درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The present study was intended to investigate the roles of test-taking strategies, critical thinking, and self-efficacy in the language proficiency of the female Iranian Ph.D. students at Islamic Azad University (IAU), Shahrekord Branch, Shahrekord, Iran. The participants of the study, who were 98 Ph.D. students from a range of disciplines, were getting ready to sit for the English Proficiency Test (EPT) as a partial requirement for the completion of their courses and take the Comprehensive Exam subsequently. These participants were required to complete the test-taking strategies, critical thinking, and self-efficacy questionnaires, one questionnaire per session, towards the end of their English course with the present researcher. They also took a sample of EPT for their final exam. Standard multiple regression was conducted to see how well self-efficacy, critical thinking, and test-taking strategies could predict the participants’ language proficiency. The obtained results revealed that language proficiency had strong, positive, and significant correlations with critical thinking, test-taking strategies, and self-efficacy. Moreover, it was found that all the three independent variables were significant predictors of language proficiency, with critical thinking being the best predictor, test-taking strategies the second, and self-efficacy the third. The significance of these results lies in the fact that individual attributes like critical thinking, self-efficacy, and test-taking strategies play a significant role in the success of students when it comes to language proficiency.       

Graphic organizers have been employed to facilitate second language learners' vocabulary knowledge development; however, the examination of the effects of these graphic organizer options on learners' collocation knowledge development has remained unexplored. This research investigated the effects of using teacher-generated, individually-generated, and cooperatively generated graphic organizers on Iranian English language learners' collocation knowledge. The present study examined these effects by studying 80 intermediate second language learners who were selected based on convenience sampling. The participants were assigned to four groups randomly. The collocations were provided on the board in the control group, and explanations were provided orally. In the teacher graphic organizer group, the teacher provided the learners with pre-filled graphic organizers with collocations. In the individually-generated group, the teacher provided the learners with a list of words in groups, and they had some minutes to generate their graphic organizers. In the cooperatively-generated group, the participants had some minutes to generate their graphic organizers cooperatively with their peers. Using a pre-test, immediate post-test, and delayed post-test, the researchers examined the effects of these conditions on learners' collocation knowledge. The findings showed that all graphic organizer groups were more successful than the control group in developing learners' collocation knowledge. In addition, the mean value of the participants’ scores in the cooperative group was significantly more than that of the teacher-generated and individually-generated groups, and there was no significant difference between the mean scores of the teacher and individual-generated graphic organizer groups.  

While the main focus of the studies in the literature is centered around EFL teachers’ identity construction in face-to-face classes regarding certain cliche factors, the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the potential of investigating EFL teachers' professional identity reflection in the developing contexts of distance education. Thus, this study examined the possible association between Iranian EFL instructors' Professional Identity Reflection (PIR) and their use of Achievement Orientation Strategies (AOSs) in the dynamic setting of E-teaching. Besides, this study evaluated the prediction power of the AOSs in determining the PIR of Iranian EFL instructors. One hundred four male and female Iranian EFL instructors were selected based on convenience sampling to participate in this quantitative correlational research. Two instruments, including Measure of Teachers Achievement (MoTA) and Questionnaire of Professional Identity (QPI), were used to collect the required data on the online platform of Type form. The R software's correlation and multiple regression packages were utilized to analyze the gathered data. The results indicated a robust direct association between the PIR of Iranian EFL instructors in E-teaching and their use of AOSs. Moreover, three out of four AOSs significantly predicted the PIR of Iranian EFL instructors in E-Teaching. Furthermore, the mastery-approach strategy had the most predicting power among the other AOSs. This study provides practical interdisciplinary benefits for EFL teachers, EFL teacher trainers, and educational psychologists in training EFL teachers who are aware of how their views toward achieving specific academic goals in E-teaching influence their professional identity in E-teaching.    

This experimental study aimed at discovering the impact of Metacognitive Intervention Program instruction on the reading advancement of Iranian dyslexic primary school learners. The participants consisted of 32 male and female, grade three primary school students, with the age range of 8 to 11 years and 90 to 110 IQ average. They were selected through convenient sampling and divided into two control and experimental groups of equal size. Then, the experimental group was exposed to the Metacognitive Intervention Program instruction for 10 weeks. Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) and Dyslexia and Reading (NEMA) tests were used as instruments.  To evaluate the participants’ reading progress, a pre-test and a post-test (NEMA) were conducted. The results of covariance analysis showed that the employed program was effective in the reading comprehension development of the participants. The findings of this study suggest that primary school instructors need to think more about using the Metacognitive Intervention Program instruction on different steps of reading comprehension and do more effective activities to assist students in removing their reading difficulties.    

As an inseparable part of teachers’ education career, practicum supervision can function as a double-edged sword that can generate pedagogical improvement or even make the worse worst in the class depending on the time and manner of its implementation. Given its significance and crucial role in EFL contexts, supervision has captured the attention of some scholars in this line of research. However, few studies (if any) have focused on EFL teachers’ beliefs about instructional supervision and its role in pedagogical development considering their experience level. To fill this lacuna, the current study examined the perceptions of 100 Iranian EFL teachers with different experience levels toward various supervisory practices and their contribution to teacher pedagogical growth using an Instructional Supervision Questionnaire (Kayaoglu, 2012). Furthermore, a semi-structured interview was carried out with 10 EFL teachers taken from the same sample. The results of analyses indicated that both novice and experienced teachers had a negative view concerning the existing supervision system in Iran. Additionally, no significant difference was found between the novice and experienced EFL teachers’ beliefs about classroom supervision (p > .05). The qualitative findings also revealed that both novice and experienced EFL teachers considered supervision as bureaucracy, fault-seeking, confidence-minimizing, and with little to no instructional worth. They also had similar beliefs as per the characteristics of an effective supervisory act. Moreover, supervision was perceived useful only when teachers were novice instructors, but ineffective as they became experienced.

This study intends to conduct a systematic qualitative meta-analysis that focuses on research studies into English Language Teaching (ELT) policy in Iran and Singapore. To identify and compare the main features of the studies and also to provide a contemporary picture of the field in Iran and Singapore, 13 articles published between 2010 and 2021 were included in this review. The analysis revealed that Singapore has employed a top-down language policy and utilized a holistic curriculum which has led to an English knowing society. The policies are well articulated and few mismatches were reported in the policies. In addition, the policies are positively perceived by stakeholders, leading to effective implementation of the policies. However, the findings showed that the Iranian top-down policy negatively framed ELT. Moreover, the policies are not well articulated and there are some inconsistencies between the policies and some mismatches between policy and practice. In addition, the analysis revealed that Iranian stakeholders negatively perceived the policies. They believed that the policies have marginalized the role of teachers and their professional judgment. Finally, research gaps for future research studies in ELT policy were highlighted and recommendations were offered.

: Peer review plays a vital and major role to determine the fate of manuscripts submitted to international academic journals. The present study analyzed the discourse structure and the language use of a corpus containing 43 peer review reports from journals from three disciplines (i.e., Applied Linguistics, Accounting, and Sociology). This study analyzed the most frequent discourse moves, negative, and positive expressions used in minor revisions, major revisions, and rejected manuscripts. The findings of this study showed that all discourse moves appeared in all peer review reports but two moves “Summarizing Judgment” and “Conclusion and Recommendation” were the most frequent discourse moves in all peer-review categories. The findings also revealed that the words “well”, “good”, and “original” were the most frequently-used positive words, while the words “unclear”, “inconsistent”, and “poor” were the most frequently-used negative words in the analyzed peer-review reports. The study recommends some points to be considered in future research on this topic.

Limiting the scope of Maritime English (ME) courses to nautical subject matters, due to the conventional views who define ME as the global language used at sea, may not be based on a real needs analysis of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses in ports and maritime related organizations. Utilizing a mixed-methods approach, this study aimed to challenge this traditional perception through conducting an ESP needs analysis in Ports and Maritime Organization (PMO) of Iran. All the 17 departments’ managers and/or their delegates were interviewed, then a researcher-made questionnaire which was developed according to the interviews was distributed among the experts (70 respondents). The deductive content analysis was used for analyzing the qualitative part, and the quantitative data were analyzed through descriptive statistics. It was revealed that the overall needs of PMO in terms of ESP does not concord with conventional nautical-based Maritime English courses, and it in fact encompasses a much wider variety of content areas such as “port economic, marketing and investment, legal, tariffs, agreements and contracts, education, research, strategic port administration, logistics” etc.

This study aims to explore the relationship between Iranian undergraduate translation students’ level of anxiety and emotional intelligence (EI) when performing consecutive interpreting, and the quality of their interpreting performance. To this end, thirty Iranian undergraduate English translation students were invited based on convenience sampling to participate in this study. A researcher-made questionnaire was designed to measure students’ interpreting anxiety. Participants completed Schering's emotional intelligence and interpreting classroom anxiety scale (ICAS) to measure their level of EI and anxiety. The participants were then asked to consecutively interpret a three-minute video clip from English into Persian about anxiety disorder. Students’ interpreting performance was assessed by three experienced raters based on Carroll’s model of translation quality assessment for consecutive interpreting. The results showed that there was no statistically significant relationship between the students’ total score of EI and the quality of their consecutive interpreting performance. However, there was a negative correlation between students’ interpreting anxiety and the quality of their interpreting performance. Additionally, a negative association was found between students interpreting classroom anxiety and emotional intelligence. Consequently, the findings demonstrated that negative emotions and thoughts such as anxiety and stress reduce translation students interpreting ability. Moreover, based on the results, the interpreting theoretical instructions, as well as teaching psychological factors should be included in the translation teaching syllabus to train proficient and skillful interpreters in Iranian universities.