درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

In response to the increasing interest in and need for a practical brief measure in language testing, this study explored the properties of an offline short-form test (OSF) versus a conventional lengthy test. From the total of 98 vocabulary items pooled from the Iranian National University Entrance Exams, 60 items were selected for the conventional test (CT). To build the OSF, we created an item bank by examining the item response theory (IRT) parameter estimates. Data for the IRT calibration included the responses of 774,258 examinees. Upon the results of the item calibration, 43 items with the highest discrimination power and minimal guessing values from different levels of ability were selected for the item bank. Then, using the responses of 253 EFL learners, we compared the measurement properties of the OSF scores with those of the CT scores in terms of the score precision, score comparability, and consistency of classification decisions. The results revealed that although the OSF generally did not achieve the same level of measurement precision as the CT, it still achieved a desired level of precision while lessening the negative effects of a lengthy test. The results also signified an excellent degree of correspondence between OSF and CT scores and classification results. In all, findings suggest that OSF can stand as a reasonable alternative for a longer test, especially when conditions dictate that a very short test be used.

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.

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

In this article, the low back vowel // in word-final positions in Eghlidian dialect, one of Persian dialects, is studied. This vowel is represented phonetically as [], [] and [] in different phonetic environments. Therefore many words were collected via interviewing ten native speakers so that these different alternant forms can be accounted for appropriately. Since one of the authors of this article is a native speaker of the dialect, the verity of the data is confirmed. In writing this article, the collected data were classified in terms of different alternations of the vowel //, then related contexts were analyzed. Analysis of data showed that, firstly, in individual words, the final vowel // is pronounced as [o] when it is preceded by a non-glottal consonant; however, it is pronounced as [] when preceded by a glottal consonant and, secondly, in continuous speech, as a result of an assimilation, the final position vowel // is pronounced as [o] and [], respectively according to the graveness and acuteness of its preceding consonant.

Sarhaddi Balochi dialect, a language variety of Western (Rakhshani) Balochi, employs derivation through affixation as one of its word formation processes. The purpose of this article is to present a synchronic description of the way(s) different derivational affixes function in making complex words in Sarhaddi Balochi as spoken in Granchin[1] district located about 35Kms to the southeast of Khash in Sistan and Baluchestan Province of The Islamic Republic of Iran. The linguistic corpus was gathered through fieldwork. The data were collected from the free speech of 10 uneducated native speakers including 5 males and 5 females of about 5o-80 year old living in Granchin with various social backgrounds. The findings of the research signify that complex words of this dialect are derived via derivational prefixes, infixes and suffixes, among which derivational suffixes are more active or productive. The research also shows that the main derivatives of this dialect are derived verbs, derived nouns, derived adjectives, and derived adverbs.

This study was an attempt to investigate the relationship between teachers' personality type (feeling vs. thinking) and speaking skill of pre- intermediate EFL students in Iranian context. Twelve teachers and forty eight students from a local language institute participated in the study. The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), an instrument based on Jung’s personality theory, was taken from teachers and students were administered Preliminary English Test (PET) interview. SPSS was used to calculate the required analyses. The results showed a statistically significant positive relationship between teacher’s’ personality type and learners’ speaking skill. It was also indicated that there is a statistically significant difference between speaking skill of learners taught by feeling teachers vs. thinking teachers. In fact students in the feeling group had higher speaking scores than their counterparts in the thinking group.