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.

The traditional face-to-face language school has been replaced with online schooling by virtue of the COVID-19 outbreak. However, recent studies have significantly covered teachers’ emotional attitudes toward online education. What is not yet clear is their cognitive attitudes toward online language education, particularly during the recent pandemic. To fill the current gap, researchers selected Innovation diffusion theory (IDT) as the main theoretical framework and explored 11 Iranian EFL teachers’ attitudes through semi-unstructured interviews. The findings of the deductive content analysis revealed that teachers had positive attitudes toward compatibility features of online education; however, they had negative attitudes toward complexity stemming from Computer Assisted Language Learning) CALL (illiteracy, power cut, and low internet speed. Furthermore, teachers prioritize traditional language learning over online ones. Among many pedagogical implications, this study suggests that pedagogical experts should run some teacher training programs and workshops for English teachers to escalate their pedagogical and professional needs to teach both receptive and productive skills through online platforms. Additionally, English teachers should escalate their CALL literacy to efficiently manipulate their online classrooms, culminating in integrating more online tools in their language classes and placing a premium on online teaching rather than traditional ones.

This study examined the effect of rehearsal, strategic, and online planning on the intermediate undergraduate EFL learners’ writing complexity, accuracy, fluency (CAF), lexical variety, and the cognitive psychological performance of attentional allocation to linguistic aspects during planning . To this end, 80 intermediate university students were randomly divided into three experimental groups and one control group. The participants’ performance was compared based on measures of Wigglesworth and Storch’s (2009) fluency, Storch and Wigglesworth’s (2007) accuracy, Foster and Skehan’s (1999) complexity, McKee , Malvern, and Richards’ (2000) vocd-D model of lexical diversity. The study focused on rehearsal, strategic, and online planning in argumentative writing tasks. Retrospective interviews were conducted right after task performance to examine the participants' attentional allocation under three planning-time conditions. It was revealed that rehearsal task planning resulted in higher CAF and lexical variety in comparison to the other groups. Noticeable variation was also evidenced in the participants’ attentional allocation in terms of CAF across different time planning conditions. It was also shown that the learners paid more attention to the conceptualization of ideas during pre-task planning through sentences or clauses while performing a task. Little attention was paid to formulizing complex or accurate utterances. The findings have numerous pedagogical implications for EFL teachers, university instructors, and EFL students.

Teaching grammar has always created some challenges for EFL teachers. Therefore, this study explored the effect of four scaffolding strategies as contextualizing, modeling, metacognitive scaffolding, and bridging on Iranian EFL students’ grammatical knowledge. Moreover, this study examined Iranian EFL learners’ attitudes towards scaffolding strategies. To fulfil the purpose of this study, 40 language learners were chosen based on convenience sampling as the participants of this study. They were both males and females between 20 to 30 years old divided into two groups as the control and experimental groups. After assuring the homogeneity of the students in terms of their English proficiency in general and grammatical knowledge in particular, a parallel achievement test was administered to both groups as the pre-test. Following that, as the treatment, scaffolding strategies were applied for the experimental group to teach grammar and a traditional way of teaching grammar for the control group. After running the classes, a parallel achievement test was administered to both control and experimental groups as the posttest. The data analysis revealed that the experimental group that received scaffolding strategies significantly outperformed in the grammar part compared to the control group which received a conventional way of teaching grammar. It is believed that utilizing scaffolding strategies can motivate learners and facilitate the tough task of grammar learning and thereby make teachers aware of their ability to obtain success in their teaching process.

The present study aimed at investigating the effect of CALL on intermediate EFL learners’ vocabulary learning and comparing it with traditional teaching method. To this end, a quasi-experimental design was used in which 80 students were chosen based on their performance in an Oxford Placement Test (OPT), and were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. Six reading comprehension passages consisting of 72 new words were selected from the book “504 essential words” and used as the pretest of the study. Then, the experimental group received twelve sessions of treatment which was teaching vocabulary through different tools in the computer such as related pictures, video, textual highlights, PowerPoint slides, or Narsis software while the control group received the traditional way of teaching such as providing oral pronunciation of words, explaining their parts of speech, and offering a direct translation of words in Persian. Afterward, both groups attended the post-test of vocabulary at the end of the study. The scores of learners in pretest and posttest were analyzed statistically via running independent T-test. The findings revealed that CALL instruction was more effective in enhancing learners’ vocabulary learning in comparison to the traditional vocabulary instruction. The findings indicated that the experimental group had a better performance than that of the control group, and the learners in the CALL group learned more vocabulary than the learners in the traditional group. The findings of this research have implications for teachers and learners as teachers can use CALL in EFL classes to help them be independent learners, and make vocabulary learning more attractive and enjoyable to learners. The findings can help material developers and syllabus designers to consider the importance of CALL while planning textbooks and materials.

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.