درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The aim of this study was to find the appropriate type of translation of English brand names Iranian consumers prefer, i.e. phonetic, semantic and phonosemantic types of translation. Also, it was aimed at examining the type of font size Iranian consumers tends to see on packages of English products. To this end, the distinction between male and female participants as well as the participants’ level of proficiency was considered as two key factors. Six fictitious brand names were created and the 55 selected participants (43 females and 12 males with upper-intermediate, intermediate and pre-intermediate English proficiency levels) were asked to fill a questionnaire related to the goals of the research. Statistical analyses were then done. The results revealed that Iranian consumers, with different levels of proficiency, tended to use phonetic translation. Also, it was revealed that females with different proficiency levels tended to see English brand names larger than their Persian translations in terms of font size, whereas male participants did the reverse. The findings were discussed in connection with translation and marketing.

Changing the English textbook of the first grade junior high school at Iran’s public schools after 27 years has sparked researchers’ interests in conducting evaluations of the new English textbook to get insights into its strengths and weaknesses. In line with this trend, this study aimed at evaluating the new textbook (Prospect 1) from teachers’ perspectives. To attain this objective, 30 junior high school teachers were interviewed and the data were then analyzed by qualitative content analysis. The results revealed that from teachers’ perspectives, there were some pitfalls with the new textbook such as applying an unsuitable method of literacy instruction; over-attention to the communication skills at the expense of literacy skills; over-localization of the content; overlooking the development of intercultural competence in students; and lack of authenticity in the presentation of the content. Finally, as the central figures in the process of educational change, the participant teachers offered some suggestions to amend the new textbook with the hope that their voices be heard by the pertinent authorities.

ELT has recently witnessed a shift away from a method-bound orientation and toward a post-methodic view of teaching English. Consequently, the focus of some second language teacher education programs has shifted toward sociopolitical aspects of ELT (Miller, 2004) and its contributions to reinforcement or transformation of the status quo (Kumaravadivelu, 2003a). Yet, in many countries, including Iran, ELT teacher education has maintained a relatively method-bound focus on technical dimensions of teaching English and has avoided adopting a critical and sociopolitical approach to ELT. In order to investigate the ways in which teacher education as currently practiced facilitates or stifles implementation of postmethod in ELT, the present study explored English teachers’ perceptions of the dominant approaches to teacher education in ELT centers in Iran and their ideological and pedagogical bases. To this end, 23 language teachers were interviewed about the logistics, content, and procedures of the teacher education programs they had attended. The analysis of the interviews, as directed by grounded theory, yielded three themes, namely no/little teacher learners’ involvement in course design and implementation, dominance of a transmission model, and dominance of a linguistic and technical focus

The present study investigated comparatively the impact of two types of input enhancement (i.e. textual vs. compound enhancement) on developing grammar ability in Iranian EFL setting. Sixty-five female secondary high school students were selected as a homogenous sample out of about a 100-member population based on Nelson language proficiency test. Then, their grammar ability was measured based on a researcher-made diagnostic test prior to the experiment. The sample was randomly divided into two equal groups; one group received text-enhancement-based instruction of grammar, while the other received compound-based enhancement. Finally, they received an achievement test of grammar as a posttest to measure their progress in light of two different types of input enhancement mechanisms. The pertinent statistical analyses of the results indicated that a) the effect of textual enhancement-based instruction of grammar is not significantly meaningful, while b) the compound enhancement-based instruction has significant effect on learning grammatical structures. Comparatively speaking, therefore, c) compound enhancement-based instruction of grammar is more significantly effective than that of textual in developing grammar ability. It can be safely concluded that grammar instruction and its resultant development are subject to intervention type, which, pedagogically, bears promising messages for both teachers and syllabus designers to incorporate parameters of input enhancement in both teaching and materials development, respectively.

This paper elaborates on Persian and English orthographic shared aspects to study the effects of L1 Persian on learning English as a foreign language. While there are some examples of letter and sound mismatches in the orthographic system of both languages, those of English are more complex than Persian. In order to see the effect of the mismatch between orthography and transcription, 40 Persian EFL learners were divided into two proficiency groups i.e., advanced and elementary, and their performance was examined on comprehension and production tasks. The learners’ production skills were checked via a list of 76 pseudo words requiring the learners to read them while their voices were recorded. After one week time interval, a comprehension test consisted of 34 items was administered, requiring the learners to listen and choose among the orthographic forms presented to them. It was hypothesized that being educated in L1 Persian comprising semi-opaque orthography system, the learners would tackle the English opaque graphemes better on the mismatches. However, it was observed that both elementary and advanced groups had difficulty learning English orthography system, showing almost no positive effect from L1. Only in rare cases more proficient learners performed better due to more schooling education in English.