درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Developing a learner’s ability to communicate in a second language is the goal of communicative language teaching (CLT). Many EFL teachers now accept and employ CLT as a teaching method. Although teachers’ views have a significant influence on how they practice CLT, there haven’t been many studies about teachers’ attitudes about CLT in a specific context, such as Iran. This was revealed through a study of related literature. The current study sought to examine how EFL teachers felt about CLT. The first aim of the present study is to ascertain how EFL teachers feel about CLT. Examining the fundamental causes of instructors’ attitudes is the second goal. Thirdly, determining whether there is a disconnect between instructors' perceptions about CLT and their classroom behavior. The researchers employed a mixed-methods strategy in this study. The study included 30 EFL instructors. Three phases made up the research design: firstly, a questionnaire for gathering quantitative data was used, then interviews and observations were used for gathering qualitative data. The findings of this study showed that, in general, EFL teachers had positive attitudes about the CLT’s tenets and exhibited CLT’s traits in their teaching. There was not much of a discrepancy between the teachers’ perceptions about CLT and their actual classroom actions. This study offers valuable insights that can inform curriculum development, teacher training, and policy decisions, ultimately enhancing the quality of English language education in Iran and similar contexts around the world.

This cross-cultural study aims to examine how Iranian and American motivational speakers employ metadiscourse devices as a convincing tool to interact with their audience. To this end, eight motivational speeches in English and Persian were randomly selected from 2015 to 2021, and analyzed for the use of stance (i.e., hedges, boosters, attitude markers, and self-mentions) and engagement (i.e., reader-pronouns, directives, questions, shared knowledge, and personal asides) expressions. The findings showed that self-mention and attitude markers were the most frequently used stance markers in English and Persian corpus, respectively. Moreover, hedges found to be the least frequently used stance markers in the two corpora. With regard to the use of engagement markers, results showed that reader pronoun is the most frequently used engagement markers, and shared knowledge and personal asides were the least frequently used engagement markers in both languages. Finally, the results of chi-square test showed statistically significant differences in the use of stance and engagement expressions in the two languages, confirming cultural septicity nature of metadiscourse markers, and that speakers of different languages employ interactional devices according to their context.

In today’s innovative world, it is not right to consider learners as passive receivers of information since they are more possibly qualified to advance. They are certainly more actively involved, interested, self-directed, and autonomous. Likewise, a flipped classroom helps students to be more active participants in an interactive learning environment. Thus, the current study aimed to describe the benefits of implementing online flipped classrooms on EFL female students’ grammar achievement. The study was conducted as a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental research design at one of the Iranian high schools. Fifty EFL female students who were studying humanistic in grade 12th were requested to take part in this study. After analyzing the data using an independent-samples t-test, the findings indicated that the experimental group had better performance than the control group. Additionally, the results of the open-ended question showed that the majority of students had a positive perception of implementing online flipped classrooms. The implications of the study for EFL students and teachers are discussed.

"Lexical Chains" is one of the newest branches of statistical semantics, which is defiend as the process of identifying words that have semantic relationship with each other, and help us to identify the topic and main content of the text. In this research, we aim to determine lexical chains of sermons No. 87 and 191 of Nahj al-Balaghah, based on the theory of "Saxena", as well as "Barzilay" and "Elhadad", using the descriptive-analytical and statistical method. The results show that in both sermons, the semantic relation "Antonym" has the most frequency. In sermons No. 87 and 191, respectively, 8% and 5% of the chains are "strong chains", and play the main role in determining the main themes of the sermons. According to the data, choosing the title "religious, ethical, scientific" for the sermon No. 87, and "moral, ethical, social, intellectual" for the sermon No. 191 -contrary to what "Mohammad Dashti" mentioned for them- seems more appropriate.

In keeping with Control-Value Theory (CVT), learners’ achievement emotions and language achievement can affect e ach other. The flexibility of learners in academic settings can be a refugee from academic difficulties, and protect learners from discouragement after a negative emotional experience about achievement. Review of the literature proved the existence of several studies that have been conducted to support this theory. In this study, the possible contributions of eight achievement emotions (pride, hope, enjoyment, shame, anxiety, boredom, anger, and hopelessness) to language achievement in EFL context were examined to see if there was a relationship between them and learners’ language achievement. Accordingly, 279 advanced EFL learners (148 male and 131 female) of Iran Language Institute (ILI) took part. The Achievement Emotions Questionnaire (AEQ) was used to collect the data about the learners’ emotions and participants’ Grade Point Average (GPA) as evidence for their language achievement was employed to see how much of their achievement emotions could be contributed to their language achievement. The results of multiple linear regression revealed that enjoyment, hope, and anxiety were the three significant emotion factors predicting EFL learners’ language achievement and among them anxiety was the strongest predictor. In addition, based on the results of the independent-samples t-test, there was a statistically significant difference between the female and male learners’ achievement emotions scores. The learners’ emotions in language classes can be dealt with so that they can experience a better language learning experience. The findings are beneficial for EFL teachers, learners, and course designers.

A long-standing concern reverberating over the minds of intercultural scholars is how best to incorporate intercultural issues in English language teaching, an issue on which there has been little research in EFL contexts. To fill this gap, this qualitative study examined the efficacy of interculturally-laden tasks in promoting Iranian learners’ intercultural competency in Anzali, Guilan province, Iran. Thus, a group of 22 Iranian intermediate EFL learners were recruited through convenience sampling from a pool of 44 according to their score on Oxford Quick Placement Test. All the participants were 12 females and 10 males aged 21-30. Then, they attended eighteen sessions of intercultural training using Mirrors and Windows: An intercultural communication textbook and completed seven intercultural tasks as a pretest and posttest. Data was collected through seven intercultural tasks and reflective worksheets. Drawing on the qualitative content analysis of intercultural tasks, the findings revealed that the tasks could help the participants increase their intercultural competence. Moreover, three themes were emerged from the analysis of the reflective worksheets as follow: (1) the participants’ evaluation of the ICC course and intercultural tasks, (2) perceptions regarding intercultural development and (3) language skills and anxiety. The implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.

 Juxtaposing the ubiquitous facets of mobile technology as everyware (Greenfield, 2010) and vocabulary as one of the most axial aspects of language learning (Bowles & Cogo, 2016; Schmitt & Schmitt, 2020) , besides the importance of considering learners’ attributes and needs (Taghizadeh, 2019) while developing a mobile vocabulary application (app), necessitates analyzing the relationship and impact of all these elements in a single structural model. To tackle the issue, first, via a mixed-methods design, the researcher developed a bespoke mobile application using the task model and the principles of agile methodology. and then investigated the impact of using the app on a sample of 62 Iranian EFL university students’ vocabulary recognition and recall, the results of which were published in two other articles. In this study, the researcher integrated the obtained data within a proposed structural model and assessed the model's fitness to investigate the interaction and interrelationship among the latent variables mentioned above. The results obtained from SEM-PLS analyses revealed that within the unified structural model, the learners’ preferences and needs were favorably influenced by their learning style orientation and technology savviness. Similarly, the findings verified the positive impact of considering learners’ preferences and needs during the agile app development lifecycle on the target participants’ vocabulary knowledge, encompassing vocabulary recognition and recall. Finally, the fitness of the proposed structural model was verified based on the criteria for model assessment mentioned by Sparks and Alamer (2022) . The SEM-PLS data analyses and the implications of the study are presented and discussed.

To date, with the everyday growth of technology and the increase of online classes, busy modern teachers seek to lighten their burdens and boost their learners’ autonomy. Thus, this multi-method action research aimed to probe the differences between receiving computer-generated and direct corrective feedback (CF) on the syntactic accuracy and complexity of female adolescent Iranian EFL learners’ writing. Two intact classes took part in the study; one group (Group C) received CF from an AWE (Automated Writing Evaluation) tool, called Ginger software, and the other group (Group T) received CF from their teacher. Subject-verb agreement and verb form errors were considered to measure the syntactic accuracy while the average sentence length and verb form variation were regarded as the syntactic complexity. Moreover, via a questionnaire, the students’ perceptions of the kind of CF they had received were taken into account to see which one was more effective. Findings obtained from MANOVA revealed that both groups made significant improvements regarding syntactic accuracy. Group C produced more complex outputs after being exposed to the treatment while Group T didn’t make such progress. The results obtained from the questionnaire also indicated that both groups found the CF satisfactory. However, Group C held more positive attitudes. Not only was the Ginger application effective in decreasing the number of students’ writing errors but also it motivated them to be better writers and write more. The study further points to the likely merits of technology-enhanced feedback in improving EFL learners' writing ability in general, and their written syntactic accuracy/complexity in particular.

This study investigated the interplay of working memory capacity and language proficiency in the context of vocabulary acquisition through word-focused tasks. The involvement load hypothesis served as a theoretical framework, positing that the degree of cognitive engagement influences lexical learning outcomes. A total of 100 EFL learners participated in this study. They were divided into distinct groups based on varying levels of working memory capacity, language proficiency, and aspects of working memory (phonological short-term memory and executive working memory). The participants engaged in receptive and productive vocabulary tasks under different experimental conditions, including reading-only, reading plus blank-fill, and reading-plus production. The results revealed intricate relationships between working memory capacity, language proficiency, and vocabulary acquisition. While the efficacy of the hypothesis varied across conditions, its predictions were influenced by the nuances of individual cognitive capabilities and language competence. Learners with higher proficiency levels acquired more lexical items, both receptively and productively.  Although the difference with the phonological short-term memory was not significant, executive working memory was more facilitative of lexical gain. Additionally, the role of input modality in shaping vocabulary learning outcomes was highlighted. That is, reading plus production and blank-fill tasks resulted in more lexical gain than reading-only tasks.  The study contributes to the theoretical understanding of vocabulary acquisition by underscoring the complex interplay of cognitive processes and language factors. These insights hold implications for foreign language pedagogy, guiding educators in crafting more effective interventions for enhancing both receptive and productive lexical knowledge.