different educational and social decision making purposes has made the washback effect of tests a distinct educational phenomenon (Cheng, 1997).The high school third grade final exam in the general educational system of Iran has for long been a high stake test designed to assess the achievement of high school graduates in different school subjects. The present study aimed to investigate the washback effect of this nation-wide exam on EFL teachers’ teaching methodology, assessment procedures, and attitudes towards different aspects of the educational system. For this purpose, a researcher made, validated questionnaire was administered to 160 EFL teachers. The results indicated that the third grade nation-wide final exam adversely affects EFL teachers’ teaching methodology and increases teaching to the test effect quite noticeably as they try to teach according to the content and format of the test. The results further showed an even stronger negative effect of the exam on EFL teachers’ assessment procedures. However, the teachers’ attitude towards different aspects of the educational system was not found to be as strongly affected as the other two variables. The findings of the study are of importance for testing and assessment bureaus in charge of extensive high stake tests development. Moreover, raising teachers’ awareness of the drawback of teaching-to-the test effect of such a high stake test might help them improve their teaching and evaluation practices.