درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

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.

تکرار فعالیت آموزشی عامل مهمی در پیچیدگی، دقت و روانی زبانی تولید سخن به شمار می رود. برای اینکه نقش تکرار فعالیت آموزشی منجر به ارائه تئوری گردد ضروری است که نقش متغیرهای بین افراد مدنظر قرار گیرد. بررسی اخیر به بررسی اینکه چگونه تکرار فعالیت آموزشی با سطح بسندگی زبانی رابطه دارد و اینکه چگونه تکرار فعالیت آموزشی بر جنبه های مختلف زبانی تاثیر می گذارد انجام گرفت.بدین منظور 50 زبان آموز با سطوح مختلف سطح بسندگی زبانی از دو مرکز آموزشی انتخاب گردیدند. از شرکت کنندگان خواسته شد که فعالیتی را با دو هفته فاصله بیان کنند. نتایج تحقیق بیانگر این موضوع بود که شرکت کنندگان با سطح بسندگی بالاتر، در مقایسه با شرکت کنندگان با سطح بسندگی پایین تر، تولید شفاهی آنها از پیچیدگی، روانی و دقت بیشتری در مرحله دوم تولید برخوردار بود.

This study explored the effectiveness of the two computer-assisted modes: cooperative and individual on improving Iranian high school students’ reading comprehension. It was also concerned with investigating the effectiveness of the two computer-assisted modes on the participants’ foreign language learning anxiety (FLLA). The sample of the study consisted of two intact groups, each containing 24 students, which were randomly assigned into a control and an experimental group. The control group completed the study according to the individual computer-assisted learning while the experimental group was taught via computer-assisted cooperative language learning. The participants in the experimental and the control groups, which consisted of 48 female students, took reading comprehension pretest and posttest. They were also given foreign language classroom anxiety scale (FLCAS) questionnaire both at the beginning and at the end of the treatment. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 16.0. The results of the independent and paired samples t tests indicated that the experimental group, in which cooperative learning was integrated into computer-assisted language learning, outperformed the control group in terms of reading comprehension. In addition, the level of foreign language anxiety improved after the treatment in the experimental group. The findings of this study provide some insights for teachers to consider the integrating of cooperative learning into computer-assisted language learning setting.

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.

Whether negative evidence should be incorporated in or excluded from an SLA or FLA setting has long been a major concern for practitioners and researchers in the SLA and FLA domains. Some (Bowen, Madsen & Hilferty, 1985; Lightbown & Spada, 1990; Fathman & Whalley, 1990; Ferris & Roberts, 2001; Lyster & Ranta, 1997; Askew & Lodge, 2000; and Ashwell, 2000) endorse the use of corrective feedback while others do not (Krashen, 1982; VanPatten, 1988; Dekeyser, 1993; and Truscott, 1996). What these researchers; however, fail to take under advisement in this realm is learners and teachers’ Attitudes towards Error Correction (ATEC). The present experiment wishes to address the issue from this angle, i.e., how teachers and learners’ attitude converge and/or diverge as far as their attitude towards error correction is concerned. Some 410 students and 34 teachers were invited to fill out the questionnaires. Additionally, 45 students and 13 teachers were interviewed to delve into the versatile facets of error treatment qualitatively. The results showed which error treatment techniques the students and the teachers most and/or least favored. Not only does the analysis of the data support Vahdani and Mirsaidi's (2007) claim on students' ATEC, but also data analysis suggests common grounds can be detected between students' attitudes and those of their teachers. It can, therefore, be concluded that corrective feedback has won the favor of learners and teachers and that in their now statistically tenable estimation it should be factored in FLA settings.

This qualitative study is conducted to answer four questions: First, whether there is a difference between the grammatical competence development of a group of children aged 2.6 (two years and six months) and a group of children aged 3.6 (three years and six months). Second, whether there is a significant difference between the two age groups concerning their Mean Length of Utterance (MLU). Third, whether there is a relationship between the children’s MLU and that of the caretakers. Fourth, whether the normal limit proposed by Brown (1973) is observed in the acquisition of Persian. To this end, language samples of six children and their caretakers’ were recorded during a six-week period and studied afterwards. The results indicated neither an unequivocal yes nor a definitive no answer to the question of age difference and grammatical competence development, that is to say, in some cases there was a difference whereas in some other cases there was no difference at all. As for the difference between the two age groups concerning their MLU, there was a significant difference between the two. However, no significant relationship was found between the children’s MLU and their caretakers’. Finally, the limit proposed by Brown (1973) was observed in the acquisition of Persian.

The sway of the pendulum in language pedagogy towards conscious learning processes marks the paramount role of metalinguistic awareness. The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to compare the impact of teacher-oriented vs. learner-generated metalinguistic awareness activities on Iranian TEFL students’ writing accuracy. Sixty participants in three intact classes were randomly assigned as one control, and two experimental groups. All the participants received the same process-oriented instruction based on identical teaching materials. In the first experimental group, the teacher-focus metalinguistic awareness (TFMA) group, however, a collection of various form-focused activities, compiled by the teacher, was assigned and reviewed in the class weekly. In the learner-focused metalinguistic awareness (LFMA) group, the same assignments were assigned as supplementary self-study activities. The control group did not receive any structural assignments. The treatment perpetuated for six sessions and the analyses of the data obtained from the writing post-test revealed that both TFMA and LFMA groups outperformed the control group by producing more accurate writing and that the TF group surpassed the LF group. The findings lend credence to the significance of language awareness in EFL contexts and offer a number of pedagogical implications.

The present study aimed at investigating the effects of explicit and implicit recasts on Iranian EFL learners' acquisition of English relative clauses. For this purpose, 64 participants were selected out of 94 intermediate level EFL learners at Falagh language Institute, Rasht, Iran. To have homogenized groups, the researcher administered a language proficiency test (TOEFL). Then, the researchers assigned them randomly to the explicit recast group, implicit recast group, and control group. They carried out some information gap tasks within four sessions. One group received explicit recast, the other group received implicit recast and the control one got no corrective feedback, for the target linguistic errors during the task performance. A grammatical judgment test was applied as the pretest and immediate posttest. The results of a paired-samples t-test and analyses of variance (ANOVA) showed that the scores of all three groups improved significantly overtime. However, the explicit recast group did significantly better than both the control group and the implicit recast group. The results of the study were elaborated in terms of counterbalance hypothesis and noticing hypothesis. The superiority of explicit recast implied a beneficial role for negative evidence in SLA and that explicit recast was a better choice than implicit recast in the L2 classroom.

The current study attempted to cast light on the status quo of Iranian EFL teachers' perceptions of ICC. It further attempted to see if their experience would influence their conceptualizations of ICC. To this end, a total of 100 EFL teachers were asked to complete a questionnaire survey adapted from Han & Song's (2011) study. The results of both quantitative and qualitative analysis revealed a number of commonalities and discrepancies among the participants' conceptualizations of International Communication Competence (ICC) and its relevance to ELT considering their teaching experience. The findings point to the prominence of intercultural teacher education in the Iranian context.

Discourse markers (DMs) are linguistic elements that index different relations and coherence between units of talk. Most research on the development of these forms has focused on conversations rather than narratives. This article examines age and medium effects on use of various discourse markers in pre-school children. Fifteen normal Iranian monolingual children, male and female, participated in this study. They were divided into three age groups (4-5, 5-6, 6-7). Two tests, story production and story re-production (retelling), based on two different story books were used to elicit the children's narratives. This study shows that the functions of DMs within the oral narrative context follow neither from their usual meanings nor from their usual discourse functions in other contexts. These markers just help to continue the narrative procedure. Narrative experts illustrate how DMs initiate and conclude narrative action, how they guide listeners to follow their interruption and sequence of narrative elements. The results showed no specific difference on the kind of DM being used regarding the age of the participants; furthermore, in terms of the number of utterances and also DMs, children overall behaved differently when they were asked to retell a story, comparing to the time when they were asked to produce a story.