درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This study aimed to shed light on young Iranian EFL students’ oral proficiency improvement through explicit instruction of formulaic sequences (FSs). This pretest-posttest quasi experimental study was conducted in a bilingual school in Shahrekord, Iran. Accordingly, based on ACTFL OPI test, two groups of low intermediate students with age range of 11 to 12 were chosen to be assigned as control and experimental groups. The control group with 20 participants continued its regular instruction focusing on analytic grammar rules and discrete vocabulary, while the experimental group with 40 participants received explicit FSs-based instruction through readings, by adopting a teaching procedure inspired by Lewis’ prescribed strategies for lexicon instruction. After 24 sessions of instruction, the participants were interviewed again, and their oral performance was recorded and transcribed to be scored by two experienced judges. Subsequently, ANOVA results revealed the significant oral proficiency improvement of experimental group in comparison to the control group, pointing to the effectiveness of FSs instruction.

The language register used in academic communities has the special features of density, complexity, and abstractness which are associated with nominalization with which new members of the communities might not be familiar. To explore the possible distance between novice and established members regarding their awareness of this grammatical feature, the present study investigated the employment of nominalization in the writings of Iranian graduate students (both MA and PhD students) and experienced figures in applied linguistics. Forty five research articles in the discipline by the three groups of writers served as the corpus of the study. A rigorous analysis began by identifying and outlining nominalization instances manually through and per all rhetorical sections of the articles. The occurrences of the two types of nominal expressions was counted and normalized. So as to detect the possible significant differences between the samples, chi-square tests were run. The results revealed that the experienced writers used significantly more nominalization in their writings. However, although the total nominal expressions used in MA texts were more than those used in PhD texts, the difference turned out not to be significant. There were also similarities and variations in the ranking patterns of the two types of nominalization in four rhetorical sections of the three groups of the articles. It can be concluded that the differences might reflect the distance between the novice and the established authors regarding their awareness of the importance of nominalization in academic writing. The implications of the study for EAP courses were also discussed.

This study compared the effects of two types of form-focused tasks on proceduralization and transfer of linguistics knowledge in case of English modals. All participants of the study attended pretests, posttests and delayed posttests. The procedural comprehension and production knowledge were measured through the groups’ performance on a timed dual task test that resembled the context of practice. The transfer of knowledge was measured by evaluating the performance of participants on a timed dual task test in a context dissimilar from or reverse to the practice context. Three intact classes of intermediate EFL learners were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The output group (n= 27) received explicit grammar instruction and a combination of three output practice, while the input group (n=25) received explicit instruction and a combination of three input practice. Identical texts were exposed to the control group (n=25) through listening and reading tasks. The texts were followed by some questions irrelevant to English modals. On the procedural knowledge posttests, the experimental groups outperformed the control group. The participants were able to transfer the knowledge to dissimilar contexts. The results may help language teachers design more effective activities for the learners considering the institutional constraints

در این مقاله به بررسی اثر «کلامی درباره هنگ ایگور» از دیدگاه کاربردشناختی خواهیم پرداخت. مبنای کار، ترجمه واژه به واژه لیخاچف از این اثر است. این اثر به عنوان گفتمان و در چهارچوب تئوری کنش گفتاری جان سیرل بررسی شده است و کنش های گفتاری به کاررفته در آن تفکیک شده اند. چنین رویکردی در تحلیل اثر، این امکان را فراهم می آورد تا بلوک های ارتباطی متن را تفکیک و مقاصد نویسنده را تعیین کنیم که چگونه از طریق تغییر استراتژی ارتباطی گفتار، سعی در تأثیرگذاری بر روی مخاطبان دارد. علاوه براین در مقاله حاضر اهداف منظوری گفتار سایر شخصیت های اثر تعیین شده و تحلیل آماری انواع کنش های گفتاری به کاررفته در آن ارائه می شود. نتایج این پژوهش می تواند برای ترجمه این اثر به زبان های دیگر و نیز برای اهداف آموزشی در کلاس های خارجی زبانان سودمند باشد.

Teacher supervision plays a pivotal role in the improvement of education system and the way in which teachers and student teachers perceive it. Consequently language teacher supervisors can utilize appropriate supervisory models to keep teachers update and promote them professionally. The present study investigated the role of language teacher supervisors in student teachers and in-service teachers’ professional development in Iran. To have a representative sample, some 210 EFL teachers practicing in the secondary schools and a total of 215EFL student teachers studying English at some Iranian state and Azad universities participated in the study. A 43-item questionnaire regarding EFL teachers’ attitudes about the impact of supervisory practice on their professional development with a format of a 5-point Likert-type was distributed among them. Also, ten percent of the participants were interviewed. Then the frequencies related to each item were calculated and a Chi-Square was used. Subsequently, qualitative data were transcribed. The results indicated that in-service and pre-service teachers have the same perceptions towards the role of their supervisors in their professional development. However, according to the findings it was concluded that the models of language teacher supervision in language teacher education are different from the models practiced in in-service classes where mostly traditional models are common.