جواد غلامی

در مطالعات توجه به ساختار و شکل زبان، میزان جذب به عنوان نشانگر تاثیر فعالیتهای تمرکز بر روی ساختارهای زبان و تسهیل فراگیری آن در درازمدت عنوان شده است. با این حال، تمام مطالعات صورت گرفته در این زمینه بر اساس مشاهدات ضبط شده از کلاسهای ارتباط-محور بوده است. پژوهش حاضر تلاش نوینی برای اندازه گیری میزان جذب با استفاده از برگه های ثبت میزان جذب بر اساس 18 ساعت تعامل ارتباط-محور و معنی-محور بین یک مدرس و زبان آموزان ایشان می باشد. در این راستا، بر اساس داده های ضبط شده تمام موارد توجه پیشگیرانه به ساختار و شکل زبان نشات گرفته از طرف مدرس و یا زبان آموزان و میزان جذب آنها از طرف زبان آموزان شناسایی و دسته بندی شدند. سپس، این یافته ها با میزان جذب ثبت شده توسط زبان آموزان در برگه های جذب مورد مقایسه قرار گرفت. نتایج این تحلیلها نشان داد که میزان جذب در برگه ها نسبت به مقدار آن در مشاهدات شفاهی در مورد ساختارهای زبانی که از طرف معلم مورد تاکید قرار گرفته بود بسیار بیشتر بوده است. اما این موضوع در مورد ساختارهایی که از طرف زبان آموزان به صورت پیشگیرانه مورد توجه قرار گرفته بودند مورد تایید قرار نگرفت. نتایج این پژوهش کمک شایانی به روشن نمودن بیشتر برداشت محققین و مدرسان زبان انگلیسی در مورد ماهیت و میزان واقعی جذب می نماید و زمینه های جدیدی را برای کاوش بیشتر میزان جذب معرفی می نماید.

امروزه٬ هم راستا با گرایش های آموزش زبان که به دنبال نهادینه کردن فعالیت های آموزشی و آزمون سازی دانشجو محور هستند٬ پذیرش بیشتری در مورد تفاوت های فردی و هوش های چندگانه دانشجویان وجود دارد. همچنین٬ اتکا به نفس یکی از عوامل تعیین کننده موفقیت افراد تقریبا در هر بافتی می باشد. با فرض اینکه نمایه های هوش های چندگانه در تعامل با اتکا به نفس معلم ها به صورت مشترک ممکن است میزان بهره وری و کارآیی آموزشی معلمان را شکل دهند٬ این مطالعه به بررسی رابطه بین هوش های چندگانه دانشجو-معلم های زبان انگلیسی به عنوان زبان خارجی و اتکا به نفس آنها پرداخته است. در این راستا، سی و پنج دانشجو-معلم زن و مرد زبان انگلیسی به عنوان زبان خارجی در موسسات خصوصی زبان ارومیه پرسشنامه های هوش های چندگانه مک کنزی (1999) و مقیاس اتکا به نفس معلمان (چانن-موران و ولفلک-هوی٬ 2001) را تکمیل کردند. در مجموع رابطه قوی مثبتی بین هوش های چندگانه و اتکا به نفس دانشجو-معلمان زبان انگلیسی به عنوان زبان خارج حاصل شد. مقدار مجذور آر (R Square)در تحلیل رگراسیون نشان داد هوش های چندگانه اتکا به نفس معلمان را تعیین می کند و هوش درون-فردی در تعیین اتکا به نفس این معلمان نقش محوری دارد. بعلاوه بر اساس نتایج این پژوهش، بیشترین و محبوب ترین توانایی٬ هوش های درون-فردی و وجودی بودند. در مورد زیرمجموعه های اتکا به نفس٬ دانشجو-معلمان نشان دادند که در مقوله های مشارکت دانشجو و راهبردهای آموزشی اتکا به نفس بیشتری دارند. بر اساس این مطالعه پیشنهاد می شود که برنامه های آموزشی هوش های چندگانه برای معلمان تهیه و تدوین گردد و از این اصول در جهت تقویت و ارتقای کیفیت ارائه مواد درسی توسط معلمان بهره گرفته شود.

Metadiscourse involves the self-reflective linguistic expressions that refer to the evolving text, the writer, and the imagined readers of that text. This study utilized an interpersonal model of metadiscourse to examine the authors' use of metadiscourse in the Abstract sections of Applied Linguistics Research Articles (RAs). It investigated the distributions of interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers at a corpus of 110 RAs published by celebrity and non-celebrity authors to determine the ways academic writers deploy these resources at a hight-stake research genre to persuade readers in their discourse community. The findings revealed that frame markers with a relative frequency of 112 were the most frequent strategy category for the non-celebrity authors. Moreover, evidentials with a relative frequency of 3 were the least frequently used strategy for the celebrity authors. There were no significant differences in the use of interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers between celebrity and non-celebrity authors. These findings might have implications for the teaching of academic writing and scholarly publishing and for novice writers who aim to publish their studies in academic journals.

The present study was undertaken to investigate the effects of varying frequency patterns (FPs) of words on the productive acquisition of a young EFL learner in a home setting. Target words were presented to the learner using games and role plays. They were subsequently traced for their frequencies in input and output. Eighteen immediate tests and delayed tests were administered to measure the oral production following the treatments. To examine the efficacy of varying FPs, target words were grouped into four sets: High Input/High Output (HIHO), Low Input/Low Output (LILO), High Input/Low Output (HILO), and Low Input/High Output (LIHO). The findings revealed that the differences among the FPs were statistically significant. Meanwhile, Wilcoxon signed-rank test identified a significant discrepancy between the words with LILO and HIHO frequency patterns. The findings demonstrated that the differences in FPs led to different productive gains, and higher word production cropped up when words occurred very frequently both in input and output. This study shows that higher teacher talk in tandem with higher learner talk could boost lexical production by a young learner in meaning-focused instructions.

This longitudinal study investigated the impact of different Frequency Patterns (FP) on the syntactic production of a six-year-old EFL learner in a home context. Target syntactic constructions were presented using games and plays and were traced for their occurrence patterns in input and output. Following each instruction period, the constructions were measured through immediate and delayed oral tests for their effects on the oral production. Instructional and measurement sessions were audio-recorded and transcribed into instruction and measurement corpora. Based on their occurrence rates in input and output, target constructions were categorized into High Input/High Output (HIHO), Low Input/Low Output (LILO), High Input/Low Output (HILO), and Low Input/High Output (LIHO) frequency patterns. Friedman procedure revealed significant differences among the learner’s production scores of the constructions with varying FPs. Wilcoxon signed-rank test located significant differences between the constructions with LILO and HIHO and those with HILO and HIHO frequency patterns. The study found that HIHO frequency pattern, in comparison, was the most efficient in developing productive acquisition of syntactic constructions by an EFL young learner. That is to say, instructor's input coupled with learner's output in the form of prompted, reformulated or spontaneous language, played a key part in heightening syntactic production of English as a foreign language. The findings can cast more light on the constantly debated issue of Teacher Talk Time (TTT) and Student Talk Time (STT) and it can be concluded that there should be a balance between TTT and STT so as to yield optimal L2 production gains.

Many L2 teachers baffle when it comes to classroom participation scoring(CPS) of their students. Through a researcher-made questionnaire, this study explored EFL teachers' perceptions of classroom participation scoring(CPS) in Iranian private language schools. Moreover, it investigated the participants' views on a newly-developed objective and analytic rubric as part of this study for CPS. To this end, 120 EFL teachers completed the questionnaire on the typical CPS framework they used in English classrooms. Detailed analysis of teachers' perceptions of CPS  indicated that most Iranian EFL teachers used holistic and subjective CPS approach and had little knowledge of the objective methods of CPS. After having been introduced to the proposed analytic CPS rubric, the participating teachers showed a positive attitude to the rubric and reported the rubric's applicability and flexibility in assessing EFL learners' classroom participation. The findings suggest adopting more objective assessment rubrics for  CPS.

Almost all language schools in Iran enforce teacher supervision with the purpose of promoting good teaching practices and higher standards of quality education. Despite its widespread practice, the body of research on language teacher supervision in Iranian EFL setting is scant. The present qualitative study explored language school managers’ attitudes toward EFL teacher supervision in Iranian language schools. Based on a researcher-developed protocol, semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven language school managers from Tehran and Karaj, Iran, whose managing experiences ranged from 5 to 18 years, with the purpose of identifying their attitudes, experiences, and challenges regarding supervision. The interviews drew upon emergent methodology to categorize the interviewees’ value-laden comments into five major attitudinal themes of becoming a supervisor, the requirements and responsibilities of a teacher-supervisor, evaluating a supervisor’s performance, challenges regarding teacher supervision, and supporting supervisors. The findings revealed that there are not any transparent criteria and rubrics for language school managers to draw upon to select teacher-supervisors, and supervisors are mostly selected based on their teaching potentials, experience, and merits. Moreover, the findings demonstrated that apart from observing classes and providing feedback, too many other responsibilities are assigned to supervisors in Iranian language schools. To improve the ongoing supervisory practices, the interviewees suggested the need for the development of transparent criteria and rubrics for supervisor selection.

Teaching practices are believed to be a determining factor in educational systems. For over two decades, the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Iran has been organizing Top Model Teaching Festivals to address the changes required to promote English teachers' professional development. Considering the high amounts of investment in such programs and their impacts on teaching and sustainable learning, this study probed into how the award-winning teachers critically view and evaluate the efficacy of such nationwide festivals. To this end, ten award-winning EFL teachers in the festivals were interviewed using a semi-structured interview protocol to qualitatively elicit their attitudes towards the program. The results obtained from the content analysis of the interview transcripts revealed that such festivals have not adequately fulfilled their main objective, which is to improve the teaching quality and potential of teachers and promote their professional development. Thus, the study calls for a reassessment of the effectiveness of such programs to find alternative ways for empowering teachers.       

The importance of incorporating graduate students' needs into academic writing courses has established a good reputation in EAP/ESP research. In addition, writing and publishing research articles (RA) is a universally established benchmark for students' academic flourish. The present study examines the status quo of academic writing courses in graduate programs to determine the extent academic writing needs of Applied Linguistics students, mainly RA writing needs, are addressed and practiced in the course. Drawing insights from the literature on academic writing, we developed two similar interview protocols for graduate students and course instructors to capture these key stakeholders' retrospective views on the course. We found that the course mainly focuses on proposal/thesis writing, not regarded as a critical need based on students' perspectives. Moreover, both students and instructors echoed the importance of RA writing as a significant area to be covered while emphasizing the need to integrate RA genre literacy into classroom practices. In this paper, we call for the reconsideration of students' primary needs in designing and running graduate writing programs and suggest that RA writing with a genre-based orientation become an instrumental component of academic writing courses in English as an Additional Language context (EAL).

Intralingual translation is mainly motivated by the intention to modify the text to facilitate the listener's understanding. The present study attempts to examine the differences between VOA Special English and Regular English due to intralingual translation at the levels of phonology, lexicon, and syntax. To this end, 36 samples of passages of varying lengths dealing with academic discourse from non-modified (Regular English) and VOA’s modified (Special English) corpora were randomly selected and analyzed. The comparative analysis showed a significant difference between the modified and non-modified corpora in speech rate, syntax, and lexicon. Further investigation revealed that Special English was characterized by slower readings, increased pauses and tone units, more frequent and limited words, no idioms, repetitive and unmarked nominal clauses, and impersonal subjects in active voice structures. The findings of the study have implications for English teachers and material developers.