درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The present study has aimed at finding out whether or not students’ language background and gender bring about a distinction between the frequency and types of metadiscourse elements occurring in their papers. To this end, a dataset of 40 student papers in four series written by native male, nonnative male, native female, and nonnative female writers was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively in terms of the use of metadiscourse resources following the metadiscourse model proposed by Hyland and Tse (2004). The results of the frequency count and chi-square tests (p-value

In a scholarly convention, ESP has bilaterally focused on “academic” and “occupational” arenas leaving the symbiosis between the two almost untouched. The present study, thus, aims to weigh the concordance between what is taught in universities as EAP courses for B.A. students in Business and Economics and what English skills and abilities are, actually, required from them on the job. Altogether, 120 university teachers and 30 business managers were asked for their opinions about the existing curricula from one side and occupation-related English expectations from the graduates from the other. Triangulation of instruments using questionnaire, interview, teacher-assessment, and participant observation was applied. The results narrated not good news: considerable mismatch between the aforementioned arenas (education and occupation) and complete ignorance of oral skills (listening and speaking) in the academia, despite their vital importance at the workplace. The participants mainly emphasized equipping students with various skills required from them at work after their general English proficiency development and empowering EAP teachers with the needed content knowledge to potentially tailor university education and market. Implications of the study can include creating more practical opportunities such as simulated classes based on workshops and on-the-job training (OJT) with cooperation of the professionals in business. The findings can help educational policy-makers shift their focus to the graduates’ professional-future literacy, modify the EAP curricula with regard to real needs of the workplace and contribute to decreasing the gap between academia and labor market.

The present study set out to delineate to what extentfive intermediate learners engaged in structuring and problematizing scaffolding in two writing tasks. The study aimed at illuminating how the participants engaged with structuring and problematizing scaffolds cognitively, behaviorally, and affectively.  Learners’ written essays, think-aloud protocols, and interviews shaped the data sources which were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Modifications made in the final drafts were quantitatively analyzed to provide insight into the behavioral engagement of participants with scaffolds. The profundity of cognitive engagement was gauged by the interview questions designed to elicit the depth of processing and illuminate whether participants had merely noticed the existence of a problem or they had understood what was required to be done. Researcher also compared the use of cognitive and metacognitive operations after learners were presented with structuring and problematizing scaffolds through the analysis of think-aloud protocols generated in final drafts each session. Finally, attitudinal and affective engagement was gauged qualitatively through interviews.  The results indicated that structuring scaffolds engaged learners more behaviorally, cognitively, and affectively compared to problematizing scaffolds. Implications for instructors and material developers are discussed.

The aim of the current study was to investigate whether Podcasts would have an effect on Iranian autonomous and non-autonomous EFL learners’ listening comprehension ability at pre-intermediate level. For this purpose, 60 Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners at some Iranian institutes participated in the experiment of the study. Then they were divided into two groups based on an OPT and an autonomy questionnaire. The participants of each group were assigned randomly into two experimental groups (N=15) and two control groups (N=15). A pre-test was administered to the four groups of the study and then, the experimental groups received 5 sessions of teaching podcast. After the treatment, a posttest of L2 listening comprehension was administered to all groups of the study and finally the data were analyzed via a series of paired sample t-tests to see whether there is progress between the pretest and posttest scores of the groups, and a Two-way ANOVA was used to see the differences between posttests. The results revealed that Iranian autonomous and non-autonomous EFL learners’ listening comprehension ability got better after the treatment.

Despite being trained in pre-service teacher education programs, most EFL teachers are underprepared when faced with language assessment-related activities. Part of the problem emanates from the fact that Language Assessment Literacy (LAL) as a construct has not been well defined by experts. The purpose of this study was to pinpoint the components of LAL in the Iranian EFL context using an adapted version of Fulchers' (2012) LAL survey with two types of constructed and closed response items. The participants were 280 English language teachers from seventeen different provinces in Iran. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and cross validation were used to define LAL as a construct. Furthermore, qualitative data analysis procedures were employed to analyze the data obtained from constructed response items. The results indicate that LAL in the Iranian context is comprised of four factors, namely: test design and development, large-scale standardized testing and classroom assessment, beyond-the-test aspects (which mainly includes social and ethical aspects of language testing/assessment), and reliability and validity. Furthermore, the results show that the EFL teachers in this study believe that besides the theoretical issues of assessment, they should also receive hands-on skills-based instruction in language assessment. These results can have direct implications for future teacher education programs with the aim of enhancing EFL teachers' LAL.

Many studies have been conducted on the ways of promoting willingness to communicate in learners in EFL/ESL contexts. While different scholars have undertaken studies on many of these variables, few of these studies have aimed at EFL university students in Iran. This study reports on the role of international posture and perceived communication behavior on Iranian EFL learners’ communication in English. The participants who accepted to attend the survey completed questionnaires on WTC, international posture and perceived communication behaviors. The results driven based on this research indicated that Iranian English BA students are generally tended to speak in English. The participants' willingness to communicate in English was found to have a significant relationship with their perceived communication behaviors and international posture. The findings of this study will be beneficial for various policy makers and practitioners, including those dealing with curriculum development and teacher education to focus more on the elements influencing communication in English. Many studies have been conducted on the ways of promoting willingness to communicate in learners in EFL/ESL contexts. While different scholars have undertaken studies on many of these variables, few of these studies have aimed at EFL university students in Iran. This study reports on the role of international posture and perceived communication behavior on Iranian EFL learners’ communication in English. The participants who accepted to attend the survey completed questionnaires on WTC, international posture and perceived communication behaviors. The results driven based on this research indicated that Iranian English BA students are generally tended to speak in English. The participants' willingness to communicate in English was found to have a significant relationship with their perceived communication behaviors and international posture. The findings of this study will be beneficial for various policy makers and practitioners, including those dealing with curriculum development and teacher education to focus more on the elements influencing communication in English.

This study investigates how L1 Chinese scholars in hard science disciplines use metadiscourse in their English academic writing, by comparing the deployment of metadiscoursal resources written by L1 Chinese and L1 English scholars. Hyland’s (2005) interpersonal model of metadiscourse was adopted for the analysis. We found that L1 Chinese scholars used less metadiscoursal resources than L1 English scholars on the whole. In the two dimensions of interaction, L1 Chinese scholars made more use of interactive devices, while L1 English scholars used more interactional items. This reflects that L1 Chinese scholars made greater efforts to guide the readers through their papers, and L1 English scholars are more concerned with creating author identity and engaging their readers. The t-tests confirmed that L1 Chinese scholars used significantly more code glosses in interactive metadiscourse and less self-mentions in interactional metadiscourse. An in-depth analysis reveals two functions of code glosses and five functions of self-mentions in RA abstracts.

This study investigated the effects of prompts as corrective feedback strategy on teaching /θ/ and /ð/ sounds to Iranian EFL learners. To achieve this objective, after 30 students studying English at a language institute took a placement test, the intermediate-level students were selected based on their scores on this test. They were randomly assigned to one experimental group and one control group. The experimental group was instructed these two sounds giving prompts as corrective feedback, while the control group received no feedback. In this experimental study, two teacher-made tests on sounds /θ/ and /ð/ were administered to the participants before and after the treatment. After collecting the data and confirming normality of them; through employing two independent-samples t tests and two paired-samples t tests, the collected data were analyzed. The results indicated that language learners in the experimental group did not significantly outperform in the posttest; thus, it can be concluded that prompts were not an effective feedback in teaching these two sounds to Iranian intermediate EFL learners. Findings of the present study can help language teachers and teacher trainers in teaching these complex sounds to Iranian EFL learners