درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This study was designed to investigate the effects of providing feedback in the interactive environment of wiki on improving the grammatical accuracy of Iranian EFL learners’ writing skill as well as the attitudes of Iranian EFL learners’ toward receiving feedback via wiki. To do so, 50 intermediate Iranian EFL learners, who were chosen by an OPT (Oxford Placement Test) participated in this study and they were divided into two groups, experimental and control group. Both groups were given identical writing tasks. In control group, though, the first drafts were reviewed traditionally in a pen and a paper fashion, whereas in the experimental group, they were reviewed by peers through wiki to provide feedback on the grammatical accuracy of writings. The second drafts all were reviewed by the instructor. The results revealed that using wikis to provide feedback on students’ writing can have a significantly positive effect on improving their grammatical accuracy in a writing task. Moreover, the experimental group was found to outperform the control group on the post-test indicating that there was a significant difference between the effects of providing feedback in wiki vs. providing traditional feedback on the grammatical accuracy of Iranian male and female EFL Learners. With regards to the students’ attitude toward using wiki, a majority of the learners welcomed the application of wiki for EFL writing.

Research articles have received a wide interest in discourse studies particularly in genre analysis over the last few decades. A vast number of studies have been centered on identifying the organizational patterns of research articles in various fields. While Introduction section has enjoyed a lot of attention, very few studies have focused on rhetorical structure of qualitative and quantitative research articles. This genre-based investigation reports on a study of the Introduction sections of 15 qualitative and 15 quantitative research articles in Applied Linguistics from five high impact journals published from 2008-2012. Based on Swales’ (2004) move structure model, this study focuses on Move 3 (introducing the present work) and examines how qualitative and quantitative research article writers introduce their work in Introduction section. The analysis revealed that there were similarities in the overall presence and use of steps in both groups, some differences in the overall presence and frequency of directive determinants were obvious which could be attributed to the different nature of these research designs.

This study aimed at investigating the effect of Preview, Question, Read, Summarize (PQRS) Strategy on EFL students’ writing ability by considering their working memory capacity (WMC) levels. It involved Indonesian English as a foreign language (EFL) students of English Department in Universitas Negeri Malang, one of the leading universities in Indonesia. This study applied a quasi-experimental design and compared the writing ability of two intact groups of students. The data were collected by using writing tests and a WMC test. The results of the research revealed that there was a significant difference between the students who were taught by using the PQRS strategy and those who were not taught by using that strategy. However, there was no significant difference in the writing ability of the EFL students across WMC levels. Theoretically, this study supports the important roles of integrated reading-writing instruction in the teaching of writing. Pedagogically, in the teaching of writing, EFL teachers might apply the PQRS strategy as part of integrated reading-writing instruction to EFL students regardless of the difference in their WMC levels.

The present study sought to investigate the effect of explicit instruction of lexical bundles (LBs) on the development of Iranian English for Academic Purposes (EAP) students’ writing quality and also their receptive and productive knowledge of Lexical Bundles (LB). Assigned to two experimental and control groups, the eighty participants took pre- and post-tests of writing tasks and the receptive knowledge test. Afterwards, the obtained scores were subjected to a series of Analyses of Covariance (ANCOVAs) and paired samples t-tests. Results of the within-group and between-group analyses indicated that explicit instruction of LBs enhanced the participants’ productive and receptive knowledge of LBs and also improved the overall quality of their written productions. Possible explanations are provided and the implications of the findings for the applicability of LBs instruction are discussed.

The present study probed 409 Iranian English as foreign language (EFL) learners' motivation and attitude toward English as an International Language (EIL) by investigating the causal relationships of their facets via Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). To do so, the Persian version of the ‘attitudes toward EIL’ scale was designed and validated. It measures five constructs of: cultural realism, linguistic cultural disposition (negative), (dis)ownership of English, EIL posture, and localization. Then, the researchers utilized the validated scale along with the adapted Persian version of motivation scale designed by Taguchi et al. (2009) to explore the causal relationship among their facets. The latter scale measures seven dimensions of instrumentality prevention, instrumentality promotion, ideal L2 self, ought-to l2 self, learning experience, motivational intensity, and integrativeness. The findings of the study revealed that students' motivational intensity positively predicted by other motivational and attitudinal factors with 'ideal self' and 'instrumentality promotion' having the highest influence. It was also found that ‘cultural realism’ was a significant predicator of ‘localisation’, and ‘localisation’ was a significant positive predictor of ‘disownership of English’. ‘EIL posture’ was also in a positive direct relationship with ‘cultural realism’, whereas ‘linguistic cultural disposition’ (negative) was found to negatively influence other aspects including ‘motivational intensity’. This study has some implications for ELT professionals to revisit EFL motivation in light of attitudes toward EIL in expanding circle.