درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Nowadays there are several challenges for English teachers as well as researchers regarding how to teach foreign language pronunciation more effectively. The current study aimed to explore the effect of computer-assisted pronunciation teaching (CAPT) on Persian monolinguals and Turkmen- Persian and also Baloch- Persian bilinguals’ pronunciation considering production and perception. A sample of 48 female mono and bilingual 7th-grade students participated in this study and made the experimental and comparison groups. All the participants took the Oxford Placement Test and accordingly were in the beginner level of English language proficiency (95.83% of the participants’ scores ranged from 0 to 15). The experimental group experienced a technology-based instruction while the comparison group benefited from traditional listen and repeat method of pronunciation teaching. Two Two-way between-group ANOVAs were used to define the influence of CAPT on pronunciation production and perception of the mono and bilingual participants. The results of the study indicated that CAPT had a significant effect on pronunciation production while pronunciation perception was comparatively more enhanced through the traditional method. Regarding mono and bilingualism, it was also found that bilinguals significantly outperformed monolinguals in pronunciation production in both groups while there was no significant difference between them in pronunciation perception. There were also no interaction effects for pronunciation perception or production scores. The results generally showed that CAPT can be beneficial specifically when it is used along with traditional methods at schools in beginner levels.

The impetus behind the current study was to get the best use of all possible pathways of the learner’s brain. Multiple-pathway model, one model of brain-based instruction, on which the current study was based, has synergic effect addressing sensory-motor, emotion, reward, attention, memory, language, frontal lobe (executive function), and social pathways of the learner’s brain altogether. To this aim, this quasi-experimental research, with pretest-intervention-posttest design, was carried out. The participants, who were selected through a convenient sampling method, included 30 BA University students studying TEFL at Islamic Azad University, Aliabad Katoul Branch, and 30 BA University students studying TEFL at Islamic Azad University, Gorgan Branch, were placed into two experimental and control groups, respectively. The instrumentation included DASS 21 and Learning Climate Questionnaires (LCQ) which were used as the pretest and posttest prior to and after the 10 session intervention of brain-based instruction for the experimental group. Descriptive and inferential analysis of collected data indicated the significant impact of the instruction on the participants’ stress, anxiety, depression, and perceived supportive learning climate in the experimental group.

The current study aimed to explore the nature of discursive strategies academics would use to share their specialist knowledge to both specialists and non-specialists. To this end, a corpus of 40 academic research articles and 40 popular science articles were randomly selected from the archive of four English international peer-reviewed journals and four English popular magazines and newspapers in the field of Nutrition. Appraisal Theory (Martin & White, 2005), a discourse framework to examine evaluative and/or persuasive language, was used to analyze the data. The results revealed significant areas of similarity and difference in terms of certain discursive elements leading to discernible degrees of persuasion. The findings imply that in order to develop a scientifically literate society, scientists should appeal to diverse discourse resources to provide the public with their findings in an informative and entertaining way. The results of the study carry some pedagogical implications for EAP courses held in EFL settings since being able to both comprehend and produce scientific texts of different professional levels at international scale seems to be a requirement for the future scientists.

In the educational setting of Iran, language assessment literacy (LAL) is still an underexplored issue. This paper investigated the development of LAL among EFL students taking language assessment course at state universities in Iran. The three components of LAL (i.e., knowledge, skills, and principles) were the focus of the inquiry. To collect the required data, a questionnaire, encompassing 83 Likert items and a set of open-ended questions, was developed, and responses from 92 course instructors were collected. Teaching and assessment practices of two course instructors were also observed throughout an educational semester. SPSS (26) was used to analyze the data. Findings revealed that these courses mainly focused on knowledge and skills, overlooking the principles of assessment. Adherence to traditional assessment approaches, use of inappropriate teaching materials, and lack of practical works in assessment also characterized the investigated courses. The paper concludes with suggestions to better design language assessment courses to increase the assessment literacy of English graduates who will probably enter the teaching contexts after graduation.

In the realm of second language acquisition (SLA), task-based language teaching (TBLT) and input enhancement (IE) have been the focus of a great number of studies. However, the idea of investigating the effects of focus on form instruction through input-enhanced tasks along with pre-task planning time as one of the features of task-based language teaching has been rarely explored in the field of SLA. Therefore, the current research set out to examine the impacts of focus on form instruction via textually-enhanced reading tasks along with strategic pre-task planning on L2 learners’ grammatical development in terms of learning English passive voice. For the purpose of the study, 60 intermediate learners of English were selected and divided into two groups of thirty namely as enhanced and unenhanced. Then, each group was divided into two sub-groups of fifteen as +planning and -planning. The participants were provided with a pretest prior to the treatment, then, they were instructed via the materials chosen for the purpose of the study for ten sessions and at the end they were provided with the posttest of the study. Their performance on the pretest and posttest were analyzed to find out the possible effects of the instruction provided throughout the treatment phase. The results revealed that learners who were exposed to enhanced reading tasks along with strategic pre-task planning time outperformed the other learners. The findings of the present study can be of use for language teachers, syllabus designers, and task designers.

Because of the importance of instructor success in the adequacy of instruction and learning, this study aimed to explain the impact of two factors, namely language teachers’ professional identity and autonomy, with respect to their success. To this end, 190 Iranian EFL teachers, including university lecturers and language institute teachers, participated in this study. As for data collection, the Teacher Autonomy Questionnaire (TAQ), the Teacher Professional Identity Scale (TPIS), and the Characteristics of Successful Language Teachers Questionnaire (CSLTQ) were distributed among the respondents. Using Cronbach’s alpha estimates and correlational analyses, the reliability of the questionnaires and the associations among the TAQ, TPIS, and CSLTQ were examined, respectively. The results of Pearson correlations revealed that there were significant positive correlations among all three teacher factors. These findings were also confirmed by Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) results; teacher success was predicted positively and significantly by both professional identity and autonomy. Outcomes of this research suggest that teachers’ professional identity and autonomy are highly beneficial to their success. This study also outlined the elements of teachers’ professional identity that could be more useful for their success. In the end, relevant pedagogical implications are discussed.

This study investigated the comparative effects of audio-visually prompted collaborative dialogue on the listening comprehension development of symmetrical, asymmetrical, and asymmetrical teacher-fronted EFL learner groups. Besides, it explored the attitude of the participants of the groups concerning the effectiveness of collaborative dialogue for their listening comprehension improvement. The participants of the study were 120 Iranian female EFL learners who were conveniently chosen from several English language institutes and put into three experimental and one control groups, each with 30 learners. In the first experimental group, coequal learners engaged in collaborative dialogue. In the second experimental group, the expert peer(s) and less knowledgeable peers applied collaborative dialogue, and in the third experimental group, in addition to the peers, the teacher was involved in collaborative dialogue with the group members. As for the control group, the collaborative dialogue was abandoned and the participants worked individually. Quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that collaborative dialogue in asymmetrical teacher-fronted, asymmetrical peer and symmetrical peer groups were respectively the most effective procedures for listening comprehension development of the EFL learners. Also, it was found that the participants of the asymmetrical teacher fronted group had a more positive attitude towards the efficacy of audio-visually prompted collaborative dialogue compared with asymmetrical and symmetrical peer groups. The findings underscore the cognitive and affective efficiency of a more knowledgeable source, either a teacher or a peer, in asymmetrical dyadic interactions for the less knowledgeable partners' ZPD sensitive development.   

Designing appropriate materials and activities to enhance vocabulary learning is one of the primary goals of language courses. Among the claims about efficient pedagogical tasks is the Involvement Load Hypothesis (Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001) according to which vocabulary development is contingent on the amount of cognitive process a task involves. Building on the previous research on this hypothesis, this study seeks to explore the extent to which three post-listening tasks of different involvement loads along with single-versus dual-mode glosses affect receptive and productive vocabulary learning of advanced English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. The participants (n = 204) listened to an expository text while twenty lexical items were presented through text-only or text-plus-picture glosses. Subsequently, they were assigned to one of the task type groups (sentence writing, gap-fill, and paragraph writing). Paribakht and Wesche’s (1997) Vocabulary Knowledge Scale was employed as the pre and post-tests. The results pointed to the efficacy of dual-mode over single-mode glosses concerning both receptive and productive vocabulary learning. The sentence writing task produced the highest scores in the vocabulary tests, whereas the gap-fill and paragraph writing tasks did not significantly differ. Hence, the results only partially confirmed the Involvement Load Hypothesis. The current study corroborates other studies verifying the modality effect on vocabulary learning and suggests that task type is a significant factor in EFL vocabulary learning.

Due to the importance of idioms, many researchers and teachers have long sought to find ways of making idiom teaching and learning more effective. This study compared three visual mnemonic devices (pictures, mental imagery, and movie clips) in terms of their effect on EFL learners’ recognition and recall of English idioms. Ninety intermediate level EFL learners who were preparing themselves for IELTS participated in this study. They were in three groups of thirty members each. Each group was taught idioms using one of the afore-mentioned visual mnemonic devices. Receptive and productive tests of idioms were administered to all groups after the treatment. The one-way ANOVA procedure was used to analyze the collected data. The results revealed statistically significant differences among these devices, with pictures method being the most effective on both recognition and recall of idioms. The findings of the study can have significant theoretical as well as pedagogical implications for language researchers, textbook designers, curriculum developers, teachers, and language learners.