درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

From the view point of the classical structural semiotics, the "empirical experience" is considered as a pre-semiotic alien to any signification of the world, and it's based from there, by nature, below the threshold of the analyzable. While structuralist semioticism has given "narrative discourse", that is, what conveys the empirical life to "narrate", and while giving it a "textual" effect, this makes it susceptible to be the subject of the analysis of a semiotician, which justifies the great slogan of Greimas "out of the text point of salvation". On the contrary, we have the opinion that these are two processes of meaning production that the one does not necessarily exclude the other. As a result, we have two sets of views on the world that each have a specific design regime. By giving examples of a variety of domains, and more particularly of literature, the purpose of this series is to demonstrate that the "empirical experience", as well as the "discourse of the narration "both relate to the rejection and semiotic analysis.

مدرسین زبان انگلیسی از گذشته تا کنون از مقیاس هایی جهت ارزشیابی زبان آموزان بهره گرفته اند که حاصل نظرات و تجربیات شخصی و شهودی متخصصین حوزه آموزش زبان بوده است. از آنجایی که این مقیاس ها از مبنای علمی و تجربی لازم برخوردار نیستند، نمرات و نیز تصمیماتی که در نتیجه استفاده از این مقیاس ها حاصل می شود پایایی و اعتبار لازم را ندارند. با توجه به اهمیت گونه نگارش توصیفی و نظر به این نکته که ادبیات تحقیقی موجود هیچ مقیاس نمره دهی تحلیلی مناسبی جهت ارزشیابی این نوع نگارش ارائه نکرده است، نویسندگان این مقاله از طریق انجام مطالعه ای تلفیقی شامل ۳ فاز اقدام به ایجاد مقیاسی تحلیلی جهت ارزشیابی نگارش توصیفی زبان آموزان کردند. این مطالعه در فاز اول (فاز کمی) اقدام به آنالیز فاکتورهای مربوط به تحلیل ۱۷۲ کارشناس آموزش زبان از گونه نگارش توصیفی و در فازهای دوم و سوم (فازهای کیفی) اقدام به تحلیل محتوای ۲۰ متن توصیفی نوشته شده توسط کارشناسان آموزش زبان و نیز تحلیل محتوای۳۰متن توصیفی نوشته شده توسط زبان آموزان کرد. در نتیجه دو استنباط کلی که در طی این مطالعه صورت گرفت، مقیاس نمره دهی تحلیلی برای ارزشیابی نگارش توصیفی زبان آموزان ایجاد شد. امید است بهره گیری از این مقیاس در آینده منجر به دستیابی به نمرات و همچنین اتخاذ تصمیماتی در مورد زبان آموزان گردد که از پایایی و اعتبار بیشتری نسبت به گذشته برخوردارند.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of weblog task assessment on Iranian EFL learners’ reading ability. To this purpose, a group of 30 English language students (both male and female) in Rozaneh Language Institute in Najafabad were selected based on their performance on the OPT. The researchers tried to select a homogeneous sample in terms of age factor and proficiency level. The homogeneous students were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. With the exception of the control group, both experimental groups received treatment. Group A received journalist tasks and group B received mystery tasks. The experimental groups were treated through a weblog designed by the present researchers. Before performing the treatment, all participants were tested to estimate their reading ability. At the end of the experiment, the participants took another test on reading comprehension. The scores of the tests were analyzed and interpreted using ANOVA. The findings revealed that the journalist and mystery tasks groups outperformed the control group. However, the mystery task proved more effective. The findings of the study can be very beneficial for the teachers of English who wish to improve Iranian EFL learners’ reading ability. Actually, blogs enable us to exploit learning as a natural part of everyday life.

This study aimed at gaining insights into students’ attitudes in the learning English using the Smart Board or Interactive White Board (IWB) technology in EFL classrooms. The main goal of this paper is to evaluate students’ attitudes towards the use of Smart Board as an instructional tool on student motivation, participation, interaction and retention for learning English in Iranian schools. To achieve this aim, an observation was carried out during lessons in the classroom by the researcher. A questionnaire consisting of 20 questions was also developed by the researcher based on an extensive literature review as well as related instructional theories. The researcher also conducted an interview to find the effect of Smart Boards on student motivation, participation, interaction and retention of information in English classrooms. Analysis of these three instruments yielded patterns of responses concerning how Smart Board or IWB technology can motivate the students and increase their participation in classroom. The results of this study also indicate that students interact more in classrooms where technology is used effectively. Finally, it was found that Smart Boards enhance students' retention of information and learning process in EFL classrooms. The findings of the study will carry important implications for students, language instructors, and administrators as well.

A long-standing debate among the vocabulary researchers is the depth of processing to learn vocabulary. This paper is a quantitative research which considers a revision in the “involvement load hypothesis” proposed by Laufer and Hulstijn in 2001. It investigates the role of proficiency and evaluation in this hypothesis in order to better reveal its potential contribution to vocabulary learning. It was based on task-induced involvementthat comparesdifferent tasks in incidental vocabulary acquisition in EFL context. The participants were 66 learners fromtwo different English institutes who were classified into two major high and low proficient groups based on Nelson Proficiency Test. The participants in each group were randomly assigned to three tasks prepared to compare“moderate”, “strong”, and “no evaluation” in involvement load hypothesis.The “strong evaluation”subgroup (making original sentences) in low proficiency supported Laufer and Hulstijn’s hypothesis and yielded better retention of the target words. The study suggests that the level of proficiency and evaluation in task induced involvementneeds reconsideration. The results have implications for language teachers, materials developers, and syllabus designers.

Second or foreign language (L2) learners’ development of interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) competence to understand and properly interpret utterances under certain social and cultural circumstances plays a pivotal role in the achievement of communicative competence. The current study was designed to explore the effects of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) and asynchronous computer-mediated communication (ACMC) course modules delivered through social media networks (SMN) on the development of the Iranian L2 learners’ comprehension of implicatures. The participants of the study were 90 English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) undergraduate students attending three intact classes. The classes were randomly assigned to one control and two experimental (SCMC and ACMC) groups. An open-ended implicature comprehension test was used to assess students’ ILP development in this pretest-posttest comparison-group study. The control group received the traditional teacher-fronted instruction, and the S/ACMC groups received instruction via synchronous and asynchronous modules of SMNs for 4 months, respectively. Students’ attitudes towards the CMC-based courses were also sought. Split-plot ANOVA results indicated that both experimental groups developed significant ILP ability to comprehend and interpret L2 implicatures after the instruction; however, by comparison, the ACMC group improved more considerably. It is concluded that, first, comprehending L2 implicatures is not impervious to computer-mediated instruction and, second, different CMC affordances may result in differential ILP developmental effects in teaching L2 pragmatics. The findings can help L2 teachers decide how to use CMC affordances and SMN modules to raise L2 learners’ pragmatic awareness