درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Learner autonomy has been described as the ultimate objective in many language teaching programs since the third quarter of the twentieth century and educators have highlighted the significant role of promoting learner autonomy in the process of language learning and teaching. However, only limited number of studies has been awarded to what leaner autonomy mean to teachers. This study addressed the gap and investigated novice and experienced teachers’ beliefs regarding learner autonomy. Forty teachers participated in two groups who were grouped based on their teaching experiences as novice and experienced teachers. A questionnaire which was adapted from British Council was administered to elicit the teachers’ beliefs regarding learner autonomy. The independent samples t-test analysis of the data revealed a significant difference between novice and experienced teachers beliefs. The findings of the present study may have some implications for teachers in promoting learner autonomy in their classes, in general, and involving learners in the process of teaching and learning, in particular.

هدف از این کار تحقیقی بررسی افعال با ماهیت معنایی «فریب» در لهجه های گویشوران مناطق مختلف تولا است. بر همین اساس، در این مقاله برآن هستیم تا ضمن تجزیه و تحلیل معانی مختلفی که از این گونه افعال استنباط می شود، شکل و ویژگی های دستوری این گونه افعال را در هنگام کاربرد در گویش های گوناگون مردم این مناطق بررسی نماییم. این گونه افعال غالباً ماهیت معنایی منفی دارند. افعال دارای ماهیت معنایی منفی در گویش ها و لهجه ها کاربرد بیشتری دارند. این گونه افعال از نظر تقسیم بندی در زمره افعالی قرار می گیرند که بیان گر نوع رابطه و رفتار افراد نسبت به محیط اطراف هستند. این افعال از اصلی ترین عناصر فعلی تشکیل دهنده گویش های محلی محسوب می شوند. از این گونه افعال معمولاً به عنوان افعال «انسان محور» یاد می شود. مجموعه افعالی که در این کار پژوهشی بررسی و تحلیل شده اند از نظر تک واژی ریشه های گوناگونی دارند. معمولاً تک واژهای ریشه ای این گونه افعال در معنای مستقیم و اولیه خود بیان گر تأثیرگذاری و یا تأثیرپذیری فیزیکی هستند و تا حدود زیادی از نظر شکل ظاهری و همچنین از نظر ماهیت معنایی فرم واحد و یکسانی دارند که وجود گروه افعال مترادف و زایا می تواند دلیلی بر این یک سان بودن باشد.

در مقاله حاضر مسائل مربوط به اصول نظام مندی در زبان و نظام مندی در حوزه واژگان و دستور بررسی می شود. درک جنبه های مختلف ارتباط متقابل میان نظام زبانی و کارکرد عناصر آن یکی از مسائل روز در بررسی های زبان شناسی معاصر است. تعاریف نسبتاً زیادی از نظام زبانی و نظام مندی وجود دارد و از طریق تعاریف و روش های متعدد و مختلف به سختی می توان به ماهیت رویکرد نظام مند پی برد. در بسیاری از تعاریف، زبان، نظامی نشانه ای و کارکردی است که برای تبادل و حفظ اطلاعات در جامعه بشری و ذهن بشر به کار می رود و زبان نظامی است که در درون آن نظام های آوایی، صرفی، واژگانی، نحوی و دیگر نظام های فرعی متمایز می شوند. رویکرد نظام مند امکان بررسی چند بعدی در محتوای واقعیت زبانی را فراهم می کند. در علم فلسفه، نظام به عنوان مجموعه ای از عناصر که در ارتباط با یکدیگر قرار دارند و وحدت و یک پارچگی مشخصی را ایجاد می کنند، بررسی می شود. در زبان شناسی، نظام عبارت است از تعدد منظم واحدها، گروه ها، مقوله ها و دسته های زبانی که یک پارچگی و وحدت تام و ساختار مشخصی دارند و با بسیاری از عناصر بیان ظاهری مرتبط هستند

Despite their widespread popularity and rapid growth, the Internet-mediated English educational materials for learners of English as a foreign/second language (FL/SL) have rarely been analyzed in terms of their potential hidden curriculum. Accordingly, the present study aims to address this need through conducting a CDA investigation into some lessons which are randomly selected from an English educational website called “Englishcentral.” Adapting, expanding, and adopting some elements of Van Leeuwen’s (2008) Social Actor Network, the researchers attempt to describe and explain the representation of “Iran” in Englishcentral. Investigating and thematizing the research data revealed that the keyword “Iran” was used in this website to refer to three groups of social actors, namely the Iranian government and officials, Iranian people, and Iranian people and/or government/officials. The way these social actors are associated and dissociated, activated and passivated, personalized and impersonalized creates remarkable findings which give support to the presence of particular hidden agenda in this program. In all, the results of this study reveal that the Iranian social actors are portrayed unfavorably in Englishcentral, which is an alleged English educational program.

Reading comprehension ability consists of multiple cognitive processes, and cloze tests have long been claimed to measure this ability as a whole. However, since the introduction of cloze test, different varieties of it have been proposed by the testers. Thus, the present study was an attempt to examine the relatedness of Cloze-Elide test, Multiple-choice (MC) cloze test, and C-test as three different types of cloze procedure used for measuring reading comprehension. To this end, one C-test consisting of four short texts, one fixed ratio (n=7) multiple-choice cloze test, and one cloze-elide test were prepared from reading passages with similar readability levels. The participants of the study were 30 (male &female) freshman university students majoring in English literature. The results of ANOVA test showed that there were not any statistically significant differences at the 0.05 level of significance among the performance of the students on the three tests measuring their reading comprehension. Therefore, it was concluded that against the advocates of each test who claim superiority of it over the other types, these three types of cloze tests in this study assessed the reading comprehension in a similar way. So, the testers can be confident to make use of these tests as reading comprehension tests interchangeably.

Two main features of vocabulary knowledge, namely breadth and depth, have a fundamental role in vocabulary research. This research aimed to study the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension, and to investigate which feature of vocabulary knowledge, breadth or depth, had better impact on identifying reading comprehension performance. Therefore, three language tests were used, including a reading comprehension test, Vocabulary Levels Test, and Word Associates Test. 64 students majoring in Medicine at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran, participated in the study. The outcomes of the two-tailed Pearson Correlations and multiple regression analyses declared that test results on vocabulary breadth, depth of vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension were positively correlated and breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge were closely interrelated.

There is a growing interest among the higher education principals and policy makers to improve teacher evaluation methods and more important than that to use the evaluation data. A number of research studies implied the ineffective instruction of ESP courses in Iran (Atai, 2002; Eslami, 2005; Hayati, 2008; Ahmadi, 2008; Sherkatolabbasi & Mahdavi, 2012; Boniadi, Ghojazadeh & Rahmatvand, 2013). The basic objective of research in field of ESP/EGP instruction and evaluation is to facilitate informed decisions for the betterment of English classes. The literature suggested that most of the teachers and students were dissatisfied with the students’ progress in specific English courses. Data was collected from the teachers by various ways including observation checklist and feedback form. To carry out the study, 12 ESP and EGP teachers were observed using Marshall’s rubrics (2011) and observation logs’ analysis. Then, 18 teachers offered feedback on different aspects of their own courses. The data were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively using ANOVA statistical measurement. The findings firstly indicate that EGP teachers were more standard teachers in comparison to ESP teachers. Secondly, the feedback forms show discrepancy between the views of EGP teachers and ESP teachers in some areas including the material effectiveness and students’ interest. To reach a standard point in EGP/ESP instruction, more evaluation is to be applied by the faculty members, university principals and the teachers themselves. Politically correct attitudes towards teachers should not lead to ineffective English courses. Some practical implications are suggested to upgrade the current practice in ESP classes