درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This experimental study considered the effects of learning style variations on EFL learners’ performance in different question types of the reading skill and their strategies to get higher scores. To achieve such goals, ninety learners with different academic backgrounds from IELTS classes of Shukuh English Language Institute in Tehran, participated in this study. The researcher first utilized two questionnaires with regard to learning styles and strategy uses. According to the Kolb’s questionnaire it is believed that learners have Activist, Theorist, Pragmatist and Reflector learning styles. A majority of candidates were recognized as Reflector but activist candidates had a better performance in IELTS and also for strategy use. In considering learning style variation according to the results of the one-way analysis of variance, we were on the safe side to say that variation due to belonging to different style groups causes variation of performance for Yes, No, not given questions in reading skill. The most favorable learning strategy of the activist learners, who were the most successful students according to their band scores, was making summaries which had not only the highest frequency, but also the highest weighted sum.

Formulaic language and sequence as the core characteristic of real-life language and native-like fluency, has been a subject of inquiry in recent decades. The aim of the present study is to investigate the effects of two extensive reading text types, i.e., adaptive and authentic, on Iranian EFL learners’ development of lexical bundles. To this aim, 20 intermediate EFL learners were chosen to participate in a time-series experiment, in which one class received adaptive texts as their extensive reading project, while the other experienced authentic texts of graded readers. The learners were required to read texts and write summaries, out of which the frequency and percentage of lexical bundles were extracted. The results of frequency and t-tests revealed that learners who benefited from adaptive texts were more successful in lexical bundles progress. While the other group also indicated to have improved in terms of multi-word chunks, the shift was not statistically significant. It is recommended that teachers allocate more class time to explicit and implicit instruction of lexical bundles.

Argument maps as schematic representations of arguments and their logical and evidential relationships are effective diagrams for instruction in education as well as in L2 development. However, their use for teaching L2 writing in EFL contexts has not been adequately studied. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of argument mapping instruction on Iranian EFL learners’ writing achievement and writing components, including grammar, coherence, cohesion, and task accomplishment in expository and descriptive essays. The participants were 60 intermediate EFL learners at Fadak language institute in Tehran. The selected participants were randomly divided into two groups: an experimental and a control group, each including 30 participants. Materials, coursebooks, and the teacher were the same for the study groups. However, the participants in the experimental group received specific instruction about the use of argument maps before and during their writing. After 10 sessions of treatment, the learners in the two groups were asked to write a descriptive and an expository paragraph. The paragraphs were rated by two raters and the final score was the average of the scores given by the two raters. The results of the data analysis revealed that argument mapping strategies had significant improvement impact on expository and descriptive writing tasks and could improve participants’ writing in terms of grammar, coherence, cohesion, and task achievement. However, argument mapping was not beneficial in improving the vocabulary of study participants’ writing. Findings of the study suggest that EFL language instructors and learners can use argument maps for teaching descriptive and expository writing.

This study investigated the relationship among Iranian English teachers’ adversity quotient, personal growth initiative, and pedagogical success. The participants comprised 28 male and female English teachers and a total of 336 male and female EFL learners who attended the abovementioned teachers’ classes (12 for each teacher). Stoltz’ (1997) Adversity Response Profile (ARP) and Robitscheck’s (1998) Personal Growth Initiative Scale (PGIS) were administered among the 28 teachers while Moafian and Pishghadam’s (2009) Characteristics of Successful Iranian EFL Teachers Questionnaire (SIETQ) was administered among the 336 students. To look into the relationship and the predictability of the three aforesaid constructs, a Pearson product-moment correlation and subsequently multiple regression analysis were run following all statistical prerequisites necessary for running these parametric tests. The results demonstrated that there was a significant correlation among the teachers’ scores on the ARP and SIETQ, and their PGIS and SIETQ. Also, there was a significant difference in the predictability of the teachers’ SIETQ by their ARP and PGIS.

Teacher Evaluation (TE) is a critical and controversial process in the teaching profession and formal education system. Effective TE requires both sound policy implementation and efficient processes, affecting the efficiency of the education system. To present a framework for research and highlight the constructs of TE, this study developed and validated a teacher evaluation questionnaire. To this end, seven TE components were identified after undertaking a comprehensive review of the literature and conducting interviews with domain experts on TE. Then a draft version of the TE questionnaire, consisting of 105 items, was pilot tested with 330 teacher evaluators, who were working for various English language institutes in Iran. The results, using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), led to a 90-item questionnaire with strong estimates of reliability and validity. The results also demonstrated that the questionnaire consisted of a six-factor structure of perception, method, system, content, purpose, and outcome of TE. The subsequent Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) of the data from another 360 Iranian teacher evaluators, selected through convenience sampling, indicated that the six-factor structure of the questionnaire was statistically supported, meaning that the questionnaire’s detected constructs were not the result of random variance in the participants’ responses. The results of the study have presented a framework for research and highlighted the principles of teacher evaluation.

Scholarly mails apparently display stable conventional principles as an emerging genre. Thus, contributors should structure their electronic mails appropriately when writing for purposes of discussing professional topics. However, this requirement plunges many a scholar in dilemma as to how to go about this vital undertaking without written structural norms in electronic mail communication. This raises the question: what is the generic structure of the scholarly electronic mail? The aim of this paper therefore is to uncover the organizational structure of the scholarly electronic mail as an emerging genre of computer mediated discourse. A qualitative approach is adopted in the description of the generic structure. Through purposive and stratified sampling, twenty scholarly electronic mails were selected and closely studied based on the basic electronic schema model by Herring (1996) with a view to extracting the features of the genre. Findings revealed that the scholarly electronic mail has a generic structure which is signalled by typical linguistic elements. The paper recommends a genre-based approach to guiding upcoming scholars on how to construct a scholarly electronic mail that fulfils its communicative purposes.

This contrastive study was conducted to contrastively analyze English and Farsi newspaper opinion columns in terms of the frequency of different types of stance markers.60 newspaper opinion columns (30 written in English and 30 written in Farsi) from 10 wide spread newspapers published in the United States and Iran in 2015 were analyzed. Hyland’s (2005) model of stance markers (hedges, boosters, attitude markers, and self-mention) was used as the framework of analysis.The findings revealed that hedges and self-mentions used by English columnists were considerably more frequent than those employed by the Farsi columnists. In contrast, Farsi columnists used large number of boosters and attitude markers. Although, attitude markers were in the last position of sub-categories of stance markers in both corpora.Generally, it could be concluded that the similarities and differences among columnists could be related to the cultural and linguistic preferences of the writers in languages. This study could be beneficial for EFL students and teachers in understanding intercultural linguistic problems in language use, and could be used to lead to creative reading and writing in journalism and ESP courses.

Issues related to bilingualism and the effects which might have on language learners’ cognitive and meta-cognitive variables have attracted the attention of a couple of researchers in the field of Second Language Acquisition (SLA).Since a couple of decades ago, there has been a plethora of studies on cognitive and metacognitive differences between bilinguals and monolinguals. However, the impact of bilingualism on EFL learners’ WMC and verbal intelligence has not be explored yet. The present study aimed at comparing the WMC and verbal intelligence of bilingual and monolingual language learners. In so doing, 30 Baluch EFL learners and 30 Persian speaker EFL learners were selected through convenience sampling. The data of the study were collected through running WMC measure and verbal intelligence test. The data of the study were analyzed through running descriptive and inferential statistics tests (independent samples-t-tests). Results showed that bilingual language learners outperformed the monolingual language learners in both WMC measures and verbal intelligence test. Therefore, it could be concluded that bilingualism affects EFL learners’ WMC and verbal intelligence. The findings have theoretical implications for applied linguists and psycholinguists and practical implications for teachers and syllabus designers.