درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This study was conducted in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) context to explore Iranian teachers' perceptions of their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and their sense of professional identity (PI) as well as to scrutinize how their cognitions were practiced in EAP classes. To this end, two ELT teachers and two content instructors (i.e. subject experts who teach EAP courses in addition to their specialized field of study) from a university in Tehran participated in the study and their classes were observed for a full academic semester. To thoroughly probe the teachers' cognitions, semi-structured interviews were also conducted. The results of content analysis indicated some commonalities but major discrepancies in the cognitions and practices of the two pairs of teachers with regard to their PCK. Teachers of both camps claimed to have interactive EAP classes where group work is highly appreciated and students' questions are welcomed. Attending to their discrepancies, the content instructors seemed to adhere to 'transformative' education by reflecting on their teaching, hearing learners' voice, being responsive to their learning needs, and encouraging teacher-learner collaboration. On the other hand, the ELT teachers reflected a more 'traditional' approach, leaving behind issues of flexibility and innovation in their teaching methods. As far as the EAP teachers' PI is concerned, the study came up with eight factors as the underlying constituents of their PI. It was also found that pedagogical content knowledge and professional identity are interrelated attributes of EAP teachers. The findings provide implications for syllabus designers as well as EAP teacher education.

Nowadays Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is becoming not only enormously popular but also increasingly important in our lives and education system. Generally, learners are usually eager to work on computers or with various kinds of modern technology. This research was carried out to find out whether using weblogs is effective in Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary and writing skills. To do so, two samples of learners were selected through an OPT test as the control and experimental groups, and a pretest of vocabulary was administrated. Then, the traditional methods of teaching vocabulary and writing were used for the control group, and weblogs were used for the experimental group. After three months of instruction, another test of vocabulary and writing was given as the posttest to the students of both groups to assess their achievement. The results of the analysis of ANCOVA showed that weblogs were more effective than the traditional ways of teaching vocabulary and writing.

This study set out to explore whether different input enhancement tasks as implicit instruction techniques had any significant impact on the intake of causative verbs in English as a foreign language among Iranian EFL learners. For this purpose, three intact classes consisting of 75 male and female intermediate L2 learners were randomly divided into three conditions: simultaneous grammar consciousness-raising tasks (GCR, n= 22), sequential textual enhancement (TE, n= 28), and control group (CON, n= 25) that received reading comprehension passages totally free from the target structure. A grammaticality judgment test was used as the pre and posttest in order to measure the participants’ intake. Results revealed that the learners in GCR group had significantly better intake of the target structure than those in the TE group, while control group made no gain. The findings cast doubt on the usefulness of focusing on form before focusing on meaning.

Although uninterpretable features are claimed to be an area of difficulty for EFL learners, they are still one of the less explored areas of research in the field of L2 pedagogy. The present study sought to investigate the impacts of two techniques, namely contrastive analysis and dictogloss on EFL learners’ mastery of resumptive pronouns, an uninterpretable feature absent in English relative clauses but present in most Persian ones. To this end, 77 elementary EFL learners with similar background in English were selected and assigned to three groups: one control and two experimental. Before and after the instruction the participants were administered a 50-item Grammaticality Judgment test and a 20-item translation test which had been developed and validated for use in this study. The results showed that all three groups had significant progression after the treatments, but the comparison among the groups indicated no statistically significant difference. This may suggest that L2 exposure had a more important role in the participants’ performance than the instruction type (contrastive analysis and dictogloss). The findings seem to support the importance of exposure to such L2 structures over time and that instruction cannot always accelerate acquisition.

In spite of the highly beneficial applications of corpus linguistics in language pedagogy, it has not found its way into mainstream EFL. The major reasons seem to be the teachers’ lack of training and the unavailability of resources, especially computers in language classes. Phrasal verbs have been shown to be a problematic area of learning English as a foreign language due to their semantic opacity and structural differences between English and learners’ first languages. To examine the pedagogic potentiality of the use of corpus linguistics in the context of EFL, the present study aimed at comparing the effect of paper-based data-driven learning (DDL) activities, as a substitute for online DDL activities, with the activities designed based on dictionary entries in terms of their effect on learning phrasal verbs in both short and long run. To this end, the study adopted a quasi-experimental pretest posttest control group design. The analysis of the data collected through an immediate posttest as well as a delayed posttest showed that the DDL activities led to greater improvements by the participants. Based on the results of the study, it is argued that paper-based DDL activities can be used effectively in EFL classes to enhance learning and help learners to become more autonomous in their learning efforts.

Dynamic assessment (DA) which is rooted in Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory involves the integration of instruction and assessment in a dialectical way to achieve two main purposes: enhancing learners' development and understanding about their learning potential. However, the feasibility and appropriateness of mediation are two main concerns of DA. The former is concerned with the application of DA for a large number of students, while the latter is concerned with providing test takers with appropriate hints. The purpose of the current study was three-fold: to examine the difference between dynamic and nondynamic tests, to understand about test takers' potential for learning, and to find out how mediation works for high and low ability students. To achieve these aims, computer software was developed. The software is capable of both providing the test takers with graduated hints for each item automatically, and adapting the overall difficulty level of the test to the test takers' proficiency level. To test the efficiency of the software in employing dynamic assessment, 83 Iranian university students participated in the study. The results of the study indicated that the computerized dynamic test made significant contribution both to enhancing students' grammar ability and to obtaining information about their potential for learning. Based on the findings of the study, it can be concluded that the use of dynamic assessment can simultaneously lead to the development of the test takers' ability and provide a more comprehensive picture of learning potential. Accordingly, teachers are recommended to use dynamic assessment to make more informed decisions about their students.

The present research aimed to investigate the effect of background Mozart Classical music on translator students' performance. In this study, the researchers focused not only on the relationship between music and translation but also on the relationship between music and personality traits. The main question this study tried to answer was whether using background music might enhance students' translation scores. To answer this question, 32 students from Islamic Azad University of Quchan, Iran, participated in this study. They were selected out of 40 students, employing Nelson proficiency test and were randomly assigned to two groups. The participants in experimental group were asked to translate three texts accompanied by background music, but the subjects in the control group were asked to translate the same texts without background music during three sessions. Students’ translations were scored based on Kim's (2009) meaning-oriented translation assessment model. Statistical analyses were applied for qualitative data and an interview was designed for the qualitative research question. Researchers concluded that there was a significant difference between the translation scores of the experimental and control groups. The former outperformed the latter group on the translation task.