درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Since an effective technique to assess the level of thinking ability is to identify the types of questions one generates, the present research by employing a hybrid question framework, intended to investigate the status of thinking ability among Iranian EFL students in two majors of TEFL and English Literature in M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. To this end, through convenience sampling, a group of 51 students was asked to read two simple short texts and make any type of question(s) that would spring to their minds in essay-type format. Then, using purposeful sampling, 15 participants out of 51 were selected for a semi-structured interview. The findings revealed that nearly half of the participants did not generate thought-provoking questions, which might imply that beyond-routine thinking is not well attended to in the related context. Moreover, as the English Literature students were more capable of producing thought-provoking questions than the TEFL students, it can be inferred that an academic major can be considered an essential factor impacting one’s way of thinking. Furthermore, since the students of English Literature/TEFL in Ph.D. degree outperformed those in M.A. degree, it can be concluded that the academic degree can be accounted as an aiding factor influencing the level of thinking ability as well. Furthermore, in searching for the reasons affecting (non-) production of thought-provoking questions, several factors were discovered and categorized into impeding and promoting ones.

Score decision-making is largely an undocumented process in performance assessment. To conduct a more in-depth cognitive study in scoring, one must ask if these underlying processes can be identified efficiently and objectively. To this end, the present study attempted to shed some light on how Iranian teachers as untrained raters rate speech samples of learners and how their cognition functions in the decision-making process in terms of the scores they assign. A series of monologues were obtained from a group of language learners; afterward, English language teachers were asked to rate them. The raters were asked both to assign a score and provide comments regarding why they assigned a specific score. Having rated the samples, the raters were individually interviewed. The results of the recorded interviews and the comments they had provided on scores were subjected to qualitative analysis like coding and extracting both idiosyncratic and shared features of the raters’ cognition. The results revealed that some of the factors attended to by the raters were both linguistic and relevant to speaking proficiency construct like fluency, accuracy, and complexity. Some other factors influencing the raters while rating were non-linguistic and not directly related to speaking proficiency construct like the tone of voice, personality feature of the testee, etc. It seemed that the untrained raters did not have a clear definition of oral proficiency construct. The implications of the study for rater training programs have been discussed.

Investigating teachers’ cognitions, both in general education and in language teaching, has gained momentum in the past few decades. Yet, the practical knowledge-base (PKB) of practitioners who teach languages to students with special needs has not been amply explored. The present study aimed to investigate the personal PKB of EFL teachers of individuals with Down syndrome (IDS). To this end, several classes of three Iranian EFL special education teachers were observed and video-recorded, and the teachers were interviewed using the stimulated-recall method. Analysing the data resulted in the emergence and conceptualization of a framework characterizing the PKB of Iranian EFL special-education teachers in terms of eight major knowledge types: knowledge of learners’ characteristics, learner-based pedagogical knowledge, knowledge of classroom management, visual-impact knowledge, knowledge of self, curriculum knowledge, language subject knowledge, and contextual knowledge. These knowledge types and particularly their subcomponents are argued to be heavily reminiscent of the teachers’ learner-centered (vs. content-oriented) attention to their students’ special needs, characteristics, motivations, limitations, potentials, and deprivations. Dealing with an under-researched domain, the study is hoped to sensitize ELT special-education teachers, teacher trainers, and policy-makers to the possibilities and requirements of quality teaching to IDS. 

Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) is prevalent in English instruction to enhance students' learning interest and motivation. However, its effectiveness and practicality have rarely been well confirmed. The present study intended to investigate the effectiveness and practicality of utilizing a developed Mobile Learning Application (MLA) in listening instruction. A quasi-experimental design was applied in the study with a test and a questionnaire as research instruments. The pre-test and post-test were administered to examine the effects of administering MLA on 86 undergraduate students’ listening comprehension, and the questionnaire was employed to investigate 184 students’ perceptions of the practicality of MLA in mastering listening comprehension as data triangulation. Descriptive and inferential statistics were utilized to analyze the collected data. The results showed that a teacher-developed MLA is feasible for effective learning media to enhance students’ listening comprehension with the significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores. Moreover, it also accentuated that students' perception obtained a positive perception of the practicality of a developed MLA in mastering their listening comprehension. This finding encourages EFL teachers to use a mobile learning application in listening instruction to promote students’ independence in mastering listening skills.

Language teaching and language training are integral parts of the educational curriculum in every language centers around the world. Offices, companies, and educational centers should update themselves to keep the current progression and try to help their employees to refresh their minds based on educational development. Hence, this study explored the effectiveness of different in-service training programs on EFL teachers' empowerment concerning two factors: self-efficacy and innovation and creativity held in Khuzestan- Iran. To this end, 30 EFL teachers were selected through convenient sampling related to their experiences in each of the programs- E-learning, Class-based, and Blended ones. The participants were divided into three groups of 10 – Class-based, group A., E-learning, group B., and the experiences of the two classes (A & B), group C.  An interview with 8 open-ended questions was conducted. First, all interviews were transcribed, summarized, categorized, and analyzed. Then, the derived themes were coded and analyzed through content analysis. The findings uncovered that about 80% of the participants leaned to participate in Traditional in-service class (class-based) since it had a great impact on teachers to develop and fortify their educational empowerment. Therefore, policymakers and educational centers should raise their awareness on the notion of teachers' empowerment while emphasizing on, at least, Traditional programs instead of the current E-learning and the blended ones.

The epistemological tenets of sociocultural theory view teacher professional development as a continuous and reflective analysis of pedagogical practices and learner development. Accordingly, inquiry-based approaches to teacher professional development and specifically reflective journals can be an asset for teachers, in their endeavor for self-empowerment, by creating a mediational space in which they can exercise their agency and achieve more productive instructional practices. The purpose of this longitudinal study was to investigate the professional development of ten Iranian EFL student teachers through narrative inquiry, “which is conducted for and by the teacher” during one year of attending practicum. To this end, 100 reflective writings of 10 EFL student teachers, which were written during one year, were analyzed based on three functions of narratives as “externalization”, “verbalization” and “systematic examination” (Johnson & Golombek, 2011). The results indicated the importance of narrative inquiry in the development of the professional identity of student teachers. The results also implied the value of responsive mediation in L2 teacher education. 

Though many studies have been conducted on the effects of self-assessment on L2 learning over the last decade, none has investigated how self-assessment reports lead to improving L2 learning. Thus, this study aims to disclose how self-assessment reports improve Iranian high school students' writing skills and their perceptions of the effectiveness of self-assessment reports in cultivating writing skills. For this purpose, the researchers selected o ne intact grade 11 class (n = 21) at Shahed public high school in Borujerd, Iran. During the instruction lasting 15 sessions held twice a week, a self-assessment report was designed based on Nunan's (2004) template and given to the students to assess their writings weekly. Then, a focus group interview was run with six students. Findings documented a significant improvement in the students' writing skills in terms of content, language, organization, and task requirements. Additionally, the focus group interview results yielded four themes: raising students' awareness of evaluation criteria, making students more self-regulated, letting students have a voice in their academic destiny, and increasing students' motivation to write. In light of the findings, a number of conclusions are drawn, and several implications are put forward.

Research to date has commonly suggested that meaning inferencing through concordance lines can facilitate vocabulary learning. This facilitative role, however, may be subject to mediation by the expanded contexts of the target vocabulary item in concordance and accurate meaning inferencing. Of these plausible factors, the length of the co-text of vocabulary items in concordance context remains under researched. The present study investigated how inferencing in the context of three varying concordance lengths (i.e., two complete sentences, one complete sentence, and a truncated sentence) affect EFL learners' accurate inferencing and vocabulary gain. To this end, 66 upper intermediate learners were assigned randomly into three groups and were asked to infer the meaning of 63 unknown words over seven sessions (nine words each session). For each unknown word, three examples in three different lengths were selected. Results indicated that two complete sentence co-text led to more accurate inferencing and vocabulary gain. The pedagogical implications of the findings are discussed

Translation Studies (TS) moved away from the focus on literary translation and linguistic approaches to new types of translation called Audiovisual translation (AVT). Technological advancements affected the development of AVT. Technology created a situation in the world of moving pictures within which subtitling and dubbing take an important role in optimizing communication. Despite the growing interest in AVT, song subtitling and dubbing remain on the periphery of TS. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the differences that may exist between the strategies used for subtitling and dubbing the songs on some special musical animations from English into Persian based on Schioldager et al.’s (2008) twelve micro-strategies. The corpus of this study consisted of three musical animations which are Strange Magic, Moana , and Frozen 2 . This study focused on nine songs in each animation. The songs had meaningful lyrics, established the character(s), aided in the narrative, and made the audience relate to the character or the story. Hence, in the selected animations 27 songs were selected. The data were analyzed using a chi-squared test. The results indicated a statistically significant difference between six out of 12 strategies for dubbing and subtitling the animation’s songs. The differences were related to “Direct Translation”, “Oblique translation”, “Adaption”, “Addition”, “Substitution”, and “Deletion”. The results revealed the most frequent micro strategies used by Iranian translators in dubbing songs were “Oblique Translation”, “Deletion”, “Substitution”, and “Adaptation”. However, “Direct Translation” and “Addition” were the most used strategies in subtitling songs in animations. Thus, it was revealed that the translator in dubbing not only transferred the dialogue from the source text but also considered the source text idea. The findings offered a pedagogical implication for translation students, subtitlers, and dubbers to recognize better the subtitling and dubbing strategies that were being used by translators in the Iranian context.

Emerging as a novel instructional approach, Active Learning (AL) is predicated on paving the way for students to actively explore knowledge and reflect on the learning processes. Despite its robust theoretical foundations, AL has rarely been implemented by English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in the Iranian context. A lion’s share of this hesitation may be ascribed to the lack of strong empirical findings to underscore its advantages and disadvantages. To fill in this lacuna, this mixed-methods study inspected the effects of AL on fostering EFL learners’ speaking skills (SSs) and willingness to communicate (WTC) in the Iranian context. For this purpose, a total of 87 intermediate EFL learners, were selected using a convenience sampling method. They were homogenized through a Key English Test (KET) and randomly assigned to an experimental group (n = 26) and a control group (n = 25). Afterward, a pre-test, interventions (lasting 18 75-miniute sessions held twice a week), and a post-test were administered. Then, eight participants who actively participated in the interventions were invited to a focus group interview to express their perceptions of and experiences with AL. The results of the independent samples t-tests documented that AL substantially contributed to fostering the participants’ SSs and WTC on the post-test. Additionally, the qualitative findings of a thematic coding analysis yielded four overarching themes; facilitating knowledge construction, developing metacognitive awareness, promoting self-regulated learning, and fostering motivation. The findings provide a number of implications for pertinent stakeholders.

The teacher’s professional identity (TPI) defines their perception of how to behave in their teaching profession, and it may have a significant role in determining their place in educational advancement. Yet, the moderator influence of L2 Teacher Grit (L2TG) , Critical Thinking (CT), Teacher Resilience (TR), and Teacher Self-efficacy Beliefs (TS-EB) on TPI has not been extensively documented in the literature. To fill this lacuna, this study developed a model to show the interplay between TPI, L2TG , CT, TR, and TS-EB. The Teacher’s Professional Identity Scale (TPIS), the L2-teacher Grit Scale (L2TGS), the Watson–Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Form (WGCTAF), the Teacher Resilience Scale (TRS), and the Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (TS-ES) were given to 437 English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers for the intention of collecting this data. Following the findings of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), L2TG , CT, TR, and TS-EB can enhance TPI among EFL teachers. Finally, the implications and future direction were offered to enthusiastic educators and researchers which may enhance their awareness of the link between TPI, L2TG , CT, TR, and TS-EB and the way it can generate great results for the educational system.

The present study investigated the translation of genderism Persian-English. Genderism is an ideology that shows partiality based on biological sex and separates society into two groups in a way that one sex is subordinate to another sex and it is reflected in languages; thus, there are sexist concepts in each language; the concepts are usually culture-oriented. The main question was: How have the sexist concepts been translated from Persian to English? The corpus of this comparative and qualitative study was Zoya Pirzad’s novel (2001 ) Cheraghha-ra Man Khamush Mikonam (L.T. I’ll turn off the lights ) and its translation by Franklin Lewis (2012) Things We Left Unsaid . The framework of the evaluation was Vinay and Darbelnet’s (1995) model. The results revealed that translation of genderism is a challenging task, and the sexiest language of the SL was modified during the translation process; hence, the tone of sexist implications of the source text has been changed to more sexist concepts or anti-sexist concepts.