درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

هدف از این تحقیق یافتن راه کاری عملی برای ارتقای مهارت نوشتاری در میان دانش آموزان ایرانی به عنوان زبان آموز خارجی می باشد. سوال اصلی این است که آیا کاربردشناسی تفوقی بر روش های سنتی در ارتقای مهارت نوشتاری دارد یا خیر. برای این منظور چهل دانش آموز دبیرستانی بر اساس عملکرد شان در Preliminary English Test (2009) انتخاب شدند. علاوه بر این، ابزارهای زیر نیز در این پژوهش شبه تجربی به کار رفته است: Task, and Discourse Self-Assessment Task and Writing Discourse Completion, California Standard Test (2008) این روش خاص به مدت ده هفته بر گروه آزمایشی انجام گرفت در حالی که که گروه کنترل فقط از روش های سنتی بهره برد. نتایج نشان می دهد که ارتباط معناداری میان مهارت کاربردشناسی و ارتقای مهارت نوشتاری در میان زبان آموزان وجود دارد. روش paired h-test f برای تجزیه و تحلیل داده ها به کار رفته است. نتایج این تحقیق حاکی است که دبیران می توانند از کاربردشناسی در مهارت نوشتاری به شکل شایسته ای بهره ببرند و مهارت نوشتاری را از طریق آن ارتقا دهند. بدین ترتیب زبان آموزان می توانند به شکل درستی به برقراری ارتباط بپردازند.

The study aimed at investigating whether the retention of vocabulary acquired incidentally is dependent upon the amount of task-induced involvement. Immediate and delayed retention of twenty unfamiliar words was examined in three learning tasks( listening comprehension + group discussion, listening comprehension + dictionary checking + summary writing in L1, and listening comprehension + dictionary checking + sentence writing with the target words) inducing differential ‘involvement loads’- consisting of varying degrees of need, search and evaluation. Time-on-task was kept constant among all three tasks. The results partially supported the Involvement Load Hypothesis: The sentence writing task generated the highest retention rate, a finding which is quite in harmony with the Hypothesis’s prediction. However, the other two tasks did not result in different retention rates despite equal involvement loads. These results are discussed with reference to the involvement load hypothesis and some suggestions are made as to how to improve and revise the original theory.

One of the main aims of the education agenda in the last decade has been to develop critical thinking and autonomy among children, in order to educate them to be activeand involved persons in society. The present study sought to examine the relationship between Iranian male and female EFL learners’ autonomy and their critical thinking ability. To this aim, the researcher used a language proficiency test, a questionnaire of autonomy, and a questionnaire of critical thinking. The study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, 242 third-grade high school students of Urmia city were provided with a Key English Test (KET). Afterwards, 162 of them were selected as the homogenizedgroup and were given a questionnaire of autonomy and questionnaire of critical thinking. Finally, the results of 144(because some of participants did not complete their critical thinking questionnaire) participants were analyzed. The Pearson coefficient of correlation revealed that Iranian EFL learners’ autonomy and critical thinking were significantly related. The findings offered important pedagogical implications for teachers, learners, and syllabus designers.

بر طبق مدل اصلاح شده ی سلسله مراتبی که توسط کرال و استیوارت پیشنهاد شده است، در مراحل ابتدایی فراگیری زبان، رابط ها ی واژگانی بسیار قوی در نتیجه ی اتکا فراگیران به زبان اول برای دریافت معانی کلمات زبان خارجی ایجاد می شود؛ این رابط ها در مراحل بالاتر نیز باقی می مانند اگرچه ضعیف ترمی شوند. برای آزمایش این فرضیه، حافظه ی رویدادی دو گروه از فراگیران فارسی زبان انگلیسی سطح پایین و پیشرفته بر روی جفت های ترجمه ای غیرهم ریشه مورد آزمایش قرار گرفت. الگوی بدست آمده برای فراگیران سطح پایین با فرضیه ی مدل سازگار بود چرا که وجود رابط های واژگانی در سطوح پایین زبان آموزی ثابت شد. لیکن، نتایج بدست آمده برای فراگیران سطح پیشرفته نشان داد این رابط ها در سطوح بالا دیگر وجود ندارند و ازبین می روند.

مفید بودن تدریس تلفظ در تدریس زبان همیشه یک موضوع بحث برانگیز بوده است. اگرچه تحقیقات گذشته نشان می دهد که معلمان نمی توانند تفاوت عمده ای در بهبود تلفظ دانش آموزان خود به وجود آورند، مطالعات جدید نشان می دهد که تلفظ زبان خارجی می تواند با بکار گیری عوامل مشخصی مانند استفاده از عناصرعروضی تا سطح زبان مادری پیشرفت کند. با تاکید بر ارتباطات معنادار و فهم این که تولید سخن تحت تاثیر درک سخن می باشد، نیاز به ادغام فعالیت های عروضی و ارتباطی برای ایجاد موقعیت هایی که در آن تلفظ دانش آموزان از طریق شنیدن وسخن گفتن پیشرفت کند، احساس می شود. این مطالعه به بررسی این عوامل می پردازد.

Every discourse, written or oral, is the conveyer of some hidden agenda of the producer, most importantly in such genres of speech as journalism, politics, propaganda, and advertisements. Given the role of translation in discourse, a difference exists between when the translator carries the ideological values of the elite in contrast with one with patriotic preferences. In this study a comparison was made between translation products resulting from the work of 15 postgraduates of translation studies viewed as freelancers and another published product carrying the elite’s ideology whose works appeared in published in the state media. The results of our comparisons, both qualitative and quantitative showed that there existed two types of difference: the ideology of the elite on the one hand, and the preferred culture related valuesof the freelancers on the other. The differences revealed that both groups translated under the influence of some pre-disposed influence dividable into different categories. Employing strategies of manipulation would be considered as an identity marker showing the social identity of the translator. The effect could be either their cultural preferences or, in contrast, the elite’s favorable set of preferences imposed on both the translator and the product of translation. 

A number of studies have accounted the integral role of foreign/second language learning and learner strategy use. However, a few of these studies have considered the relationships between strategic competence and its use and foreign language performance (FLP). This study applied structural equation modeling to deeply investigate the relationships between test takers’ strategy use and their performance on foreign language tests. For this purpose, 147 EFL learners from three well-known branches of a private language institute in Tehran, Iran were chosen. These participants also responded to an 80-item Cognitive and Metacognitive strategy questionnaire and took an 81-item Key English Test (KET). Consequently the hypothesized model of strategic competence vis-à-vis FL test appeared with following findings. First, metacognitive processing (MP) had no direct effect on FLP but a significant, direct influence on cognitive processing (CP), which supports the interaction notion of Bachman and Palmer’s (1996) communicative competence . Second, due to the Iranian EFL context in which Iranian students and teachers show more tendencies toward memorizing vocabulary and analyzing grammar, practicing naturalistically was insignificant and deleted while the translating variable was added, which was highly significant. Third, CP had no significant effect on listening ability which shows that listening ability is much more dependent on contextual factors rather than background knowledge and strategic competence.

The present study is an attempt to investigate the relationship between cohesive readability of expository texts and reading comprehension in EFL students with different proficiency levels. One hundred students formed the participant of this study. They were undergraduate students majoring in English at University of Isfahan. To collect the relevant data, participants were divided into three groups of low proficient, intermediate and high proficient based on their scores on an OPT proficiency test. A series of expository reading comprehension tests were prepared and their cohesive readability was measured through related programs. They were divided into two groups of authentic and manipulated texts, with the cohesive readability of manipulated texts reduced. The participants answered the related tests in one session. As a result of data analysis, the findings indicated that manipulation, i.e. cohesive readability reduction has a direct impact on the students' performance in reading expository texts. It was further revealed that text manipulation, i.e. reduction of cohesive readability, was more influential on the intermediate group, i.e. positive relationship between the students’ proficiency level and their reading comprehension of expository texts with different cohesive readability levels.