درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

A good lesson plan will most probably end up in effective teaching performance. Despite the positive role of planning lessons in the success of any teaching and learning experience, it has not been fully addressed in the Iranian EFL context, and many teachers consider it an impractical or challenging performance. Hence, the present survey study aimed at investigating what EFL teachers conceived of lesson planning and implementation. Furthermore, the role of a series of demographic variables, namely, gender, teaching experience, and educational degree, were also considered. The study participants included 120 EFL teachers working at universities, schools, and language institutes of Sirjan, Iran. The instrument used for data collection was a closed-ended questionnaire developed by Ramaila and Ramnarain (2014). The results from descriptive as well as inferential statistics, including the independent samples t -test, one-way ANOVA, and one-sample t-test, demonstrated the EFL teachers' moderate willingness toward lesson plans in general and its different aspects in particular. It was also revealed that the participants’ perceptions of lesson planning did not differ, considering their demographic features. Educational administrators and authorities can utilize the obtained outcomes of the present study to take sound measures in this regard leading to better achievement of all language learners and even all learners in general.  

This study focused on the effects dynamic form of text-based vocational vocabulary glosses: Dynamic glosses are a series of incremental mediations intended to support students in identifying correct word definitions. After running a pre-test (TOFEL i), 34 ESP learners in medical university were chosen to participate in the study, 17 students randomly assigned to the treatment group and 17 randomly assigned to the control group. Participants in treatment and control conditions received three short ESP texts with many vocational vocabularies using the computers in the language lab and the Adobe Connect application. As the participants in the dynamic gloss condition faced unknown vocational vocabulary items in the passages, the teacher provided the learners with a set of mediations from the most implicit to the most explicit prompts, and the learners tried to identify the correct meaning of the word. In the non-dynamic gloss condition, the learners were given the L1 definition for the target words. The post-test results indicated that the treatment group meaningfully outperformed the control group.    

Given the seemingly important link between children’s working memory (WM) and their scholastic performance, it would be a worthwhile research enquiry to explore language learning as one potential way to improve WM. To this end, the present study examined the impact of two language teaching paradigms, namely, Presentation-Practice-Production (PPP) and Total Physical Response (TPR), on children’s WM over time. Seventy participants, aged 8 to 9 years, were administered tests of phonological, visuo-spatial sketchpad and central executive components, and made up TPR, PPP and control groups for a period of three months. Then, a posttest and a delayed posttest were administered to identify whether the treatments led to significant improvements. The results of the 3 WM measures indicated that the 2 interventions led to certain improvements. Whereas TPR led to significant improvements in the central executive, PPP produced significantly higher gains in phonological memory over time. Neither treatment induced any positive impact on the visuospatial sketchpad. The results lend evidence to the trainability of WM. It is also suggested that language learning experiences have long-lasting repercussions and that each language learning experience can impact certain components of WM.

The contemporary era of learning-oriented assessment demands for teacher professional efforts to appropriately and accurately assess learners' attainment and use the assessment results for the enhancement of learning. In second/foreign language (L2) teaching discipline, this has recently brought language assessment literacy (LAL) to the forefront, with an increasing emphasis on teachers' professionalism of this concept. Given this, L2 teachers' mastery of practical and technical skills, as prescribed by the exiting LAL models, could not be entirely complete nor enhanced without their conceptions of assessment and beliefs system. To illuminate these dimensions, the present study aimed to develop and validate a LAL scale which could have relevance to L2 localized contexts. Exploratory and confirmatory analyses of data from a sample of L2 teachers (N=213) provided empirical evidence supporting the utility and validity of the scale. The paper concludes with the importance of teachers' conceptions of LAL and implications of the findings.

This study explored possible reasons why IELTS candidates usually score low in writing by investigating the effects of two different test designs and scoring criteria on Iranian IELTS candidates’ obtained grades in IELTS and World Englishes (WEs) essay writing tests. To this end, first, a WEs essay writing test was preliminarily designed. Then, 17 Iranian IELTS candidates wrote two essays on the same topic, one under the IELTS test condition and one under the WEs test condition. Each of the 34 obtained essays was scored six times, three times based on IELTS scoring criteria, each time by a different rater, and then, three times based on WEs scoring criteria. The results of repeated-measures ANOVA showed that test design and scoring criteria had significant effects on essay grades. The study concludes that some of the reasons why IELTS candidates usually score low in writing may be rooted in the test design and scoring criteria of the IELTS essay writing test, not necessarily in IELTS candidates’ weaknesses in writing. The implications of the study focus on the importance and relevance of the results to IELTS candidates, international students, and the future of assessing writing in World Englishes contexts.

Although the EFL teachers' challenges in developing and enhancing Professional Identity Formation (PIF) in face-to-face and virtual instruction contexts have extensively been explored, there were a limited set of practical and advantageous strategies, particularly for the novice teachers, in promoting their PIF in E-teaching especially since the emergence of changed priority of teaching contexts amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Accordingly, this study attempted to check the Iranian novice EFL teachers’ PIF, uncover the potential impacts of utilizing Online Image Management (OIM) strategies in promoting their PIF, and identify the most-preferred OIM strategies. Based on the convenience sampling, 184 male and female Iranian novice EFL teachers were selected to participate in this quasi-experimental study. Two instruments, including a Questionnaire of Perceived Professional Identity (QPPI) and a series of Quantitative Online Interviews (QOIs), were used to collect the data via the virtual platform of Survey Planet. The descriptive statistics and Independent Samples t-Test packages in R were utilized to analyze the data. The results confirmed the low levels of professional identity among Iranian novice EFL teachers, verified the significant effects of OIM strategies in promoting PIF of Iranian novice EFL teachers, and shed light on reflection practices and strategies in enhancing digital literacy as the most-favored OIM strategies in promoting PIF among these teachers. This study may provide implications for EFL teachers and trainers in helping novice EFL teachers to promote their PIF with OIM strategies.

This study is an attempt to find the realization of visual literacy in Iranian high school English textbooks. To this purpose, the density and number of the tags in the three volumes of the senior high school English textbooks were qualitatively investigated. The results showed that Book 1 emphasizes the Affective/Perceptual aspect of the visuals, whereas Book 3 puts more emphasis on Critical/Ideological aspect of the visuals. Furthermore, it was found that as grades of the books advance, the density and number of the tags decrease. The results based on Callow’s (2005) dichotomy also indicated that as the grade of the English textbooks advances, the visual literacy moves from the receptive aspect to more productive one. It can be inferred that in developing high school English textbooks, there seems to be no association between the visuals and the corresponding tags despite the variety of the visuals.  

Parallel with the global outbreak of Covid-19 disease in 2020 which widely affected the educational milieu, many institutions of higher education shifted to fully online blended and/or synchronous courses and programs. The extent to which each of these modalities (i.e. fully online blended courses versus online real-time ones) may contribute to language learners’ achievement is largely unknown. Previous studies on blended learning (BL) across various disciplines including foreign language teaching have largely focused on courses featuring a combination of face-to-face and online sessions. This quantitative quasi-experimental study presents an attempt to compare the effectiveness of a fully online blended technical English course with a mix of online synchronous sessions and asynchronous interactive content with that of an online real-time course. The language achievement of 25 university level students attending this online blended course was compared with that of students in an online synchronous course. Drawing on independent and paired sample t-test results obtained from two sets of pre and posttests, it was observed that while both groups performed significantly better in the final language achievement test, students in the fully online synchronous course outperformed those in the blended one. The findings speak to the significance of careful design of online blended courses in terms of session and content delivery along with the essence of increasing peer-to-peer and learner-teacher interaction opportunities to improve the effectiveness of these courses for language learners.

The present study compares the elements and main elements of the sentence (subject, predicate, and linking verbs) in Persian and Arabic languages to prove the hypothesis of many rhetorical similarities in the science of semantics of these two languages. Using a descriptive-analytical method, the researcher directly goes to the contents and expresses them, then concludes by analyzing these direct data. The main goal of the research is to answer the question of what is the main structure of the sentences and the position of the subject, and the predicate from the point of view of the semantics of Persian and Arabic languages. Further, it proved the hypothesis of the plurality of rhetorical commonalities. In general, what can be stated as the final and summary result of all the discussions in this paper is the correctness of the hypothesis of a large number of rhetorical correspondences in the discussed subject in Persian and Arabic languages; however, sometimes, differences are observed in the topics or existing materials. Also, in this research, the writer discusses issues such as article and indefinite article, addition, and omission, position and different forms of subject and predicate in Persian and Arabic languages, along with their commonalities and differences.

The present research was an endeavor to examine and compare the effects of digitally self-regulated and guided discovery learning instructions on Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary acquisition. To this end, by conducting the Oxford Placement Test, 60 out of 140 Iranian EFL male and female learners from three language institutes in Isfahan, Iran, were randomly selected, and divided into three equal groups (i.e. two experimental groups and one control group). Prior to the instructions, a vocabulary pretest, designed and validated by the researchers, was conducted. Then, the experimental groups received two types of instruction, separately. The first experimental group was taught via digitally self-regulated learning (SRL) instruction based on Santangelo, Harris, and Graham’s (2008) six-stage model. The second experimental group was instructed via guided discovery learning instruction based on Brown and Campione’s (2011) stages. In contrast, the control group received the traditional method of teaching vocabulary such as word lists, dictionary use, and word translation. After conducting eight-session instructions, a posttest was administered. The data were analyzed via ANOVAs and post hoc analysis using the Tukey test. The findings of the study revealed that both digitally self-regulated and guided discovery promoted Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary acquisition. Additionally, the findings indicated that digitally self-regulated instruction was more effective than guided discovery instruction regarding vocabulary acquisition. Eventually, the theoretical and pedagogical implications regarding language learners, teachers, and curriculum designs are also provided.

With numerous variables mediating the way learners interact with teacher corrective feedback (TCF), one may not comment on its efficacy before such intervening variables are adequately addressed and learners’ attendance to TCF is ensured. Among those variables, motivation is one of the most prominent ones largely affecting the degree to which students benefit from TCF. Draft-Specific Scoring (DSS), a scoring system giving learners’ a reason to notice TCF by rewarding them for the revisions they make through a flexible system of scoring, was implemented to investigate if TCF could help learners improve their use of subordinate clauses. To do so, two groups of students studying English Language Literature at the University of Tehran, consisting of 55 participants who were randomly assigned as treatment and control groups, were studied. The results of the gain analysis indicated an improvement for both groups over time in the total number and accuracy of the subordination clauses used; however, the treatment group significantly outperformed the control group. While the two groups did not differ in their use of noun clauses, the DSS group was found to outperform the non-DSS group regarding the adverb and adjective clauses. This indicates that motivation to attend to teacher feedback is of great importance if TCF is to be effective.

This study was an attempt to investigate the perception of Iranian senior high school teachers toward critical cultural awareness. The participants of the study comprised of 307 teachers in different high schools in Qazvin. All the participants filled in the Critical Cultural Awareness Questionnaire. The data were then fed into SPSS software and were subjected to Principal Components Analysis. Three factors were extracted and named as CCA in ELT Programs, CCA in ELT Textbooks and Materials, and CCA in General Terms, and the participants’ responses were analyzed based on these factors. The results indicated that the teachers’ critical awareness perception toward ELT Textbooks and Materials was the highest factor. The results of the item analysis revealed that teachers indicate all cultures should have an equal status in ELT textbooks and materials. It was concluded that the teachers’ cultural awareness regarding the integration of culture into mainstream teaching should be raised and they should pay more attention to culture in their classes. One significant implication of this study for EFL teachers and also syllabus designers is that an intercultural curriculum can enable learners to have a better understanding of the target materials.