درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Theoretically framed within Vygotskyan sociocultural theory of mind (SCT), Dynamic assessment (DA) is a new approach to classroom assessment offering mediation to help learners perform beyond their level of independent functioning. As a web-based qualitative inquiry into the nature of mediation in DA and its impacts on the participants’ private speech patterns, this study explored the role of private speech as a social and psychological tool to mediate learners' thinking and performance in online DA. The subjects of the study were two Iranian university students along with two English native speakers orally narrating a series of picture stories and having weekly DA mediation with the researcher via Skype. In the present study, the students' private speech markers’ typology emerged out of thematic analysis of oral narratives transcribed before and after DA mediation and it was presented as a criterion to evaluate the learners' progression towards self-regulation. The frequency of occurrence of the learners’ private speech markers was reported and interpreted based on the emergent typology to evaluate the possible changes in their use as the result of DA mediation. Meanwhile, the differences between native speaker participants and the learners’ use of private speech markers in oral narratives were highlighted and discussed. The results of the study indicated that mediation was effective in reducing the number of private speech markers in the learners' narratives after mediation which reflects their progression towards self-regulation in online DA. The findings of the study highlight the importance of private speech as a mediating tool in DA which reflects learners’ struggle to take control of direction of learning and move beyond their current capabilities.

دعوتنامه ی ازدواج به عنوان گونه ای اجتماعی و فرهنگی ویژه، فرصتی شایان توجه را برای مقایسه ی ارزش های فرهنگی اجتماعی منعکس شده در محتوای نوشتاری و ترکیب قسمت های مختلف این گونه در جوامع مختلف زبانی فراهم می نماید. با استفاده ازآموزش گونه ای می توان دانش آموزان را با این گونه و اجزای مختلف تشکیل دهنده ی آن آشنا نمود. آموزش گونه ای این فرصت را به دانش آموزان می دهد که گونه های شناخته شده و بارز در زبان اول و دومشان را مطالعه نموده و اجزای تشکیل دهنده مشترک و همچنین اختصاصی گونه ها را با نگاهی میان فرهنگی و میان زبانی بررسی کنند. تحقیق حاضر بر آن بوده است که دعوتنامه ی ازدواج را به وسیله ی دو روش مکمل و هم پوشاننده ی تحلیل گونه ای و تحلیل انتقادی گفتمان بررسی نماید. تعداد 100 کارت( از هر جامعه 50 کارت) جمع آوری و مورد تجزیه و تحلیل مفایسه ای قرار گرفتند. نتایج تحلیل گونه ای نشان داد که کارت دعوت عروسی در هر دو جامعه زبانی شامل بخش های مشابه و مختلفی در ساختار گونه ای است. نتایج تحلیل انتقادی گفتمان نشان داد که سطح سنتی بودن، مذهبی بودن،، مرد سالاری و سطح تحصیلات از تاثیر گذارترین عوامل بر گونه دعوت نامه ازدواج در هردو جامعه هستند اما شدت تاثیر این عوامل در این دو جامعه زبانی یکسان نیست. نتایج این تحقیق عوامل فرهنگی و اجتماعی حاکم بر دو جامعه ی زبانی ایرانی آمریکایی را مشخص میکند

The present study set out to identify the problematic areas of pronunciation among Iranian female EFL learners. Further, this study investigated the relationship between empathy and authentic pronunciation, along with gender as a moderator variable. Comparing segmental features and phonological processes of both languages helped teachers to predict the target errors. To reach such a goal, a total of 69 Iranian undergraduate EFL learners were recruited from the Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan, majoring in English literature and translation studies participated in the study. The subjects were conveniently sampled and were taking the course Conversation I. After administrating the Basic Empathy Scale (BES: Jolliffe & Farrington, 2006), the students were assigned to two groups: high-empathic group and low-empathic group. Both groups participated in an oral interview twice (before and after segmental form-focused instruction). The data were collected through taping participants’ pronunciation of some words. Two raters analyzed students’ pronunciation in terms of segmental features. The results demonstrated that the absence of some phonemes in the Farsi sound system and some phonological differences between the two languages caused difficulties for EFL learners. Furthermore, it was witnessed that those in the high-level group (i.e., more empathic learners) were more successful in acquiring authentic pronunciation than those in the low-level group.

This article was written based on the key concept of polysystem theory which, in translating any literary text, emphasizes the transference of the social systems in which a text is embedded. As stated by Tynjanov (1978a), polysystem theory saw translated literature as a system operating in the larger social systems of the target text. Thus, the task of understanding as well as transferring such systems in their translations, which can certainly affect the readers’ adequate understanding of texts, is a challenging job for most of the literary translators. After identifying three main social systems in The Great Gatsby as the corpus which was ranked second in the lists of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century, the source and the target texts were studied attentively, to study the way the respective systems were translated by the Iranian literary translators. Therefore, the prominent element of Nord’s textual analysis (1991), macrostructure, was focused throughout data collection procedure. Then, it was demonstrated that especially through an appropriate transference of the major conflict between the two predominant classes in the novel, the translator has managed to suitably convey most of the text’s social systems in his translation. Finally, it could be deduced that most of the literary translators in Iran, somehow transferred the concerned systems into some significantly adequate equivalents in their works.

This study investigated the characteristics of effective secondary school Iranian EFL teachers from students’ and teachers’ perspectives. To this end, 376 junior secondary school students and 32 EFL teachers teaching at various Iranian secondary schools participated in the study. A validated open-ended questionnaire was distributed among the student and teacher participants and asked for their opinions on key characteristics of an effective EFL teacher. A semi-structured interview was also conducted with the teacher participants to investigate why they deemed the characteristics important. The results of the content analysis of the data obtained from the questionnaire and the interview indicated that students and teachers were approximately of the same opinion, both highlighting teachers’ professional qualities (e.g., knowledge of the subject matter, ability to impart knowledge properly, etc.), classroom management-related qualities (e.g., involving all students by assigning pair work/group work activities, assessing their learning progress regularly, etc.), and interpersonal relationships as being of crucial importance for effective EFL teaching. However, they differed in the degree to which they perceived these qualities to be important