درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

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.

Enhancing speaking ability is an important component of the acquirement of a language. The innovative aspect of this study is improving speaking ability through online strategy-based instruction by applying the Moodle course management system as an instructional platform. To this end, a group of 80 Iranian female and male students at the advanced level participated in the treatment. Participants of the study were divided into four groups of 20. The subjects in experimental groups benefited from two particular instructional focuses of this study include social and affective strategies. In order to assess the effect of the treatment pre and posttests design were utilized. Consequently, the data were analyzed through One-Way ANOVAs and t-tests. The findings revealed that strategy treatment was successful in improving the participants’ speaking ability. Therefore, the findings suggest that online strategy-based instruction can positively influence the speaking ability of Iranian advanced EFL learners. In addition, a questionnaire from Kitchakarn (2015) was employed to understand students’ perceptions and attitudes toward computer-based learning. The statistical analysis of the questionnaire revealed positive attitudes of participants toward computer-based learning.This study may have pedagogical implications for material practitioners, CALL package designers and distance learning planners to include strategy instruction in English courses.

This study investigated the role of Telegram, a mobile messenger app, in mastering receptive and productive knowledge of vocabulary by Iranian EFL learners. In addition, it was intended to survey EFL learners’ attitude toward using telegram to learn English vocabulary. Therefore, both quantitative and qualitative design were used. So, 57 students were selected from a language institute in Isfahan, Iran. To homogenize the participants, Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) was administered and the participants were divided into two groups accordingly, a Telegram group and a control group. At the beginning of the study a checklist of words was given to the participants. Afterward, during the study, the experimental group received the treatment (teaching words via telegram), while the control group received the target words traditionally. After 8 sessions, 20-30 minutes each, an achievement test was administered to the groups. The results of Independent Sample t-test revealed a statistically significant difference between the achievement test scores of the experimental and control group. Moreover, the participants had positive attitude about using Telegram to learn English vocabulary. The findings of this study may inspire teachers to use mobile applications and also course developers to modify and improve not only the curriculum, but also the methodology of teaching vocabulary.

The present research aimed to conceptualize the construct of Teacher Assessment Identity (TAI) by designing and validating a questionnaire in the Iranian EFL context. In so doing, a tentative scale with 96 items was piloted on 340 novice and experienced Iranian EFL teachers using Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (EFA, CFA). The results of the analyses led to the removal of 33 items, leaving the questionnaire with 61 items on a five-point Likert scale. Moreover, the results revealed that the construct of TAI has 12 factors including assessment “knowledge”, “beliefs”, “attitudes”, “skills and confidence”, “practices”, “use assurance”, “feedback”, “rubric/criteria”, “consistency and consequence”, “grading/scoring”, “question-types”, and “roles”. Likewise, the convergent validity and reliability of the instrument to measure the construct of concern was statistically confirmed (p>.05). The findings have various implications for EFL teachers, teacher trainers, course designers, and language researchers by raising their awareness of assessment identity and its underlying components.

Metaphors conceptualizing anger represent a system which is based on the cognitive cultural model of this emotion. Since this model derives from the physiological effects and the behavioral reactions associated with anger, it may be used as a criterion to compare and contrast the conceptualization of this emotion in different contexts. This article analyzes the metaphorical expressions of anger in the Qur’anic verses and the traditions of the Holy Prophet and his rightful successors to determine to what extent they follow the aforementioned model offered by Kovecses. In doing so, a corpus of 200 verses and traditions were collected from different Islamic sources and then they were grouped according to seven source domains identified by Kovecses. The findings of the study reveal that except for one source domain, i.e. burden, the other seven source domains exhibit a high frequency in the above-mentioned verses and traditions; this, in turn, is indicative of the fact that there is a systematic conceptual motivation underlying the structures of the metaphorical expressions in these verses and traditions so that it can be claimed that such expressions follow a well-established scientific pattern.

This study investigated the effects of recast and explicit corrective feedback on Iranian IELTS test-takers anxiety in speaking across different levels of proficiency. Ninety male and female learners, aged 21 to 45, who were preparing themselves to take the IELTS Mock test, were divided into upper-intermediate and advanced levels. Then, they were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups (recast and explicit correction). There were 10 treatment sessions for each group. In the recast group, the students’ mistakes were corrected using reformulation. In the explicit correction group, mistakes were not tolerated, and they were corrected on the spot. In order to measure the anxiety in speaking performance, Chowdhury’s (2014) questionnaire was given to the participants once before the treatment and once after the treatment. Then, the score of each learner was calculated and recorded for the data analysis. The results showed that there was no statistically significant difference between the control and explicit corrective group and the control and recast groups at the upper-intermediate level. However, there was a statistically significant difference between the control and recast groups and the control and explicit group at the advanced levels.

This study aimed at investigating the Persian human and machine (Google) renderings of The Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini, through comparing and contrasting culture specific items (CSI) as well as the exploited translation strategies. Thus, the relevant problematic forms of the cultural differences were identified and the procedures suggested by Newmark (1988) were examined to see how they fit into the translation of cultural differences in English and Persian. The results of this qualitative study revealed that Literal Translation, Naturalization and Transposition strategies were used most frequently in both human and machine translations. However, machine translation could not present a comprehensible translation due to overuse of these strategies (75%). It was also revealed that the spirit of source text was kept intact in both renderings due to closeness of Iranian and Afghan cultures. It was further discovered that the human translated version carried the real beauty and creativities of the original work. In facty, the terms that were transformed and localized were able to carry over the flavor of the author’s work. Finally, it was shown that the regretful theme of the source text was reserved to a great extent in the human rendering of the novel, while machine translation failed to get it. Generally-speaking, based on the findings of this study, culture-specific terms make it difficult for machines to achieve complete word-for-word equivalence, and at the same time, human translator must have a broad knowledge of the literature and traditions of both the source and target languages to come up with a faithful translation in terms of both form and content.

The current study examined the Iranian EFL teachers’ and students’ perceptions about Communication Strategies Teachability. The study was conducted with 20 teachers and 110 students from universities and private language Institutes in Tabriz, Iran. The literature regarding the teachability of communication strategies (CSs) has been far from conclusive. Some researchers reject the possibility of CSs instruction while many empirical studies support their teachability. Taking a mixed method design, the present study used a language proficiency test, a questionnaire and an interview for data collection. In the quantitative phase, the participants’ responses to questionnaire before and after a 12-week period of teaching CSs were statistically compared. The analysis of the quantitative data obtained from the questionnaire through Paired-samples t-test indicated that the students’ perceptions towards the usefulness of CSs grew significantly more positive after their instruction. The qualitative analysis of the interview data collected from the teachers indicated that most teachers found CSs useful and possible to teach. It was also found that these strategies improved capability of English language learners to speak and enhaned their conciousness of CSs. This study could offer pedagogical implications for both teachers and students and pave the way for further studies in the field.

Considering the great importance of speaking to EFL learners, teachers have tried to use different teaching techniques to help learners master this skill. One of these techniques is learner-based language teaching. The goal of this study was to investigate the effect of using selected class presentation on the speaking development of EFL learners.  To this purpose, a mixed-methods research was conducted, with both qualitative and quantitative data. The population of the study comprised 66 female EFL students of a language institute in Bandar Abbas. To homogenize them, Nelson Placement Test was administered and as a result, 50 students whose score were around the mean were selected as the pre-intermediate participants of the study. They were randomly assigned to two equal, experimental (EG) and control groups (CG). The experimental group was exposed to treatment by the teacher, while the control group was taught through traditional speaking method.  A standard speaking test was used as both pre-test and post-test. The results obtained from the statistical analysis of the participants’ scores in pre-test and post-test revealed that using selected class presentation in the class has considerable impact on the improvement of learners’ speaking performance. This finding shows that emphasizing on the role of the learners by involving them in suitable the speaking tasks can positivity affect their Oral language output.

The Online Interaction Learning Model was founded on constructivist learning theory. It is an input-process-output model based on moderating variables, the inputs, which includes all of the characteristics of the courses, the instructors, EFL learners, and the technology. Due to the fact that the studies considering the pivotal role of the Online Interaction Learning Model are scarce in number, this study was conducted to validate a newly-designed questionnaire via exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Two hundred fifty-nine Iranian university and higher education institutes EFL learners were asked to participate. The newly-developed questionnaire consisted of 35 items measuring the five constructs of the Online Interaction Learning Model (Course materials, Instructor performance, Learning practices, Student-to-student interaction, and Access to technology). The results from EFA, CFA, and reliability analyses revealed that the new questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument measuring Online Interaction Learning Model. Moreover, there was a significant positive correlation between each component of the Online Interaction Learning Model and EFL learners’ GPA as well as between the total Online Interaction Learning Model and student academic achievement. Male and female EFL learners’ scores on the online interaction learning model were quite different from each other.

Responsibility has always been one of the major concerns of teachers and those who are involved in the teaching-learning process. This is the way, since, if the sense of responsibility is improved and maintained in teachers, almost any other aspect of the teaching and learning environment would be considered safe. Therefore, the researchers tried to look for the possible relation between language teachers’ sense of responsibility and their professional identity. Thus, a group of 100 EFL teachers from language schools and different universities took part in the study. Two questionnaires that were previously proved to be valid and reliable were used as the instruments in this study. Regression was applied for the analysis of the data and the results indicated that there was a significant relationship between teachers’ professional identity and their responsibility. More specifically, it was revealed that there was a strong and positive relationship between teachers’ responsibility and motivation as one of the indicators of teachers’ professional sense of identity.

The present study examined the comparative effects of Etherpad-based writing instruction and face-to-face writing instruction on EFL learners' writing quality and writing self-efficacy. It also aimed at finding the learners' attitude towards the influence of Etherpad and their reason for success/ failure in this writing course. To this end, ninety students were selected through convenience sampling and randomly assigned to one of the two instruction groups. In addition to an IELTS writing task, Self-efficacy in Writing Scale (SWS) was administered. During the course, the students received instruction on writing an argumentative essay. After the treatment, the SWS and another IELTS writing task were given. Subsequently, a semi-structured interview was conducted with twenty Etherpad-based learners to find their attitudes towards the reason for their success/ failure and the effectiveness of Etherpad. The results revealed that the Etherpad-based group significantly outperformed the face-to-face group in the writing posttest and demonstrated a higher level of writing self-efficacy. The interview data showed that the students attributed their success to both internal and external factors. Whereas, they ascribed their failure to internal factors rather than external ones. It was also revealed that the students found Etherpad as a predictor of their success in writing performance.