درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Researchers have always been concerned with innovative approaches to facilitate the learning process for language learners. One of the facilitating strategies is guided discovery learning, which can help learners to develop their critical and analytical thinking skills. Hence, the present study is an attempt to discover the effects of guided discovery learning on the development of teenage and adult learners’ syntactic structures. The participants of this study were 34 male EFL Iranian learners in Iranmehr Language Institute, Aleshtar, Lorestan province, Iran. The participants were divided into two experimental groups based on their age (12 to 18 as teenagers, and 18 to 30 as adults). First, the Longman proficiency test was given to the participants to measure their language ability. After that, a pre-test was given to the students regarding syntactic structures before the treatment. Then, every two weeks a post-test was given to the students to assess their gradual development. One immediate and two delayed post-tests were given to the students. In this study, paired and independent samples t-tests were used to compare the development of syntactic structures in the studied groups. The results of this study showed that both groups (teenagers and adults) made an improvement but adults improved more significantly than teenagers. The findings of the study contributed to the practical employment of guided discovery learning as an effective teaching methodology, especially for adults in the process of language learning

The preface which initiates textbooks is a significant convention in writing academic textbooks as it introduces the book, explains assumptions, clarifies expectations, and convinces the readers to read on. In the present study, using Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal framework, ninety textbook prefaces written by both native and nonnative writers, in both hard and soft sciences, were selected and analyzed aiming at exploring writers’ preferences for the type and frequency of appraisal resources. The statistical analysis of the data revealed that the writers plentifully used appraisal resources in the prefaces to express their attitudes, positions, and goals of the inclusion of various sections in the book. Attitude resources, in terms of frequency, are the most frequent, and Engagement elements are the least with Graduation items coming in the middle position. This is quite natural as all academic writing is to express opinions and positions, and prefaces, specifically, are less probable to indicate others’ attitudes and stances, but the authors’ positions and purposes behind the book. Based on the findings, it is concluded that native textbook writers are superior to nonnative writers in terms of communication power, establishing solidarity, and a convincing and forceful voice. The frequency of the subsystem of the main appraisals is also detailed in the article. This study can have implications for textbook writers, teachers, EFL learners, and materials developers.

Hedging and boosting are significant communicative resources to construe and attain persuasion in different fields and particular genres of academic writing. Hedges allow the researcher to address possible problems, raise objections or anticipate opposition to the research claims while contributing something new to the ongoing dialogue in a research field. Boosters enormously help to achieve the essential writers’ need to convince their readership of the truth in their propositions. They are mainly used whenever writers consider it not too risky to include them in their propositions. This study aims to investigate the frequencies and functions of hedges and boosters in academic students' essays. To meet this end, 96 students' essays (a total of 269.428 words) were selected from the Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers (MICUSP), including English and Psychology disciplines. The corpus was analyzed based on Abdollahzadeh (2019)classification of hedges. The results showed that hedges and boosters were frequent enough to be considered in teaching writing, either reducing or increasing the force of written utterances. The results of this study could be used directly in the syllabus designed for academic essay writing.

This study explored the representation of the Initiation, Response, Feedback (IRF) cycle in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. Video recordings have been used to collect data from 10 classes, which were managed by 8 L2 teachers. In total, 900 minutes of video recordings with 784 triadic patterns were collected. Using Conversation Analysis (CA), the findings demonstrated that the IRFs in classroom interactions were disclosed in various ways. The coding system revealed that the teachers generally used authentic and focused questions. In the F stage, the teachers used elaboration, scaffolding, correction, and refusal strategies. The F stage was also a rich juncture for local contingencies as the teachers’ productions were contingent on the students’ responses. Likewise, uptake and scaffolding have been important elements in the IRF patterns. The analysis suggests that the third stage can create an ad-hoc co-constructive classroom interaction and provide L2 learners with various learning opportunities.

The present qualitative research sought to investigate EFL teacher educators’ experiences and attitudes toward critical thinking and its role in teacher professional development. The adopted design was a case study and the theoretical framework was the theory of transformative learning (Mezirow, 1978). For the data collection purpose, 30 EFL teacher educators participated in in-depth interviews. The  whole procedure of  the data collection was audiotaped for further reference in data analysis. The interviews were transcribed to familiarize with the data and the transcribed interviews were member checked with the participants. The collected data were analyzed through reflective thematic analysis. The data analyzed paved the way for generating three themes: cognition, metacognition , and personal growth/self attainment . The findings of the study comprise a number of implicatios for both theory and practice. One aspect of our contribution is that the notion of critical thinking can be conceived as more than cognitive and metacognitive one; it should be conceptualized as possessing both facets as well as other possible subsets. Beyond that, we suggest that critical thinking should be conjectured as being both a process and a product.

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.

Due to subjectivity in oral assessment, much concentration has been put on obtaining a satisfactory measure of consistency among raters. However, obtaining consistency might not result in valid decisions. One matter that is at the core of both reliability and validity in oral performance is rater training. Recently, Multifaceted Rasch Measurement (MFRM) has been adopted to address the problem of rater bias and inconsistency; however, no research has incorporated the facets of test takers’ ability, raters’ severity, task difficulty, group expertise, scale criterion category, and test version together in a piece of research along with their two-sided impacts. Moreover, little research has investigated how long rater training effects last. Consequently, this study explored the influence of the training program and feedback by having 20 raters score the oral production, as measured by the CEP (Community English Program) test, produced by 300 test takers in three phases, i.e., before, immediately after and long after the training program. The results indicated that training can lead to higher degrees of interrater reliability and diminished measures of severity/leniency, and biasedness. However, it won't lead the raters into total unanimity, except for making them more self-consistent. Although rater training might result in higher internal consistency among raters, it cannot eradicate individual differences. That is, experienced raters, due to their idiosyncratic characteristics, did not benefit as much as inexperienced ones. This study also showed that the outcome of training might not endure in long run after training; thus, it requires ongoing training letting raters regain consistency.

This study investigated the attitudes of Iranian female and male elementary English as a foreign language (EFL) learners toward peer and self-assessment of descriptive writing. It also attempted to find any gender-specific differences in their attitudes toward peer and self-assessment of descriptive writing. In so doing, the study relied on exploratory sequential mixed-methods procedures including qualitative and quantitative phases. The first group of participants was 40 EFL teachers (20 males and 20 females). The second group of participants was 50 individuals (25 males and 25 females) who took part in a five-session descriptive writing course, participated in interviews, and filled out the questionnaires. The content of the course was a combination of Bartlett's (2015) peer and self-assessment methods and Spencer's (2005) models of assessing composition. In the qualitative phase, a thematic analysis of the interviews, known as the constant comparative method of analysis, helped to extract four main themes shaping the participants’ attitudes, namely ‘Cooperation’, ‘Knowledge’, ‘Motivation’, and ‘Practice’. In the quantitative phase, exploratory factor analysis and a one-way MANOVA test were carried out to examine any gender-specific impacts on the learners’ attitudes toward peer and self-assessment of descriptive writing. Finally, the results of the study implied that the participants had positive attitudes towards the descriptive writing course, although females were more positive than males. This study has some educational implications for those involved in peer and self-assessment.