درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

To date, a number of studies have investigated the use of euphemism in media to classify and analyze the euphemisms of different categories. However, these studies were mostly based on political contexts and the corpora have been limited due to the qualitative nature of the studies. Moreover, few studies have investigated the use of euphemism in countries where English is practiced as a foreign language. This study was an attempt to not only compare and contrast Iranian-published English newspapers and the New York Times thematically in terms of euphemistic expressions but also to ascertain the most frequently used ones in both.To this end,three corpora of all the sections of three journalistic materials within (2014-2019) were thoroughly examined. The data were collected using the search section of the three newspapers to look for the euphemistic expressions based on the Oxford Dictionary of Euphemisms as a point of reference. The results indicated that the most frequently used expression in the New York Times was ‘African American’ whereas the most frequently used expression in both Iran Daily and Tehran Times was ‘conflict’.The thematic changes between the three journalistic materials were also examined. The results revealed that the most frequently used category of euphemistic expressions in the New York Times was ‘Commerce, Banking, and Industry’, and the most frequently used category of euphemistic expression in Iran Daily and Tehran Times was similarly ‘Warfare’. The study might inform learners about a rich source of euphemistic expressions and enable them to recognize the most prevalent categories of euphemistic expressions thematically

Applying both teacher- and computer-generated feedback to foster EFL learners’ writing remains a less explored issue. The purpose of this study was two-fold. Firstly, it examined whether blending both online automated feedback (OAF) and teacher feedback had a significant effect on EFL learners’ writing ability or not. Secondly, it explored their perceptions on the use of the blended OAF and teacher feedback. To this end, this study employed a mixed-method design using essay writing, questionnaire, and interview to investigate the impact of blended OAF and teacher feedback on EFL learners’ writing ability in an essay writing course. Thirty intermediate EFL learners participated in the study; they were given the first writing pre-test, and then were assigned into experimental and control groups randomly. The experimental group was given access to the integrated OAF and teacher feedback on their two-paragraph problem-solution essay writing during the treatment phase while the control group received teacher-only feedback. The results of the independent samples t-test and RM ANOVA showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in terms of the overall score for the two final essay writings, and also demonstrated a significant improvement in writing scores across four essays during the treatment. The qualitative data also revealed the participants’ positive perception towards the effectiveness of the blended OAF and teacher feedback on their writing. Overall, the findings of this study can contribute to a better understanding of the impact of the blended feedback in enhancing EFL learners’ writing ability.

The present study set out to determine the effect of implementing exploratory-cumulative talk in comparison to disputational talk on cognitive (meaning development and organization of thought as well as problem solving ability) dependency of intermediate level students in translation studies. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, a quasi-experimental-pretest-posttest-statistical study was conducted in which 63 linguistically homogeneous B.A students in translation studies at the IAU-Shahreza branch, in experimental and control groups were the participants. Administering cognitive dependency questionnaire before and after implementing the treatment, exploratory-cumulative talk, helps the researcher to find out the possible effect of it against the control group, disputational talk, in translator training courses. The results of the data analysis indicate that the difference between the posttest mean scores of the experimental and control groups do not reach statistical significance. However, by conventional criteria, the difference between the pretest and posttest scores of the experimental group was considered statistically significant by large effect size. The application of the present study findings in translator training courses may pave the way for translation teachers and translation students to follow more fruitful approaches.

In this research, the teacher-researcher (henceforth, I) presents a chronological report over some life-long educational experiences in an EFL setting and during a long period—twenty - five years aimed at verifying/authenticating role conflicts. In so doing, I decided to carve my earlier educational paths to describe my diverse roles/realities. To this end, I recounted my past and presented experiences, including my three roles as (A) Language learner, (B) Language teacher, and (C) Language researcher. Using life-history narrative research designs and in line with auto-ethnography approaches, I initially embarked on critically describing my English language educational experiences from a recollection of past events in my memory through my first two roles—language learner and teacher—and mapped them onto my recently assigned role as a language researcher. The findings were self-revealing to me in that while recounting my experiences, I found out how specific intuited conflicts involving ‘impotency in using the English language for non-educational aims’, ‘the gap between theories and practice’, ‘the influence of essential others on my future decisions’, ‘the duality of exposures with people having more vs. fewer authorities’ among others had inflicted me to a great extent. Then and there, during such a long period for demonstrating my professional identity construction, I summarized my intuited conflicts. This was to designate how the unpredictability of affairs in ELT and maintaining intricate interactions with people in the community of practice, which resulted from numerous aims and led to unpredictable directions, might have influenced me as a language practitioner in my future attempts to experience a new being. The findings may promise implications for professional identity construction as mapped on recent narrative accounts for English language teachers.

Flipped learning is a rather recent practice where the teacher provides the learners with the content of the teaching and videos of his or her teaching prior to the class meeting. Students are required to study and be prepared, and the class time is devoted to activities which involve higher-order thinking skills. This study aimed at assessing the perception of students of the flipped classroom and the effectiveness of flipped learning in a university testing and assessment class with bachelor's students of English Language Teaching. The first half of the semester was taught through the flipped strategy and a half was taught through traditional lecturing. Results indicated that students had a positive view towards flipped learning, and flipped learning led to a better performance of the students on the section of the exam which involved higher-order thinking skills such as application, analysis, and synthesis. Results further showed that successful intelligence was a better predictor of academic performance of the learners on the exams than the Big Five (NEO) personality traits, and creative intelligence was the component of successful intelligence significantly associated with students’ performance. It can be concluded that flipped teaching is worth the time and energy spent by the teacher and the learners on preparation for the classroom and it can motivate and engage learners.

Grammatical competence constitutes an important component of communicative ability, the acquisition of which takes sustained effort, resilience, and planning, otherwise known as the capacity for self-regulated learning. It follows that assessing the self-regulatory capacity in grammar learning (SRCgram) is of prime importance. This paper reports on the development and validation of a scale for measuring SRCgram. Focus group interviews were conducted with 26 participants and a pool of 52 items was created and piloted. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were then conducted to examine the psychometric properties of the instrument. Preliminary fit indices, internal structure fit of the model, and overall model fit provided evidence for the validity of the scale.  In addition, the SRCgram scale appeared to be unidimensional and of satisfactory reliability. Thus, SRCgram scale can be proposed as a diagnostic and self-assessment tool to be used by EFL teachers and learners to diagnose, assess, and foster self-regulation in grammar learning.

The present mixed-method study sought to investigate the efficacy of using an interventionist dynamic assessment and specifically its formats namely the cake and the sandwich ones on learners’ grammatical English Tenses. In doing so, 45 advanced learners of English language at Iran Language Institute (ILI) in Shiraz, Iran were selected. They were randomly assigned to 3 groups, each including 15 participants. Two experimental groups namely the cake and the sandwich ones received the interventionist dynamic assessment test while the third group received a non-dynamic grammar test which was functioning as a control group. As the study utilized a sequential exploratory design (QUAN → qual) of mixed method approach (MMR), the quantitative part was carried out via a well-established grammar test and in the qualitative component, six informants (3 from the cake group and 3 from the sandwich group) were selected to be interviewed and their quotations were descriptively analyzed through a sociocultural perspective. The quantitative component of the study revealed the outperformance of the two experimental group over the control group. However, the two modes of delivering mediation in experimental groups had no statistically significant difference on the degree of the acquisition of grammatical English tenses by learners. The interview analysis of the negotiations also demonstrated positive viewpoints of learners about the two experimental groups. Merging the quantitative and qualitative analyses, the study found that interventionist dynamic assessment, in both modes, could have positive effects on learners’ ability to improve their acquisition of English tenses.

این تحقیق سه نوع تفکر کلامی که در روش تدریس ادراکی جامع رایج است را مورد بررسی و مقایسه قرار داد تا تاثیر این سه شیوه به زبان آوری فکر را در فراگیری وجه مجهول در بین فراگیران زبان دوم مشخص کند. بنابراین چهار کلاس پایه دوازدهم از یک دبیرستان انتخاب شدند و به بطور تصادفی به سه گروه آزمایش و یک گروه گواه تقسیم شدند و به تمام دانش آموزان وجه مجهول آموزش داده شد. در واقع به هر کدام از سه گروه آزمایش به یکی از شیو ه های رایج آموزش ادراکی سیستمی: الف) تفکر کلامی درونی، ب) تفکر کلامی بیرونی، ج) تفکرکلامی درونی و بیرونی آموزش داده شد وبه گروه گواه به روش معمول استقرایی آموزش داده شد. نتایج تحقیق نشان داد که هر سه شیوه ادراکی سیستمی در یادگیری وجه مجهول توسط فراگیران موثربود. البته شایان ذکر است که از سه روش فوق دو روش تفکر کلام بیرونی و روش تفکر کلامی بیرونی و درونی از روش تفکر درونی موثرتر بودند. در حقیقت علت این برتری را می توان در ماهیت منحصر به فرد روش تفکربیرونی جست که همزمان به دو شکل باعث توسعه ذهنی می شود. شکل اول توسعه ذهنی از طریق مفاهیم می باشد که از ویژگی بارز آموزش ادراکی سیستمی است و شکل دوم حالت توسعه ذهنی از طریق تعامل می باشد که از ویژگی های بارز ارزیابی پویا است. به عبارتی دیگردر روش تفکر بیرونی بستری فراهم می شود تا دو مدل آموزش ادراکی سیستمی و ارزیابی پویا نمایان شوند.

The present study aimed to investigate whether Reports on the results and Comments on the results moves’ recycling in the Research Article (RA) Discussion sections is affected by cultural/disciplinary variations. To this end, 600 empirical RAs in six Soft Science disciplines, including Economics, Sociology, Applied Linguistics, Linguistics, Management, and Psychology, with an equal number in each discipline and culture, published in the period from 2006 to 2018 were selected. Weissberg and Buker’s (1990) move model was used as a starting point to analyze the RAs. First, the Reports on the results and Comments on the results moves were identified in the Results sections. The Chi-Square test was then used to calculate and compare the frequency of their recycling in the Discussion sections across cultures and disciplines. The data analysis results revealed that changes in the disciplines or sociocultural settings do not result in variations in recycling the two moves under study. Given that the current study provides a relatively new framework for scrutinizing scientific discourse, it may promise certain pedagogical implications for native and non-native students in Soft Science disciplines, researchers, English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and English for Specific Purposes (ESP) instructors, and course designers.

The goal of this study was to compare the use of conceptual metaphors in English novels written by native and nonnative writers of English. Therefore, two novels were selected: To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee, a native English writer, and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, a nonnative English writer. To find the instances of conceptual metaphors in each book, approximately 10% of the pages of each novel was randomly selected and examined line by line based on the framework introduced by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). In the next step, to find the number and type of metaphors used in each book, the identified metaphors were categorized under their underlying concepts and counted. Then, the frequencies of different types of metaphors in each book were tallied and tabulated, and with the use of a chi-square test, the possible differences among the 2 writers’ use of different types of metaphors were found. Results indicated that, in both novels, there were significant differences among the 5 types of metaphors that were identified, namely structural metaphors, ontological metaphors, orientational metaphors, metonymy, and personification. Findings revealed that, in both books, ontological metaphors were the most frequently used type and personification was the least frequently used one. Also, no statistically significant difference was seen between the two writers’ use of the different types of metaphors. Findings are claimed to bear some implications for L2 pedagogy, benefiting teachers, syllabus designers, writers, and L2 learners.

Teachers pose different perspectives toward teaching. Some teachers share this attitude that teaching is just a job and a sole source of income, while others believe that teaching is a vocational and moralistic career associated with love, commitment, and devotion. This study, in the form of a qualitative grounded theory approach, aimed to deeply investigate the interrelationship of data emerged from teachers’ perspectives toward teaching as profession to develop a model in this regard. Therefore, twenty-six Iranian English teachers, teaching at schools and Farhang language institute, were requested to share their ideas as to how they view teaching as a profession. A semi-structured interview, in three sessions with 20 participants and focus-group interviews with 6 participants were conducted. Based on Corbin and Strauss's (2014) systematic steps for grounded theory, the data then transcribed and codified. The findings ended with an eight-factor model containing 40 categories. The factors include: a) source of income, b) decreasing motivation, c) poverty and inclination to become a teacher, d) insufficient salary, e) deteriorated quality of teaching, f) experience, g) society negative attitude, h) dissatisfaction. The proposed model opens a new window for teachers and reminds the government educational policymakers, training centers, ministry of education, and those who care about quality education and students’ academic achievements to observe income inequality, and salary differentials, increase teachers’ social status, and motivation, facilitate difficult working conditions, reduce resource wastage, support teachers appropriately, decrease teachers’ financial concerns, terminate the sense of socioeconomic inequality, and speak out the voices of marginalized teachers.

Exploring various dimensions associated with classroom Willingness to Communicate (WTC) appears to have become a focal issue among researchers. Despite previous studies on WTC, there still exists the paucity of research reflecting actual learners’ WTC behavior via the lens of the Sociocultural Theory (SCT). The present study, therefore, delved into the role task-mediation and teacher scaffolding might play in EFL learners’ WTC, juxtaposing STC, and task-based instruction. Through a multiple case study approach, six types of tasks were applied with 11 Iranian EFL learners over 9 weeks. Relying on triangulation, the authors of the present study collected the data using observation, stimulated recall interviews, and learners’ reflective journals. To treat the data, the qualitative method of analysis was utilized. The results showed that the learners behaved variably in their WTC with respect to the tasks. Furthermore, teacher scaffolding was found to contribute to the learners’ WTC. Mediation via task and teacher scaffolding carry implications for English teachers, which have been discussed at the end of this article.