درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The changing culture toward multimodality enforces acquiring visual literacy in every aspect of today’s modern life. One of the fields intermingled with using various modes in different variations is language teaching and learning, especially for and by young learners. Young language learners’ (5-12 years old) lack of world experience forces them to make the most use of non-verbal modes of communication to receive and send the intended message, enhanced in foreign language learning environment. As a result, the language teacher him/herself will be supposed to be armed with visual literacy of this new language and to have the ability to successfully transmit this knowledge to the students. The present study aims to investigate whether the three focused factors in educational semiotics; namely, Process of abduction, Principle of kinesics, and Proxemics- proposed by Sert (2006) exist in the curriculum of Iranian pre-service language teachers in one of the educational districts in Isfahan. By distributing two questionnaires among TTC course instructors and pre-service teachers, and obtaining the percentage of the analyzed data, the findings showed that the number of institutes which focus on the matter are rare. Also, it was revealed that the pre-service teachers, majoring in English Language, performed better in terms of realizing the meaning of body language units and comparing and contrasting them (principle of abduction). The results will be useful for future teachers and their educational curriculum in favor of enhancing the fifth language skill, foreign language visual literacy.

Reading comprehension (RC) and critical thinking (CT) are the two basic cognitive skills that should be developed through involving language learners in a carefully planned instruction. Multiple intelligences (MI) instruction may assist learners in developing RC and CT in L2 education. This study probed the effect of MI-based reading instruction on the Iranian EFL learners’ RC and CT skills. In so doing, it compared the effectiveness of an MI-based reading instruction with a traditional one. To this end, 4 intact classes from several English language institutes, comprising 56 Iranian intermediate-level EFL learners, were selected and randomly assigned to MI-based (experimental) and traditional (control) groups. A multiple- choice RC test, a reading summary test, and the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal test were used as the instrumentations to collect data on the participants’ RC and CT. Analysis of covariance revealed a significant effect for the MI-based reading instruction. Furthermore, the RC scores increased more significantly in the MI-based group in comparison to the traditional one. However, the CT scores did not significantly improve in both groups. There was also no statistically significant difference in the CT scores between the two groups after the treatments. Iranian EFL educators are, then, encouraged to develop MI-based lessons and activities for diverse students and take explicit instruction for the enhancement of CT skills in EFL reading courses

تعلیم و تربیت انتقادی در انگلیسی به عنوان زبان خارجی: اصول، برنامه ریزی، عملکرد لیلا اکبرپور دانشگاه شیراز رحمان صحراگرد دانشگاه شیراز پژوهش حاضر که بخشی از رساله دکتری نویسنده اول می باشد شرح تدوین یک کورس خواندن و درک مفاهیم بر اساس اصول تعلیم و تربیت انتفادی و تاثیر آن کورس بر دانش خواندن فراگیران زبان انگلیسی، انگیزش آن ها برای خواندن متون انگلیسی، چگونگی نگرش دموکراتیک آن ها به کلاس های درس انگلیسی و نیز نگرش آن ها نسبت به کورس پیشنهادی می باشد. در واقع، تحقیق حاضر گامی به سوی بررسی نتایج بر گرفته از مراحل نخستین رساله دکتری ذکر شده است که هدفش تدوین الگویی برای آموزش زبان انگلیسی در ایران بر اساس تعلیم و تربیت انتقادی می باشد. شرکت کنندگان در این پژوهش 61 تن از دانشجویان دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی واحد شیراز (در دو گروه) بودند. 31 نفر از شرکت کنندگان که گروه گواه را تشکیل می دادند بر اساس روش های معمول که در ایران برای آموزش خواندن به کار گرفته می شود و 30 تن دیگر که گروه آزمایشی را تشکیل می دادند بر اساس کورس انتقادی آموزش دیدند. نتایج تجزیه و تحلیل داده ها بر اساس پیش آزمون و پس آزمون خواندن و درک مفاهیم، پرسشنامه انگیزش، پرسشنامه نگرش دموکراتیک و نیزنتایج تحلیل کیفی مصاحبه ها نشان داد که علی رغم مشکلاتی که حین انجام پژوهش در گروه آزمایشی وجود داشت، کورس پیشنهادی بر دانش خواندن شرکت کنندگان، نگرش دموکراتیک آن ها به دروس زبان انگلیسی و ایجاد انگیزه درآنان برای خواندن متون انگلیسی تاثیری مثبت نشان داد. نگرش شرکت کنندگان نسبت به کورس پیشنهادی نیز در قالب چهار تم که از نتایج تحلیل داده های کیفی پدید آمد بررسی شده و گزارش گردید. پیام اصلی این پژوهش کار آمدی اصول تعلیم و تربیت انتقادی در ایران است که برخی پژوهشگران آن ها را در شرایط فعلی غیر کارآمد دانسته اند.

این مطالعه جهت بررسی کاربرد راهبردهای فراشناختی در مهارت صحبت کردن انجام گرفته و به طور خاص سعی در بررسی این موضوع دارد که در تمرینات یک سویه و دو سویه صحبت کردن چه راهبردهای فراشناختی به کار گرفته می شود. به همین منظور 60 دانش آموز سطح بزرگسال (زن) به طور تصادفی و از طریق آزمون یکسان سازی OPT انتخاب شدند و به دو گروه کنترل و آزمایش تقسیم شدند. برای بررسی به کارگیری راهبردهای فراشناختی از پرسشنامه فراشناختی (اکسفورد، 1990) استفاده شده است. گروه کنترل تمرینات یک سویه و دو سویه را به شیوه مرسوم انجام دادند و گروه آزمایش پس از دریافت راهبردهای فراشناختی به انجام تمرینات پرداختند. بعد از مرحله پس آزمون و مقایسه ANCOVA مشخص شد که مقدار میانگین مقایسه ای بین دو گروه تفاوت قابل توجهی داشته است. نتایج نشان می دهد که گروه آزمایش بهتر از گروه کنترل عمل کردند. از طریق آمار توصیفی و آزمون خی دو این نتیجه به دست آمده است که استفاده از راهبردهای فراشناختی در تمرینات یک سویه و دو سویه صحبت کردن متفاوت بوده و در هرکدام یک سری از این راهبردها به کار گرفته شده است.

The present study was conducted to examine empirically and systematically the effect of explicit instruction of comprehension strategies on EFL learners’ reading anxiety and reading comprehension in Iranian high schools. To this end, two intact classes (65 students) participated in this study as members of control and experimental groups. The experimental group underwent 10 sessions of reading strategies training based on McNamara, Ozuro, Best, and O’Reilly's (2007) 4-pronged Comprehension Strategy Framework. Data were collected through the employment of Saito, Garza, and Horwitz's (1999) Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) and Preliminary English Test (PET) multiple-choice reading comprehension tests. All the students filled the FLRAS questionnaire and took the reading comprehension test two times, once as a pre-test one week before the beginning of instruction and the other as a post-test one week after the instructional treatment. After the post-test, a group of 7 students who received instruction participated in the focus group interview. T-tests were used to analyze the obtained statistical data. It was revealed that explicit reading strategy instruction was quite beneficial in improving EFL high school students' comprehension and reducing their anxiety level, while reading anxiety and reading comprehension were negatively correlated. The results of the interview with the focus group revealed the positive effect of strategy training on learners' reading comprehension and alleviating reading anxiety. This study rendered some educational implications for materials developers and instructors to invest on reading as a fundamental skill in education.

While teachers’ confidence in their abilities is a crucial asset in teachers’ professionalism and their identity development, their efficacy doubts are also considered useful. Given the diversity of English Language Teaching (ELT) contexts, this paper probes the dynamic nature of efficacy doubts the teachers face and are expected to resolve in English for General Purposes (EGP) and English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) instruction. To this end, based on the existing theoretical frameworks in EGP and ESAP methodology and interviews with 25 university English teachers, two questionnaires were developed and administered to 170 Iranian EGP and ESAP university instructors. The results of factor analysis confirmed five factors underlying ESAP teachers’ teaching efficacy doubts and four factors for EGP teachers’ teaching efficacy doubts. The results may promise implications for ESAP and EGP teacher education programs; teacher educators may address the common efficacy doubts identified in this study and expose the current in-service and future ESAP and EGP teachers to the typical factors which may potentially hamper their efficacy and help them resolve their efficacy doubts as a means towards professional development

The sociocultural approach to writing strategy use emphasizes the importance of context and the mediating resources that learners can use to enhance the quality of their performance in writing (Lei, 2008). Accordingly, the present study explored the sociocultural strategy use of a convenient sample of 105 BA level students of English Language and Literature who had passed essay-writing courses in a state university in Iran by analyzing their responses to the items of a newly-developed sociocultural strategy use questionnaire consisting of different sub-scales, namely, artifact-mediated, rule-mediated, community-mediated and role-mediated strategies. The results of the descriptive statistics revealed that the tool-mediated strategies, which are the subcategory of artifact-mediated strategies, had the highest frequency of use which is rather justified in the context of Iran. In addition, the students’ overall strategy use and their writing ability were correlated and a statistically significant relationship was found between these two variables. However, the results of the multiple regression analysis indicated that none of the sub-scales had a unique predicting power in accounting for the learners’ writing ability. The researchers also compared the sociocultural strategy use of more- and less-skilled student writers and found a significant difference in the strategy use of different individuals.