سید آیت الله رزمجو

English language is arguably one of the life prerequisites in this information era and more individuals around the world than ever before are involved in learning English language as an international language of education and business. Learners with disabilities are not excluded from this mainstream; however, they face barriers in learning English. As such, we aimed in this phenomenological multiple case study, underpinned by the social constructivist view of disability, to identify factors affecting EFL teachers’ inclusive practices provided for learners with low-incidence disabilities and reveal the compatibility of such practices with Vygotsky’s social constructivism. To this end, four inclusive classes were observed for 48 sessions (12 sessions per class) and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 45 EFL teachers. We used the data collected from observation notes and interview transcripts to extract major themes describing factors affecting such practices in EFL settings. Drawing on the collected data, we plotted a conceptual framework, and then examined the compatibility of the inclusive practices adopted by the EFL teachers with Vygotsky’s social constructivist theory. We concluded with a discussion on the study's implications and recommendations for practitioners.

Formulaic language and sequence as the core characteristic of real-life language and native-like fluency, has been a subject of inquiry in recent decades. The aim of the present study is to investigate the effects of two extensive reading text types, i.e., adaptive and authentic, on Iranian EFL learners’ development of lexical bundles. To this aim, 20 intermediate EFL learners were chosen to participate in a time-series experiment, in which one class received adaptive texts as their extensive reading project, while the other experienced authentic texts of graded readers. The learners were required to read texts and write summaries, out of which the frequency and percentage of lexical bundles were extracted. The results of frequency and t-tests revealed that learners who benefited from adaptive texts were more successful in lexical bundles progress. While the other group also indicated to have improved in terms of multi-word chunks, the shift was not statistically significant. It is recommended that teachers allocate more class time to explicit and implicit instruction of lexical bundles.

The complexity of self-regulatory strategies has been challenging to educational researchers who seek to find proper interventions that benefit students and teachers. This study has employed the Self-Regulatory Strategy Development (SRSD) model of instruction to help students monitor, evaluate and revise their writing. SRSD would be beneficial for adult students with learning disabilities in the procedure of essay writing. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) as a cognitive-behavioral dysregulation is a consequence of deficits in self-regulatory process. Many students with learning disorders such as ADHD have trouble in the mechanics and process of writing. The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of SRSD on the essay writing of EFL undergraduate students. This study tried to evaluate the effects of SRSD intervention on the essay writing of ADHD and NON-ADHD students. To fulfill the mentioned objectives, 126 EFL undergraduate students who enrolled in essay writing course at Tehran Azad University participated in this study. The results indicated that SRSD instruction had a significant effect on the essay writing of the EFL undergraduate students. Likewise, ADHD students could achieve a significant improvement after receiving SRSD intervention. چکیده: پیچیدگی روش های خود تنظیمی برای محققین حوزه آموزش معمولا چالش برانگیز بوده است و آنها همیشه سعی در یافتن روش مناسبی برای دانشجویان و اساتید در این زمینه داشته اند. این تحقیق از روش "استراتژی های ایجاد خود تنظیمی" برای کمک به دانشجویان در زمینه های مشاهده، ارزیابی و تجدیدنظر بهره برده است. "استراتژی های ایجاد خود تنظیمی" برای دانشجویانی که در زمینه نگارش مشکل دارند مفید خواهد بود. "اختلال بیش فعالی کمبود توجه" به عنوان یک نابهنجاری شناختی- رفتاری، که درنتیجه اختلال درفرایند خود تنظیمی بوجود می آید، مورد بررسی قرار گرفت. بسیاری از دانشجویان که در یادگیری دچار مشکل هستند برای مثال آنهایی که "اختلال بیش فعالی کمبود توجه" دارند در روند و مراحل مقاله نویس با مشکلاتی روبرو هستند. هدف این تحقیق بررسی تاثیرات "استراتژی های ایجاد خود تنظیمی" بر توانایی نگارش دانشجویان کارشناسی زبان انگلیسی (زبان انگلیسی به عنوان زبان بیگانه) بوده است. این تحقیق به منظور ارزیابی تاثیرات بکارگیری روش "استراتژی های ایجاد خود تنظیمی" بر نگارش دانشجویانی که مشکل "اختلال بیش فعالی کمبود توجه" داشتند و دانشجویانی که این مشکل را نداشتند انجام شد. به این منظور 126 دانشجوی کارشناسی زبان انگلیسی (زبان انگلیسی به عنوان زبان بیگانه) که درس مقاله نویسی را در دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی میگذراندند در این تحقیق شرکت کردند. نتایج نشان داد که روش آموزشی "استراتژی های ایجاد خود تنظیمی" بر توانایی مقاله نویسی دانشجویان تاثیر قابل توجهی داشت. همچنین دانشجویانی که مشکل "اختلال بیش فعالی کمبود توجه" را داشتند بعد از بکارگیری "استراتژی های ایجاد خود تنظیمی" پیشرفت قابل ملاحظه ای داشتند.  کلید واژه ها: اختلال بیش فعالی کمبود توجه – خود تنظیمی – استراتژی های ایجاد خود تنظیمی – مقاله نویسی.  

Reading strategies are seen as supportive means to help learners process and comprehend English texts effectively. The present research probed to posit a discipline-specific model of reading strategies for Iranian TEFL postgraduate students. The motive behind developing a local model of reading strategy is twofold: first, a variety of postgraduate students admitted for M.A and Ph.D. programs, either may not have received their first degrees in TEFL or they are TEFL graduates who lag behind disciplinary-knowledge in terms of reading. Consequently, Twenty- eight postgraduate students majoring in English Language Teaching from Shiraz University, Isfahan University, Yazd University and Islamic Azad university of Bandar-Abbas wherein M.A and Ph.D. programs in TEFL are offered were asked to brainstorm their ideas as to how they approach technical materials in English. Conducting a 3-session semi-structured interview with 22 participants and focus-group interviews with six participants, the researchers then transcribed and codified the data according to Corbin and Strauss (2014) systematic steps of open, axial and selective coding for grounded theory. The findings revealed a six factor model encompassing 32 categories. The factors include: a) previewing the content, b) recognition of the salient and pronounced features, C) emphasis and clarification upon the significant features, d) consulting auxiliary sources, e) ruminating and reflecting upon the text, and f) reviewing the gist of materials. As a matter of fact, the proposed model can help postgraduate students move away from teacher authority and develop reading autonomy.

Many factors may be involved in determining why some students are more and some are less proficient in language. This study tried to explore the factors affecting Iranian EFL learners’ proficiency. 221 students at second, third and fourth year of university, including 50 male and 171 female were selected randomly to participate in the study. A researcher-made questionnaire and a proficiency test comprised the data collection instruments. The researchers were able to identify three factors affecting language proficiency. They were classified as social factors, cultural factors and linguistic factors, Then a model was developed to represent the relationship among these factors and language proficiency. In line with Bourdieu’s (1986), the results of data analysis indicated that social factors are among the most dominant factors affecting the learners’ language proficincy.

The present study takes Engeström human activity system model (1987, 1999) as a theoretical framework to investigate the CLT-based English curriculum reform in Iran which was initiated in 2013 by the Ministry of Education in public schools. With the premise that human activity is artifact-mediated and goal-directed, activity theory makes it possible to demonstrate the complex and dynamic relationship between various institutional, social, and individual factors by revealing different contradictions that language teachers would experience as they attempt to implement CLT in their classroom contexts. In addition to 23 language teachers who consisted the main participants of this study, three other groups including 17 teacher directors, 23 students, and 20 parents took part. Document analysis, semi-structured interview, and classroom observation comprised the data collection instruments. The results indicated that despite their optimism about and keen interest in CLT-based reform, Iranian language teachers could not successfully implement CLT due to their inability to successfully resolve the contradictions that emerged in their activity system. These contradictions in turn stemmed from a number of difficulties that emanate from various sources including teachers themselves, students, their parents, school staff, educational system, and the new package. Based on the findings, a number of implications and suggestions are provided for the Iranian curriculum developers, language teachers, parents, and teacher directors

تحقیق حاضر به بررسی اثرات دو نوع از انواع حاشیه نویسی تعاریف واژگان بر درک مطلب خواندن در میان دانشجویانی که در سطح متوسطی از مهارت زبانی هستند پرداخته است.بدین منظور، دو گروه آزمایشی مورد مطالعه به خواندن 10 متن آکادمیک تحت شرایط مختلف مبادرت ورزیدند. یکی از گروه ها، هنگام خواندن متن چندرسانه ای کامپیوتری، از تعاریف متنی که با اشاره گر ماوس بر صفحه نمایش ظاهر می شد استفاده کرد. گروه دیگر، هنگام خواندن متون، از تعاریف ترکیبی(متن و تصویر) که به آشکارسازی معانی کلید واژگان کمک می کرد بهره جست. گروه کنترل، در مقابل،از هیچ نوع حاشیه نویسی استفاده نکرد و تنها بر متد حدس زدن تکیه کرد. نتایج تحقیق نشان داد که گروه آزمایشی که از حاشیه نویسی ترکیبی استفاده کرده بود میانگین بالاتری را نسبت به دو گروه دیگر در آزمون درک مطلب کسب نمود. در عین حال، گروهی که از تعاریف متنی استفاده کرده بود نسبت به گروه کنترل میانگین بالاتری اخذ کرد. یک توجیه آن است که به احتمال زیاد حاشیه نویسی ترکیبی تعاریف واژگان در آشکارسازی بهتر و مؤثرتر واژگان کلیدی متن خواندن کمک بیشتری می کند که در نتیجه آن درک مطلب به نحو عمیق تری صورت می گیرد.

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.

This study aims at evaluating the coursebooks taught at the intermediate level of adult and young adult departments of the Iran Language Institute in terms of multiple intelligence types introduced by Gardner (1983) to see to what extent such coursebooks represent the Multiple Intelligence Theory. To fulfill the objectives, a checklist developed by Botelho (2003) and localized by the researchers on the basis of this theory was used. The coursebooks were analyzed according to this checklist and the frequencies and percentages of occurrence of each type of intelligence were calculated. The results of the study showed that verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical and visual/spatial types of intelligence were the most dominant intelligence types in the analyzed coursebooks. Naturalistic and bodily/kinesthetic types of intelligence were the least common types represented in the coursebooks. A comparison was also made between the coursebooks taught to adults and young adults at the Iran Language Institute and the results presented a significant difference between the percentage of occurrence of logical/mathematical, bodily/kinesthetic, visual/spatial, intrapersonal and musical types of intelligence between the two sets of coursebooks. On the other hand, the difference between the percentage of occurrence of verbal/linguistic, interpersonal and naturalistic types of intelligence was not significant.

Among the four important factors in the educational contexts, namely, teachers, learners, textbooks and contexts, textbooks play an important role in English Language Teaching (ELT), particularly in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom where it provides the primary source of linguistic input. The wealth of published material for English language teaching (ELT) available in the market makes selecting the right coursebook a challenging task. As such, it necessitates developing a textbook evaluation scheme so that the stakeholders benefit from the proposed model as a dependable criterion with regard to selecting the most appropriate textbook among the wealth of published textbooks. Taking these points into consideration, this study aimed at investigating and evaluating the available textbook evaluation schemes and checklists and seeking the experts’ viewpoints with the objective of developing and designing a textbook evaluation scheme pertinent and beneficial to the expanding circle. As such, the existing textbooks evaluation schemes were reviewed critically and the experts’ viewpoints were sought. Accordingly, a textbook evaluation scheme consisting of 6 main factors containing 41 items has been developed and proposed