درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The application of Multifaceted Rasch Measurement (MFRM) in rating test takers’ oral language proficiency has been investigated in some previous studies (e.g., Winke, Gass, & Myford, 2012). However, little research so far has ever documented the effect of test takers’ genders on their oral performances and few studies have investigated the relationship between the impact of raters’ gender on the awarded scores to male and female test takers. Thus, this study aimed to address the above-mentioned issue. Twenty English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers rated the oral performances of 300 test takers. The outcomes demonstrated that test takers’ gender differences did not have any significant role in their performance differences when they were rated by the raters of the same or opposite gender. The findings also reiterated that raters of different genders did not demonstrate bias in rating test takers of the opposite or same gender. Moreover, no significant difference was observed regarding male and female raters’ biases towards the rating scale categories. The outcomes of the study showed that both male and female raters assign fairly similar scores to test takers. This suggests no evidence based on which either male or female raters must be excluded from the rating process. The findings imply that there is no need to worry about the impact of gender for a more valid and reliable assessment.

This investigation set out to look into the issue of teachers’ exercise of agency in the Iranian EFL context. More specifically, as part of a larger study, it reports on the ways two Iranian Ministry of Education teachers make sense of and operate in the country’s educational setting under the demands of a centralist system of education. Priestley, Biesta, & Robinson’s (2013) framework of teacher agency formed the conceptual backbone of the present study as well as guiding the data collection/analysis of the study. Qualitative data, from semi-structured interviews as well as follow-up data collection procedures, were gleaned from the participants over the course of an academic year and were subjected to analytical interpretation in the light of the said framework. The researchers came up with findings which, in the main, gave more weight to the well-roundedness of Priestly, Biesta, & Robinson’s model of teacher agency. The results also pointed to the highly situated nature of teacher responsiveness and action, thereby undermining the still prevalent views of the essentialist and idealized character of (teacher) agency. The results of the study are liable to be of use, among others, to case-based teacher education programs.

This study has aimed to compare the effects of two types of form-focused instruction, i.e. de-contextualized focus-on-forms instruction versus meaning-centered contextualized focus-on-form instruction, on the development of grammatical knowledge of Iranian high-school students. Two groups of male high-school first graders participated in this study.  One group was taught through de-contextualized deductive grammatical explanation, while the other group received enhanced input and contextualized grammar instruction embedded in meaning-centered activity based on dialogs. The results indicated that de-contextualized instruction as it is normally practiced in high-school contexts failed to promote successful use of the auxiliaries <em>do, does, </em>and<em> did</em> in a written production test. In contrast, adding the design features of meaning-based contextualization and enhanced input to instruction did result in better performance on a written production grammar test involving the use of the auxiliaries under study. In the delayed posttest, contextualized meaning-based instruction appeared to have a durable effect, but the effect was not significant enough to warrant any claim for the durable superiority of this form of instruction. 

AbstractIn this study, the researchers examined the sources of demotivation among adult language teachers in Najafabad language institutes. Two objectives were pursued in the process of implementing this research: 1) Determining the main sources of demotivation among adult teachers teaching in Najafabad language institutes 2) Uncovering the most significant demotivating factors among English adult teachers in Najafabad. Based on convenience sampling, seventy male and female teachers were chosen as the participants of this study. The questionnaire used in this study, Teacher Demotivation Questionnaire (TDQ), contained four parts: students’ attitudes in class (SAC), teaching materials and facilities (TMF), research and working condition (RWC) and human relations (HR). Fifty copies of the questionnaire were distributed among the teachers. One-sample t-test was utilized to examine the statistical significance of the analyses. Comparing the findings, the most demotivating factors in SAC, TMF, RWC and HR were "Students are not interest in studying", "low teacher evaluation from students", "low pay" and "little appreciation from the administration", respectively. Among four subsections of the questionnaire, "students’ attitude" and "research and working conditions" were more influential and regarded as more effective demotivating factors.

This action research examines the concept of Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in a second language acquisition context. The researcher investigated the contributors of WTC in a foreign language classroom setting. Therefore, a multiple assignments method and sequence was applied. Participants of this study were students who matriculated in a United States (U.S.) undergraduate program, studying German at a public Midwest University. Findings of this study suggest applying various speaking activities and providing the opportunity to practice assessment-like activities prior to the evaluation, which enhanced second language WTC. In addition, the present study found three major factors that contributed to second language WTC: student preparedness, student feelings, and speaking capacity influences. Findings of this study can be implemented into any language classroom. The teaching methods and sequence of activities can be integrated into language curriculum. This study provides insight on a successful language teaching model that prepares students to engage in any oral communication with more confidence and less hesitation.

With the current availability of state-of-the-art technology, particularly the Internet, people have expanded their channels of communication. This has similarly led to many people utilizing technology to learn second/foreign languages. Nevertheless, many current computer-assisted language learning (CALL) programs still appear to be lacking in interactivity and what is termed social presence, which is in turn an obstacle to the learners assuming active roles in their online experience of L2 learning. Consequently, the existing CALL programs do not seem to have updated themselves from the obsolete behavioristic and communicative genres to reach for the integrative one to yield optimum interactivity. The present study has attempted to cast light on the prospect of creating an online learning community that could optimize the patterns of interaction among the students and the teacher with the intention of creating online social presence. Using a qualitative research based on grounded theory, the researchers attempted to collect and analyze the data vis-à-vis the participants’ feedback on the research questions that were cyclically obtained from 42 English students of the first researcher’s weblog through 41 semi-structured interviews at the end of each virtual class on Skype and Discord over one year. The results suggested that content-based instruction (CBI) in which the students can opt for and create the content of the course through engaging in asynchronous activities and performing peer-assessment in the comment forms and discussion boards before practicing negotiation of meaning in each synchronous class could maximize the level of student-student interactivity and social presence among the L2 learners.