درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Practical improvements in students’ overall success can be made if we take into account the contribution of learning environments to learners’ various attributes that would greatly affect their academic selves. This study aimed at scrutinizing the possible associations among Iranian EFL students’ perceived classroom climate, academic self-concept, learning self-regulation, and academic identity status. 420 university students were asked to fill out College and University Classroom Environment Inventory (CUCEI), Academic Self-Concept (ASC) Scale, Learning Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SRQ-L), and Academic Identity Status (AIS) Questionnaire. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and based on its several goodness-of-fit criteria, the proposed model of the possible interactions of the main variables was confirmed. Furthermore, classroom climate was correlated positively with subscales of learning self-regulation and academic self-concept and negatively with academic identity status. Besides significant correlations among study variables, the final model also revealed some intra-scales associations. Multiple regression analysis also indicated some significant predictions. The findings could provide classroom instructors and university syllabus designers with implications so that they can plan the EFL environments and class activities taking into consideration students’ various academic characteristics. This involves their status of self-concept, identity, and regulation to help them achieve highly recognized long-term academic objectives.

This study investigated learning style preferences among professional translators. The purposes of the study were to (a) find the prevailing learning style among the Iranian professional translators; (b) reveal any significant difference in the translators’ learning style preferences in terms of gender; and (c) find any significant difference between individual learning style and translation competence of the male and female translators. To this end, 110 professional translators from 35 translation centers in three Southern Provinces of Iran (Fars, Hormozgan, and Bushehr) were selected through non-probability sampling. The data pertaining to learning style were collected through an adaptation of Honey and Mumford’s learning style questionnaire, and translation competence was examined through a text that the participants translated. Findings revealed that the translators’ predominant learning style was Reflector, followed by Pragmatist, Activist, and Theorist, although those preferring the Theorist style showed better performance. Furthermore, the findings did not show any significant difference between translators’ gender and learning style preferences. Finally, results of one-way ANOVA revealed that there was a statistically significant difference across the groups in terms of learning style preferences and translators’ translation competence. Some pedagogical implications were also discussed.

This study examined the effects of input-oriented and output-oriented tasks with different involvement load indices on Iranian EFL learners' comprehension and production of lexical collocations. To achieve this purpose, a sample of 180 intermediate-level EFL learners (both male and female) participated in the study. The participants were in six experimental groups. Each of the groups was randomly assigned to one of the experimental conditions, namely input-oriented tasks with involvement load 1 (True-false), 2 (Matching), 3 (Multiple-choice), and output-oriented tasks with involvement load 1 (Short response), 2 (Fill in the blanks), and 3 (Sentence formation). At the end of the treatment period, the researchers administered a 40-item test in multiple-choice format and a 40-item test in fill-in-the-blanks format to assess the participants' comprehension and production of collocations. The collected data were analyzed using two different two-way ANOVAs and a series of independent-samples t-tests. The results showed that the tasks with higher involvement load indices were more effective on both receptive and productive knowledge of lexical collocations. The results also revealed that output-oriented tasks were more beneficial than input-oriented tasks at all three indices of involvement load. These findings can have theoretical and pedagogical implications for language teachers, researchers, and learners.

Inspired by Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory (SCT), the current study intended to investigate the effect of summary training (i.e., oral and written) on intermediate EFL learners’ reading comprehension in different conditions (i.e., individual and collaborative). Data collection tools and procedures encompassed PET test, First Certificate in English (FCE) reading pre-test, and post-test. First, to ensure that the instruments, scoring, as well as summary training procedures were reliable, the researchers conducted a pilot test. During the main study, 120 Iranian EFL intermediate male and female learners aged from 16-18 were considered as the main participants. Learners were divided into 6 groups (i.e., three individual and three collaborative conditions). Furthermore, each condition included three groups with oral summary, written summary groups, and no summary group. A post-test followed the treatment that lasted for 6 sessions. A series of ANOVA with follow up pair-wise comparisons and a series of independent-samples t-tests indicated that: (1) summary training, especially the oral one, was more effective in enhancing the EFL learners’ reading comprehension, and (2) members of the collaborative groups outperformed the members of the individual groups regarding their reading comprehension development. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed concerning enhancing the EFL learners’ reading comprehension.

Vocabulary is one of the essential components of language and learning phrasal verbs as part of vocabulary is quite challenging for foreign language learners. The present study aimed at investigating the effects of visual and auditory input enhancement on learning non-congruent phrasal verbs. The participants of the study were 90 intermediate English language learners who were divided into two experimental and one control groups. The first experimental group received visual input enhancement and the second experimental group auditory input enhancement, and the control group no enhanced material. All three groups were tested on their knowledge of non-congruent phrasal verbs before and after the treatment, using a non-congruent phrasal verb test developed by the researcher. The results of the data analyses indicated that both visual and auditory input enhancement were effective in learning non-congruent phrasal verbs by Iranian EFL learners, and that both groups outperformed the control group in their achievement. 

Autonomous learning and social activity have excessively been the focus of interest in second language acquisition over the past decades. The present study aimed to explore how activity theory-as a branch of sociocultural theory focusing on social context-can promote Iranian EFL learners’ autonomy. To this end, fifty-six EFL students studying English translation at the Islamic Azad University, Tehran Central Branch, participated in the study. The participants were assigned to two groups, one experimental group and one control group. At the beginning of the semester, both groups took a language proficiency test to ensure their homogeneity. They also completed an autonomy questionnaire as the pre-test and post-test. The instruction in both groups was based on a five-step process of developing the academic writing skill, including prewriting, organizing, writing the first draft, revising and editing, and writing a new draft. However, only the experimental group received the instruction through an e-learning platform designed based on the six elements of activity theory-subjects, objects, mediating artifacts, rules, community, and division of labor-suitable for EFL writing classrooms. The results revealed that integrating activity theory to e-learning had a decisive role in enhancing the students’ learner autonomy. It is hoped that the findings raise both teachers and students’ awareness of implementing activity theory as a social learning framework to foster autonomous learning in EFL contexts.

Research articles have received a wide interest in discourse studies particularly in genre analysis over the last few decades. A vast number of studies have been centered on identifying the organizational patterns of research articles in various fields. While Introduction section has enjoyed a lot of attention, very few studies have focused on rhetorical structure of qualitative and quantitative research articles. This genre-based investigation reports on a study of the Introduction sections of 15 qualitative and 15 quantitative research articles in Applied Linguistics from five high impact journals published from 2008-2012. Based on Swales’ (2004) move structure model, this study focuses on Move 3 (introducing the present work) and examines how qualitative and quantitative research article writers introduce their work in Introduction section. The analysis revealed that there were similarities in the overall presence and use of steps in both groups, some differences in the overall presence and frequency of directive determinants were obvious which could be attributed to the different nature of these research designs.

تحقیق حاضر نظریه ویگاتسکی در مورد حوزه رشد تقریبی و استعاره وی در مورد کمک تدریجی و مبانی هویت اجتماعی فرهنگی نورتون را به عنوان اساس نظری استفاده می کند. این تحقیق به بررسی دقیق مکانیسم های کمکی اجتماعی فرهنگی اتخاذ شده در مشارکت های بین دانشجویی و دانشجو و معلم می پردازد. این بررسی تغییرات رفتاری فرهنگی اجتماعی زبان آموزان و همچنین چگونگی شکل گیری هویت اجتماعی فرهنگی آنان از طریق مشارکت در نگارش راهنمایی شده را مورد مطالعه قرار می دهد. برای این منظور معیار درجه بندیلیدز برای تعیین دقیق گفتمان های کمک کننده به هویت فرهنگی اجتماعی استفاده شده است. این گفتمان ها بین 32 دانشجوی سال دوم زبان و ادبیات انگلیسی در دانشگاه شیراز صورت گرفته است که در نگارش گروهی مشارکت کرده اند. تحلیل گفتمان کمکی صورت گرفته در این مشارکت ها اطلاعات مفیدی را در رابطه با چگونکیشکل گیری هویت اجتماعی فرهنگیزبان آموزان آشکار می سازد. نتایج این تحقیق به طور ویژه حاکی از آن است که گفتمان های صورت گرفته بین زبان آموزان و معلم که ازابزارهای زبانی بهره برده انداساسی ترین نقش را در شکل گیری هویتی جدید و رسیدن به استقلال یعنی تکامل هویت اجتماعی فرهنگی ایفامی کند که برخی از این ابزارها عبارتند از: رفتارهای عمدی و هدفمند، توجه مشترک، مشارکت عاطفی، چرخ ارتباطی، واکنش وابسته، رفتار میان-فردی، و استفاده از زبان اول در تکالیف نگارشی مشترک.