درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

With the aim of more emphasis on pragmatics and its inclusion in EFL classrooms, this study attempted to investigate the effectiveness of obtrusive and unobtrusive focus on form instructions on learners’ pragmatic performance of criticizing in English. 54 Iranian learners, all at intermediate level, participated in this study, and they were divided into three groups: 19 participants receiving obtrusive instruction, 21 learners receiving unobtrusive instruction and 14 participants had no pragmatic instruction (control group). Techniques related to each method were operationalized in details and applied in the classrooms. The most basic techniques in obtrusive methods were consciousness raising activities, metalinguistic explanation, and explicit correction. In unobtrusive method, input enhancement activities, and recast were used. Discourse completion test and oral feedback were used as pretests and posttests in this study. After applying statistical analyses using ANOVA, it was found that learners’ pragmatic knowledge of criticizing improved significantly in both kinds of instructions. Also, results of post hoc analyses indicated that learners in obtrusive focus on form instruction outperformed those in unobtrusive focus on form instruction significantly. These results were justified through noticing hypotheses, importance of metalinguistic explanations, effects of explicit correction, and output hypothesis. These findings may have great implications for language teachers, syllabus designers, and future researchers.

This paper examines the effect of gender and type of stem on Iranian test takers’ performance on the grammar section of a nation-wide language proficiency test. In so doing, the scores of 2931 examinees (1107 female and 1824 male) who sat Tarbiat Modares English proficiency test were obtained. The examinees’ scores on three types of MC grammar items with different kinds of stems (i.e., blank filling, error recognition, and cloze) were compared to see if the type of stem has any effect on performance. Grammar scores of males and females were also compared to see if there is an effect for gender on the examinees’ performance on the grammar test in general and on its three item types in particular. The results indicated that test takers performed better on cloze items than the other two types. It was also found that females outperformed males on both the whole test, and also on items with blank filling and cloze types of stems. Due to the particularity of the context and the small effect sizes found, the study calls for more research to be conducted on this topic.

The present study sought to explore the impact of story maps and audio podcasts as scaffolds on oral proficiency of Iranian EFL learners. The quasi-experimental study was launched with 36 EFL undergraduates in three groups by adopting a counterbalanced 3 3 Latin squared design. All participants were indiscriminately, but in a specified order, exposed to the three treatment conditions of story retelling, story retelling plus story map, and story retelling plus podcast, and post-tested sequentially. The Latin square analysis of the oral assessment scale showed statistically meaningful differences under the treatment conditions for the groups. The post-hoc test also showed overachievements of the participants under the treatment conditions of story retelling plus story map and story retelling plus podcasts. The performance under podcast condition was significantly better than performances under the story map and short story conditions. The post-experiment opinion survey showed the learners’ preferences for and positive attitudes towards podcast and story map as scaffolds in developing EFL oral proficiency. The participants welcomed integration of the scaffolds into EFL speaking courses.

Diction conveys a wide array of meanings of which formality and emotionality are only two facets. Researchers have investigated various features of written discourse to capture discourse variation in L1 and L2 writings. Likewise, the present ex-post-facto study compared the formality and emotionality of diction in general and emotional English and Farsi texts produced by 20 MA students at Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch. Having verified the initial homogeneity of the participants, we required them to write four paragraphs, two in English and two in Farsi, on a general and an emotional topic. The formality of the words in English texts was determined based on Webster’s Dictionary. Further, the positive and negative emotion words used in English and Farsi texts were measured based on the definitions offered by Pennebaker and King (1999).The results of the statistical analyses revealed no significant difference in the formality of the words used by the participants in general and emotional English texts. The comparison of the research data, however, indicated significant differences in the use of emotion words in general and emotional English and Farsi texts. The findings underscore the need for raising learners’ awareness of the role diction can play in writing.

Anxiety undoubtedly plays an influential role in the experience of foreign language learning. This affective factor has attracted lots of researchers and has been the subject pool of scholarly research worldwide. However, research on the effect of demographic variables on foreign language anxiety (FLA) and the effect of FLA on the learners’ intention to continue their English language education is still limited. Therefore, to bridge this gap, the present study intended to explore the role of gender and age in EFL learners’ FLA level. In addition, the potential effect of learners’ FLA in their decision whether to continue their English studies was tested. To this end, a sample of 295 university EFL learners completed FLA questionnaire and a demographic form. The findings showed that there was no significant correlation between the age of the learners and their FLA level. FLA differences with respect to gender did not reach the statistical significance either. However, it was found that FLA could significantly affect the learners’ willingness to continue their English language education. The findings were discussed and implications were made.

از آنجایی که تحقیقات قابل توجهی بیان کننده نقش مهم حافظه کاری در فراگیری زبان اول می باشد، تحقیقات بر روی چنین نقشی از حافظه کاری در زبان خارجی به عنوان یک حوضه تحقیقاتی جدی، در حال وقوع است. در تحقیق حاضر، نقش حافظه کاری در توانایی خواندن در زبان خارجی مورد بررسی قرار گرفت. بدین منظور، ٥٥ نفر زبان آموز در سه سطح مهارت زبانی مبتدی، متوسط و پیشرفته از یک موسسه خصوصی زبان در این تحقیق شرکت کردند. از کلیه این افراد دو تست حافظه که شامل یک تست تعیین ظرفیت حافظه کاری از طریق خواندن و یک تست تعیین ظرفیت حافظه کوتاه مدت واجی گرفته شد. از شرکت کننده گان در تحقیق همچنین خواسته شد که در یک تست درک مطلب که شامل خواندن دو متن و پاسخگویی به سوالات آن بود شرکت کنند. سپس از عملیات آماری رگرسیون استفاده شد که مشخص شود آیا رابطه ی معنا داری بین توانایی حافظه و توانایی خواندن وجود دارد یا خیر. نتایج این تحقیق بیان کننده ی رابطه معنا داری بین توانایی حافظه کاری و توانایی خواندن فقط در سطح مبتدی بود که دلایل احتمالی آن در این تحقیق مورد بحث و بررسی قرار می گیرد.

Theoretically framed within Vygotskyan sociocultural theory of mind (SCT), Dynamic assessment (DA) is a new approach to classroom assessment offering mediation to help learners perform beyond their level of independent functioning. As a web-based qualitative inquiry into the nature of mediation in DA and its impacts on the participants’ private speech patterns, this study explored the role of private speech as a social and psychological tool to mediate learners' thinking and performance in online DA. The subjects of the study were two Iranian university students along with two English native speakers orally narrating a series of picture stories and having weekly DA mediation with the researcher via Skype. In the present study, the students' private speech markers’ typology emerged out of thematic analysis of oral narratives transcribed before and after DA mediation and it was presented as a criterion to evaluate the learners' progression towards self-regulation. The frequency of occurrence of the learners’ private speech markers was reported and interpreted based on the emergent typology to evaluate the possible changes in their use as the result of DA mediation. Meanwhile, the differences between native speaker participants and the learners’ use of private speech markers in oral narratives were highlighted and discussed. The results of the study indicated that mediation was effective in reducing the number of private speech markers in the learners' narratives after mediation which reflects their progression towards self-regulation in online DA. The findings of the study highlight the importance of private speech as a mediating tool in DA which reflects learners’ struggle to take control of direction of learning and move beyond their current capabilities.

This study aimed to explore the relationships between foreign language learners’ self-identity changes, motivation types, and Foreign Language proficiency associated with learning English in private language schools in Iranian context. Based on a stratified sampling, 204 English as a foreign language learners from three language schools in Tehran were selected to participate in the study. The instruments were a 30-item Likert-scale questionnaire on motivation types in seven categories: intrinsic interest, immediate achievement, learning situation, going aboard, social responsibility, individual development, and information medium; a 24-item Likert-scale questionnaire on self-identity changes in six categories: self-confidence change, additive change, subtractive change, productive change, split change, and zero change. Results revealed that self-confidence change was the prominent change common among foreign language learners. Canonical correlation analysis revealed that motivation types and self-identity changes were related through three pairs of canonical variables: intrinsic orientations related with personal identity changes, instrumental orientations related with cultural changes, and instrumental orientations related learners’ self-confidence change. Theoretical and pedagogical implications for foreign language learning and teaching are also discussed.

This paper reports a study which investigated if there was a match between students’ English vocabulary size and the vocabulary load of a locally produced textbook. The analysis of the passages of the pre-university English textbook currently in use in Iran’s education system using RANGE program indicated that in order to comprehend the texts, students need to know not only words from 2000 high frequency word list, but also words from academic and low frequency lists. On the other hand, results of the 2000 vocabulary level test administered to 464 Iranian pre-university students, male and female, showed that students did not possess sufficient vocabulary knowledge in order to comprehend the texts and that their vocabulary knowledge was limited far below 2000 words. Other analyses of the textbook, including exercises and word glosses provided more evidence for the inadequacy of the textbook. The paper concludes that the pre-university textbook is flawed in terms of the required principles and standards in materials development which results in students’ frustration and disappointment in learning English. The findings of the study are discussed, which should be of much interest to local and international ELT stakeholders, especially textbook writers.

While the number of computers in the classroom continues to increase and tremendous support for technology integration exists in government, business, and academia, a major discrepancy exists between the level of technology use that is expected from the educators and the actual use and integration of technology in the classroom. However, effective technology integration in early childhood education depends on an early childhood program’s overall program goals and objectives, and the program’s goals and objectives for each student. Also, it depends on how computers are incorporated into the early childhood curriculum (Haugland, 2000).

تاکنون روند تهیه و تدوین مطالب اموزشی زبان از زوایای مختلفی بررسی گردیده است. برای مثال اهمیت تأثیر نگاه اجتماعی به طراحی و تدوین کتب آموزش زبان تأکید و بررسی شده است. هدف از نگارش این مقاله پرداختن به این مطلب است که ایا ایده تهیه و تدوین مطالب تا چه اندازه تحت تأثیر مک دونالدیزاسیون قرار گرفته است. مک دونالدیزاسیون در تهیه مواد آموزشی زبان را به عبارتی می توان این گونه تعریف کرد: تأثیرپذیری مطالب در واکنش به تغییرات اجتماعی و رابطه بین این تغییرات فراتر از سطح کلاس ارائه جزییات کامل در مورد شرایط کنونی ایران و عواقب به استعمار گرفتن مواد آموزشی زبان از دیگر اهداف این مقاله می باشد. برای پاسخگویی سوال مهم مطرح شده چگونگی رابطه مک دونالدیزاسیون و آموزش زبان سعی بر این بوده تا هر چه بیشتر تصویری واضح از شرایط مواد آموزشی و نحوه تدوین مواد آموزش زبان در ایران ارائه شود و اهمیت استانداردسازی أن که دغدغه بسیاری از اهالی این علم می باشد نشان داده شود. نتایج بررسی ها در این تحقیق حاکی از اهمیت حضور نوعی یکسان سازی مطالب در کلاس های آموزش زبان است. بررسی ها نشانگر این مطلب است که نقش معلم زبان به عنوان مصرف کننده مطالب در ایران نسبت به طراح مطالب در آموزش زبان ایران تأکید شده است. راه هایی همچون ارتقاء سطح کیفی معلمین و برگزاری کلاس ها و دوره ها و برنامه هایی برای پیشرفت هر چه بیشتر علمی انها نیز پیشنهاد شده است.