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Generally speaking، lexical items that enter our minds through reading a text commonly leave us with pictures، sounds، echoes، and feelings in the mind. While the ability to produce images in the mind in the process of reading appears to be vital for greater comprehension and recall of texts، research has indicated that many poor readers seemingly do not visualize as they read. On the contrary، those readers who do typically visualize achieve greater comprehension and recall (see Tomlinson، 1997). In this study، in line with Wittrock’s ‘generative learning theory’ (e.g.، 1992)، two fairly homogeneous groups of EFL undergraduates (N=50)، after taking a reading comprehension test to ensure that their reading comprehension differences are not significant، were randomly assigned to attend a short-story course in two different sections—one serving as the experimental and the other as the control group، both studying the same short stories، and both being taught by the researcher as their instructor of the course. The experimental group was instructed how to form pictures in the mind—i.e.، how to visualize—before reading، while reading، and after reading a short story، for example، by being requested to draw pictures of the characters، scenes، or settings in the story as they perceived them. The control group، however، did not receive any training with respect to imagery production and was not told to practice visualization before، while، or after reading the same texts as the experimental group did. The results of a reading comprehension test on the short stories that had been discussed in both indicated that the “visualizers” significantly outperformed the “non-visualizers”، i.e.، the control group، on both tests.

This paper reports the results of a study designed to investigate the interrelationship of Foreign Language Reading Anxiety (FLRA)، Reading Proficiency (RP) and Text Feature Awareness (TFA). The aim was to focus on how foreign language reading anxiety and text feature awareness are related and how، in turn، they affect students reading proficiency. That is، it south to determine how these three constructs correlate with each other. This study surveyed and analyzed 74 students from Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman. The results indicated that there is no significant relationship between RP and RA، positive significant relationship between RP and TFA and negative significant relationship between TFA and RA. Also results revealed that there is no significant difference between foreign language reading anxiety، reading proficiency and text feature awareness scores of male and female students، as a result; there is no relationship between gender and these three constructs

This paper aims at shedding light on the concept of postmodernism، and its implications in the TESOL. Postmodern philosophy as a prevalent concept and a hot buzzword in philosophy، science، and art is believed to have influenced the TESOL theoretically in some ways. The elements of postmodernism including: constructivism، subjectivism، relativism، localism، and pragmatism are found to have been applied in the TESOL to the concept of the demise of the methods، more focus on styles، strategies، and multiple intelligences، chaos/complexity theory and critical theories. But in practice، in developing countries the TESOL still lives in the modern era.

For the Western Iranian languages the transition from the Old Iranian to the Middle-Iranian period is characterised by – among other things – the loss of word-final syllables. This loss had a far-reaching impact on the nominal and verbal systems since it caused the loss of categories which had been expressed by suffixes. The consequences include the emergence of the so-called ergative system. Although descriptions of the ergative construction in Balochi do exist، there is no treatment yet which takes into account the material of the different dialects. Furthermore، the ergative construction in Balochi has been compared with data from Old Iranian، but not with data from Middle Iranian languages، and the development from the Middle Iranian stage to the different types found in present-day Balochi has also not yet been studied. The aim of this paper is therefore to present the data from the Balochi dialects as far as they are known today and to update، complete (and in some points، correct) previous descriptions of the matter.

This study was an attempt to determine the effect of task-based approach vs. traditional approach on the narrative and expository writing of the Iranian EFL learners. There were two control groups as well as two experimental ones in the current study. In the two control groups namely G1 and G2 narrative and expository writing were taught respectively using the traditional approach. Whereas، in the two experimental groups، namely G3 and G4 narrative and expository writing were taught respectively on the basis of task-based approach. After the treatment، a narrative writing post-test was given to the two narrative groups (G1 and G3) and an expository writing post-test was given to the two expository groups (G2 and G4). Data analysis showed that experimental groups outperformed control groups. So it was concluded that task-based approach was more effective in teaching narrative and expository writing compared to the traditional approach. It was also found that although there was a difference between the narrative and expository experimental groups (G3 and G4) in favor of the narrative group، this difference was not statistically significant

Among factors that might manipulate translators’ mind while producing a text is the notion of ideology transmission through text or talk. Adopting Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) with particular emphasis on the framework of Van Dijk (1999)، the present investigation is an attempt to shed light on the relationship between language and ideology involved in translation in general، and more specifically، to uncover the underlying ideological assumptions invisible in the texts، both source text (ST) and target text (TT)، and consequently ascertain whether or not translators’ ideologies are imposed in their translations. The corpus consists of the full text of two different Persian translations of the book Media Control by Noam Chomsky، written in English. In a qualitative phase، a detailed contrastive/comparative study at the micro-level in terms of fore/back-grounding mechanisms including explanation of lexical items and dominant grammatical metaphors (passive vs. active، nominalization vs. denominalization، addition vs. omission، and modalization) was conducted to examine، describe and subsequently interpret the patterns in the English source text and its Persian translated versions. In order to make the research data interpretations as objective as possible، having computed frequencies of ideologically significant instances، and percentages، Chi-square formula was applied to find out any difference between proportions of information extracted from the target text concerning their fore/back-grounding and their positions against the source text as well as to test the research null hypothesis، which was consequently rejected. The findings reveal that there are significant changes made by the two translators، either intentionally or unintentionally، in their selection of lexical items and syntactic structures in comparison to those in the source text. The findings of the study also show that many distortions or transformations between the original and the two translated versions were not only arbitrary، but also ideologically encoded in the texts، with specific purposes and functions

This study examined the differences among high، mid and low ambiguity tolerance groups in their reading comprehension ability and their metacognitive awareness of reading strategies. To this end، 123 first-year college students majoring in Engineering with an age range of 19-25 were stratified into three groups of high، mid and low ambiguity tolerance to participate in the study. They took part in the Nelson test of proficiency and a reading comprehension test and also filled out two questionnaires: the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory، and the Tolerance of Ambiguity Scale. The results showed significant differences between Low and High groups. That is، high ambiguity tolerance students scored higher on reading comprehension test، displayed higher metacognitive awareness of reading strategies، and showed higher perceived use of Global and Problem-Solving metacognitive reading strategies. However، no significant differences were found between the middle group and the other two groups in these variables. Also، no significant difference was found in the use of Supportive strategies among these three groups. The findings are interpreted to have implications for syllabus designers and EFL teachers.