محمودرضا عطایی

In response to the competitive demands for establishing their international academic and financial credentials, the universities globally distribute some online introductory information about themselves. To this end, the university homepages have increasingly turned into the rhetorical space for the development of promotional academic texts in recent years. In this study, we examined university overview genre that provides the visitors with brief presentation of the simple facts while endorsing a specific perspective of the university and strengthening its position in the academic community. The corpus comprised 70 overviews extracted from the academic websites of the first top 500 universities. We analyzed and coded the texts to specify their overall rhetorical framework, functional moves and constituting steps, and optimal order of moves. The findings indicated that overview genre incorporates six obligatory moves including 'source of reputation', 'historical origin', 'current status of development', 'commitments, goals and orientations', 'global state', and 'services and supports'. Also, the results demonstrated that the academic genre did not follow a single, invariant pattern of sequenced moves in a clearly linear order. The findings further suggest that the nature of overview genre could be characterized by its twofold informative and persuasive functions. Finally, implications of the findings of the study are presented

While teachers’ confidence in their abilities is a crucial asset in teachers’ professionalism and their identity development, their efficacy doubts are also considered useful. Given the diversity of English Language Teaching (ELT) contexts, this paper probes the dynamic nature of efficacy doubts the teachers face and are expected to resolve in English for General Purposes (EGP) and English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) instruction. To this end, based on the existing theoretical frameworks in EGP and ESAP methodology and interviews with 25 university English teachers, two questionnaires were developed and administered to 170 Iranian EGP and ESAP university instructors. The results of factor analysis confirmed five factors underlying ESAP teachers’ teaching efficacy doubts and four factors for EGP teachers’ teaching efficacy doubts. The results may promise implications for ESAP and EGP teacher education programs; teacher educators may address the common efficacy doubts identified in this study and expose the current in-service and future ESAP and EGP teachers to the typical factors which may potentially hamper their efficacy and help them resolve their efficacy doubts as a means towards professional development

This study was conducted in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) context to explore Iranian teachers' perceptions of their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and their sense of professional identity (PI) as well as to scrutinize how their cognitions were practiced in EAP classes. To this end, two ELT teachers and two content instructors (i.e. subject experts who teach EAP courses in addition to their specialized field of study) from a university in Tehran participated in the study and their classes were observed for a full academic semester. To thoroughly probe the teachers' cognitions, semi-structured interviews were also conducted. The results of content analysis indicated some commonalities but major discrepancies in the cognitions and practices of the two pairs of teachers with regard to their PCK. Teachers of both camps claimed to have interactive EAP classes where group work is highly appreciated and students' questions are welcomed. Attending to their discrepancies, the content instructors seemed to adhere to 'transformative' education by reflecting on their teaching, hearing learners' voice, being responsive to their learning needs, and encouraging teacher-learner collaboration. On the other hand, the ELT teachers reflected a more 'traditional' approach, leaving behind issues of flexibility and innovation in their teaching methods. As far as the EAP teachers' PI is concerned, the study came up with eight factors as the underlying constituents of their PI. It was also found that pedagogical content knowledge and professional identity are interrelated attributes of EAP teachers. The findings provide implications for syllabus designers as well as EAP teacher education.

Although explicit and implicit knowledge of language learners are essential to theoretical and pedagogical debates in second language acquisition (SLA), little research has addressed the effects of instructional interventions on the two knowledge types (R. Ellis, 2005).This study examined the relative effectiveness of explicit and implicit types of form-focused instruction (FFI) on the acquisition of four morphosyntactic features by four measures of explicit and implicit language knowledge. The measures included: oral elicited imitation, timed and untimed grammaticality judgment, and metalinguistic knowledge tests. A pretest and two posttests were conducted immediately and three weeks after the instructional interventions. Durable effects of FFI on low intermediate Iranian learners were found for the target language forms.In particular, explicit and implicit FFI positively facilitated the development of explicit and implicit knowledge of the target features, both immediately after the instructional interventions and, marginally decreasing, over time. Also, explicit FFI was more effective than implicit FFI as measured by both explicit and implicit knowledge tests. The findings may contribute to understanding of the efficacy of explicit and implicit FFI on L2 learners’ controlled (explicit) and spontaneous (implicit) use of morphosyntactic forms at relatively early stages of L2 acquisition.

این پژوهش برای ارزیابی فایده نسبی دانش واژگان و دانش نحو به عنوان پیش بینی کننده های عملکرد در خواندن و درک مطلب انجام شد. علاوه بر این، رابطه دو جانبه دانش نحو و دانش واژگان و عملکرد در خواندن و درک مطلب بررسی شد. شرکت کنندگان تحقیق 159 دانش آموز پسر سال اول و دوم دبیرستان در ایران بودند. داده های مطالعه از طریق بخش خواندن و درک مطلب نسخه ای قبلی از آزمون زبان انگلیسی مقدماتی (2004)، آزمون سطوح دانش واژگان، آزمون وابسته های لغت و آزمون دانش نحو جمع آوری شد. طبق نتایج، هم نمرات دستور زبان و هم نمرات واژگان با نمرات خواندن و درک مطلب همبستگی مثبت داشتند. همچنین نمرات واژگان با نمرات خواندن و درک مطلب همبستگی معناداری داشتند اما همبستگی بین نمرات دانش نحو و نمرات خواندن و درک مطلب قوی تر بود. تحلیل داده ها نشان داد که دانش نحو بخش بزرگتری از واریانس خواندن و درک مطلب را پوشش می دهد. برای بررسی قدرت دامنه/عمق دانش واژگان یا دانش نحو در پیش بینی عملکرد خواندن و درک مفاهیم آزمون تحلیل واریانس چند متغیره انجام شد. شاخص های بتا نشان داد که دانش دستور زبان کمک معناداری به خواندن و درک مطلب کرد اگر چه متغیر های دیگر واریانس آزمون خواندن را پوشش دادند. یافته های این پژوهش شناخت جدیدی در مورد نقش مهم دانش دستور زبان آموزان به عنوان عاملی میانجی در خواندن و درک مطلب در سطح پایینتر از متوسط فراهم می کنند.

مطالعه ی حاضر به بررسی تاثیر جنسیت براستفاده از مغلطه های بی قاعده بحث و استدلال در نوشته های (مقالات) استدلالی انگلیسی زبان آموزان ایرانی در سطح پیشرفته توانایی زبان انگلیسی می پردازد. مجموعه متون مورد بررسی این مطالعه شامل 120 نوشته ی زبان آموزان دختروپسر بود. سن و رشته ی دانشگاهی زبان آموزان دیگرمتغیرهای مستقل تحقیق بودند. نه نوع مهم مغلطه های بی قاعده در متون بررسی شدند و فراوانی های به دست آمده ازطریق تست آماری مانوا تحلیل شدند. به طورکلی برای مغلطه های بی قاعده ، نتایج تست های آماری مالتی وریت برای همه ی متغیرهای مستقل و تعامل آنها تفاوت معناداری را نشان نداد ولی سه مورد تفاوت مجزا مشاهده شد. در پایان تحقیق ، نتایج مطالعه در مقایسه با پژوهش های قبلی بررسی شده است و دستاوردهایی پیشنهاد شده است.

Recently، interest in research on EFL teaching، CLT-based methodology and materials، and post-method pedagogy has gain momentum in the Iranian mainstream education. This study was conducted; 1) to explore EFL teachers’ attitudes towards the present EFL methodologies and content of high school textbooks; 2) to examine any probable relationship between teachers’ attitudes towards post method pedagogy and their students’ achievement; and 3) to probe any correlation between the teachers’ instructional experience and their attitudes towards the present teaching methods and materials. To this end، a questionnaire was designed to elicit EFL teachers’ beliefs. The subjects were 594 Iranian EFL teachers selected from different cities all over Iran. After the administration of the questionnaire، the data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistical procedures. The results indicated that: a) the Iranian EFL teachers hold different patterns of attitudes towards the dominant teaching methods and content of high school English textbooks، b) there is no relationship between the teachers’ positive or negative attitudes towards post method and their students’ achievement، and c) more experienced teachers’ attitudes are different from the attitudes held by less-experienced ones.