درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The shift of emphasis away from written to oral skills has stimulated an incipient concern in second language research to investigate ways of helping second and foreign language learners achieve higher degrees of oral proficiency. Priority solely taken over accuracy, complexity, or fluency of speech might be justifiable with regard to the context in which learning takes place. Accuracy and complexity have been suggested as paramount concern in syntactic processing typical of instructional contexts. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of a training program on the grammatical complexity of 114 English Major Students at Islamic Azad University-Tabriz Branch at three different planning levels. A 2x3 factorial design was employed with two levels of metacognitive training, trained and untrained, and three levels of pre-task planning, on-line task planning, and pre/on-line task planning. It was hypothesized that the trained participants would produce more complex speech than the untrained ones, and that various planners would produce speech with varying degrees of complexity. Yet, the findings revealed no significant difference in terms of grammatical complexity among the trained and untrained participants. The findings suggest proficiency level and learners' attitudes and goals as main factors influencing the complexity of oral speech.

This study investigates the effect of homogeneous and heterogeneous peer interaction on the development of Iranian EFL learners’ writing skill. Sixty female students of TEFL participated in the study. The participants were divided into two groups based on their English proficiency test scores. The homogeneous group consisted of 14 participants paired with partners with similar English proficiency test scores, while the heterogeneous group consisted of 16 participants who were paired with partners who had higher test scores. The pairs had interaction and peer collaboration before carrying out three types of writing tasks. The Repeated Measures ANOVA was used to compare the student writers’ pretest writing scores with their three post-test scores. The results showed that both groups, very similarly, had significantly higher post-test scores in all three writing tasks. The findings are explained based on the sociocultural theory and Vygotsky’s notion of the zone of proximal development (ZPD). The study offers several important pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research.

"ارتباط زبانی در یک فضای تعاملی ایجاد می گردد و در آن حداقل دو نفر تبادل نظر می کنند. صحبت کردن گوینده و درک سخنان وی توسط شنونده به عوامل زیادی از جمله شناخت زبان مورد نظر و قواعد و آداب ارتباطی و فرهنگی آن بستگی دارد. نویسنده این مقاله با دنبال کردن هدفی آموزشی، در نظر دارد تا چگونگی برقراری ارتباط زبانی را در یک کلاس زبان خارجی بررسی کند. این مطالعه اجمالی به خوانندگان امکان مشاهده محاسبن و معایب (اگر در بعضی موارد وجود داشته باشد) فعالیت های مختلف در کلاس های زبان را خواهد داد. مقاله حاضر با چند پیشنهاد که حاصل تجربه نویسنده آن است جهت ارتقا سطح بیان شفاهی زبان آموزان جوان ایرانی به پایان می رسد.

Among the major issues raised by classroom SLA researchers is the debate on the degree to which teacher’s or learner’s attention should be directed to linguistic features. However, one of the relevant variables in corrective feedback studies which seem to be less operationalized is the differential impact of different types of feedback on the accuracy of the oral performance of the participants. The merits of recasts as one type of feedback commonly used in the classroom have turned to be a controversial issue. The present study examined the impact of recasts in comparison to no-recast on the syntactic accuracy of Iranian EFL university students’ oral discourse. One hundred and nine male and female students majoring in English Language Translation at Islamic Azad University (Central Tehran Branch) took part in the study. The participants were attending the listening and speaking classes. Ten sessions were devoted to the treatment of the experimental group (n=54) who received recasts as feedback to syntactic errors. The control group (n=55), received no recast. A posttest was administered in the 12th session. The teachers introduced a topic and the participants were required to talk about it in 60 seconds. A total of 6540 seconds of the participants’ oral performance were observed and recorded. Analysis of individual participants’ oral data revealed that the recast group outperformed the no-recast group. In other words, recasts were effective in reducing the frequency of syntactic errors of participants’ oral discourse.