درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The present study investigates the efficacy of preparation time in four speaking tasks of TOEFL iBT. As the current pre-task planning time offered by ETS is very short, 15 to 30 seconds, we intended to explore how the test-takers’ speaking quality would change if the preparation time was added to the response time, giving the respondents a relatively longer online planning opportunity. To this aim, two groups of TOEFL iBT candidates were studied under pre-task and online planning conditions. Totally, 384 elicited speaking samples were first transcribed and then measured in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF). The results yielded by a series of One-way MANOVA revealed the online planning group significantly outperformed the pre-task planning group in terms of accuracy and fluency across all four speaking tasks. Although with less robustness, the online planners had significantly higher speech complexity represented by lexical diversity and left-embeddedness. The results obtained through this study may challenge the efficacy of the currently provided preparation time in TOEFL iBT speaking subsection.

This study aimed to examine the impact of Group Dynamic Assessment (G-DA) on the listening comprehension of Iranian intermediate EFL learners. To this purpose, through the Preliminary English Test (PET) 140 Iranian EFL female learners in four English Language Institutes of Ahvaz, Iran, were tested, and 80 of them were selected as the sample of the study using convenience sampling. They were taught through group dynamic assessment. After the pretest and treatment sessions, the participants were given the listening comprehension post-test and the resultant scores were statistically analyzed to detect their development from pretest to post-test. The obtained results revealed that Group Dynamic Assessment (G-DA) had a positive impact on the participants’ listening comprehension. This finding implies that EFL teachers may need to consider the positive impact of dynamic assessment on EFL learners’ listening comprehension improvement and provide them with more opportunities to interact. They may also need to create a change in the traditional models of listening comprehension assessment which emphasize psychometric quantification of students' performances

This study aims to investigate the effect of implementing self-reflection training on Iranian in-service EFL teachers’ beliefs and performance development. From all available participants teaching at the International College of Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Tehran, 20 in-service EFL teachers were involved in this study. The teacher’s belief questionnaire, observation checklist, and Skype app were used as the instruments to collect data. Before the training phase, the pre-tests, i.e., observation checklist and teacher’s belief questionnaire, were used for all the participants. The researchers utilized Skype App to instruct the participants in an online setting. During the training phase, participants were exposed to self-reflection practice. The instruction was done in 16 sessions twice a week for two months. After the training phase, the post-tests were run, i.e., the observation checklist and teachers’ belief questionnaire. The data analysis revealed that implementing the principles of self-reflective instruction had a statistically significant effect on Iranian in-service EFL teachers’ beliefs about their teaching practice efficacy and teaching performance development. This study has some implications that may help language teacher educators, English instructors, EFL/ESL learners, students, language curriculum program policymakers, and educational syllabus designers.

This article aims to analyze Patrick McCabe’s The Butcher Boy (1993) in light of Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism. The present study explores the significance of dialogism in the given novel which tells the story of a marginalized young boy living in neo-colonized Ireland in the 1960s. Bakhtin believes that the development of signification between the “self” and the “other” is called dialogue through which human beings define their existence as individuals in polyphonic societies. The protagonist of The Butcher Boy is a non-conformist, unwilling to follow social rules. He creates his very own way of dialogism with his surroundings and ends up in a mental hospital and finally a prison, showing the author’s approval of Bakhtin’s viewpoint towards the importance of dialogue in shaping human beings’ consciousness and existence in the world. Moreover, this article attempts to clarify the resistance of the main character before his society’s hierarchical structure that makes him a perfect example of a marginalized hero disobeying rules and regulations imposed by the authorities to gain an independent resolution.

Multiple-choice (MC) item format is commonly used in educational assessments due to its economy and effectiveness across a variety of content domains. However, numerous studies have examined the quality of MC items in high-stakes and higher education assessments and found many flawed items, especially in terms of distractors. These faulty items lead to misleading insights about the performance of students and the final decisions. The analysis of distractors is typically conducted in educational assessments with multiple-choice items to ensure high quality items are used as the basis of inference. Item response theory (IRT) and Rasch models have received little attention for analyzing distractors. For that reason, the purpose of the present study was to apply the Rasch model, to a grammar test to analyze items’ distractors of the test. To achieve this, the current study investigated the quality of 10 instructor-written MC grammar items used in an undergraduate final exam, using the items responses of 310 English as a foreign language (EFL) students who had taken part in an advanced grammar course. The results showed the acceptable fit to the Rasch model and high reliability. Malfunctioning distractors were identified.

The main purpose of this essay is to investigate the role of becoming through political and social factors among the main character’s changing identity in Achebe’s No Longer at Ease. The researcher intends to depict the effects of political factors on the re-territorialization and territorialization of the main character through the framework of Deleuze’s theory. The current essay focuses on No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe to discover how becoming and transformation of identity take place throughout the novel and how the main character of the novel is going through constant change and becoming which are the result of different forces. Moreover, the researcher intends to investigate the character’s desires that result in the becoming process of identity deriving from social and capitalist factors in society. Since Deleuze and Guattari’s distinctive definition of literature investigates how minor literature is produced in the dominant narratives of major literature, it can critically assist the present research to discuss that Achebe prepares the ground for indigenous, anticolonial voices in his novel No Longer at Ease. It can be concluded that the main character of Achebe’s No Longer at Ease is in flux due to different forces, and his identity goes through constant becoming.

The present work is a contribution to the debate around attitude towards English as a foreign language in Cameroon. By case-studying an under-searched area through a multi-component tool: the Attitude and Motivation Test Battery, it proposes a different reflection to the question. The test was administered to 211 Grade 11, 12, and 13 Francophone students from various urban and semi-urban schools in the city and its suburbs. It was based on the postulates that attitude is a dynamic characteristic that varies according to place and time on the one hand, and that it is far too complex to be examined from the prism of a single variable. The results revealed that of the six parameters that made up the three components of the tool, three were negative and three were positive, with the integrative orientation slightly outpacing the instrumental one. This underscores the need to envisage attitude as a multi-component variable, as well as the need to reckon with evolving social variables. In general, the results reveal that attitude towards EFL is not as desperate as usually thought. It can be intimated that recent socio-political initiatives aiming at reinforcing French-English bilingualism are gradually bearing fruits. Thus, socio-political ideologies appear to have significant effects on overall attitude towards EFL.

The present investigation aimed at studying the impacts of Iranian EFL learners’ gender, age, field and degree of study on their perceptions of mobile affordances. To this end, 159 Iranian EFL students studying at university were asked to fill Mobile Affordance Inventory (Rostami, 2021). To analyze the data, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, independent sample t-test, one way ANOVA, and Pearson’s correlation were run. The findings of the study indicated that no differences were found among EFL learners in using mobile learning affordances regarding their gender, degree, and field of study. Additionally, no significant relationship was found between the arcticians’ age and their mobile affordances. The results also showed that different affordances of mobile devices can provide new and important information for educators. They become more familiar with different mobile phones capabilities to use, and it makes their teaching more effective. Becoming familiar with affordances provides a situation for improving students’ learning as well as their self-control.

Self-directed learning and digital literacy are the most effective issues in the process of foreign language learning. Due to the importance of digital literacy and self-directed learning in the process of foreign language learning, the present study aimed at investigating the relationship between Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ digital literacy and their self-directed learning. For the purpose of the study, 210 male and female Iranian EFL learners from Mashhad English language institutes took part in the study through using convenience sampling method. The digital literacy and self-directed learning questionnaires were distributed among intermediate EFL learners to measure their attitudes towards digital literacy and the self-directed learning process. To conduct the study, a correlational design was used. The results of Pearson Correlation analyses revealed that there was a positive relationship between the Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ digital literacy and their self-directed learning. The results of the multiple regression analyses also showed that information communication technology literacy and information literacy as the two components of the digital literacy questionnaire significantly predicted the Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ self-directed learning. It can be concluded that high levels of digital literacy and self-directed learning tend to result in better academic performance and learning motivation. It is important that educational contexts, as well as lan guage institutes administrators provide opportunities for en hancing learners’ self-directed learning and media literacy and consequently improving EFL learners’ achievement and motivation.