درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Due to the significance of teachers’ beliefs and individual variables, a bulk of studies has focused on teacher characteristics over the past two decades. As an attempt to further clarify the interplay between teacher-related constructs in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context, the present study set out to explore the structural model hypothesizing the predictive role of teachers’ self-efficacy and collective teacher efficacy in affecting the psychological well-being of teachers in Iranian EFL context. In so doing, a sample of 179 English teachers was given the three self-report scales measuring the variables under investigation. As for the statistical analysis, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was employed to test the fit of the hypothesized model. The results indicated that teacher self-efficacy accounted for 19.8% of the variance while collective teacher efficacy amounted to 11.3% of the variance in psychological well-being. In addition, it was revealed that although both predictors had a unique effect on psychological well-being, teacher self-efficacy was a stronger predictor of psychological well-being than collective teacher efficacy. The results and implications are finally elaborated.

In recent years, Instagram has gained considerable attention in scientific research because of its popularity among English language learners. This study aimed to conduct a systematic review of empirical studies that investigated the use of Instagram as a mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) tool in ESL/EFL and attempted to perform a scientific mapping of the literature. To this end, a corpus of studies since 2010 was retrieved in January 2023 from six academic databases and reviewed through the stages of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis (PRISMA). A critical appraisal of 48 experimental studies included in this review was carried out and a meta-analysis of 11 eligible studies was conducted. The results of the meta-analysis confirmed the significant effect size of the use of Instagram in ESL/EFL. The bibliometric analysis revealed that the research productivity is up and found writing and vocabulary skills as the main focus in most of the studies. This study could have implications for teachers and researchers to gain a broad overview of the integration of Instagram in English language teaching and to know the current research trends in the field for future research.

This study explored the impact of task complexity on task performance of Iranian lower-intermediate and advanced language learners. It also investigated how working memory was related to task performance and mediated the influence of complexity conditions on language performance. Task complexity was operationalized by designing differing tasks along the +/- reasoning and the +/- few elements dimensions. Eighty Iranian EFL learners (40 lower-intermediate and 40 advanced) carried out argumentative tasks which differed in complexity level. Working memory capacity was measured by applying the Persian translation of Wechsler's (1987) working memory test, and task performance was measured in terms of accuracy and fluency. The results revealed that for lower-intermediate learners, task complexity led to decrease in accuracy in the complex tasks, while fluency was boosted in simple task condition. For advanced learners, task complexity resulted in improved accuracy, while fluency decreased in complex condition. The results of multivariate analyses revealed that learners' language performance in the complex group significantly differed from that of the simple group on the combined dependent variables for both lower-intermediate and advanced learners. There was no significant correlation between working memory and any performance measures.

: Corrective Feedback (CF) provision on performance involves calling attention to learners' erroneous utterances, which stimulates classroom language learning. Despite widespread research in this area, a controversy still exists as to the time of CF in communicative tasks especially when learners' task engagement is targeted. Employing 60 intermediate-level Iranian learners, a four-week study examined the effects of immediate versus delayed CF types on oral engagement, grammar gain as well as on Complexity, Accuracy and Fluency (CAF) in the context of a dictogloss task. The statistical analysis showed that despite statistically significant improvements in the case of Grammaticality Judgement Test (GJT) from the pre-test to the post-test, no statistically significant difference was found between the two groups with regard to their grammar gain, complexity, accuracy, fluency, as well as on their social and cognitive engagement. However, results in the case of behavioral and emotional engagement revealed that there were statistically significant differences between the two groups of immediate and delayed CFs. The findings of the present study call for more flexibility and confidence on the part of the teachers in providing either immediate or delayed CF whenever appropriate and without being concerned about the adverse effects of feedback

The current study explores the way the six Persian translators of Woolf’s two novels,<em> The Waves</em> (<em>TWS</em>) and <em>To the Lighthouse</em> (<em>TTL</em>), have translated the proper names (PNs). Also, how the PNs might be connected to the translators’ style through foreignizing/domesticating strategies that the translators have used through the optional shift. Also, how the translator shows his discursive presence may be related to how the translator may employ some recurring patterns for translating the PNs through some strategies. The procedure of ‘retention of the name’ is the nearest to foreignization and the farthest from domestication; the procedure of ‘replacement of the name by a TL name’ is the nearest to domestication and farthest from foreignization. Comparing the strategies, we can see that Najafipour has used the foreignizing and Ghebraei foreignizing and domesticating strategies differently. Also, Bejanyian tends to make the TL sound foreignized; Hosseini shows a pattern of domestication or normalization. Both Daryush and Keyhan have tried to keep the middle ground, though offering a tendency to use foreignizing strategies with a higher propensity. The final result shows that the six Persian translators have translated the PNs differently, whether using foreignizing or domesticating strategies.

This paper aimed to critically look at team teaching tactics and the role it plays in achieving teaching and learning effectiveness. Specifically, using psychological counseling procedures, this study examined the benefits this learner-centered attitude brings to the student teachers and students, and also discussed different possible issues that may arise. To this purpose, a mix-methods design which comprised pretest, posttest, questionnaires, and interview was utilized to collect the necessary data. 52 Iranian high school EFL students were selected through purposive sampling and divided into a Control Group (CG) and an Experimental Group (EG). Also, two English language teachers, and a teacher as counselor were purposively selected to participate in team teaching procedure. The control group was taught through traditional methods of language teaching and the experimental group was taught through team teaching procedures. The posttest results showed that there were significant differences in favour of the experimental group between the two groups in terms of their oral proficiency.Also, the results obtained from the questionnaires revealed that that there were significant differences in the participants’ outlook towards using team teaching methods in the language class. It was further found that there was a very strong evidence of partnership between team teaching plus counseling practice and inherent academic motivation as well as between team teaching and counseling procedure. The findings of the study are valuable for English language instructors, materials developers, program planners, and education administrators.

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) presents teaching techniques and procedures along with the underlying theory and principles and is comprehensible to readers who are new to the field of English Language Teaching (ELT). David Nunan (2015) proposes rich illustrations of theoretical constructs through providing practical examples of how to develop teaching materials and tasks from sound principles; he also presents content through various textual types including classroom vignettes which show language teaching in action, question and answer sessions. The book consists of twelve concise chapters: Language Teaching Methodology, Learner-Centered Language Teaching, Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, Pronunciation, Vocabulary, Grammar, Discourse, Learning Styles and Strategies, and Assessment.

The digital information age requires skills and strategies that are crucial in comprehending online academic texts. Also, research has emphasized the crucial role of critical thinking (CT) in education. Thus, this explanatory sequential mixed-methods study aimed to (a) identify Iranian EFL students’ metacognitive online reading strategies and CT skills, and (b) investigate the possible relationship between Iranian EFL students’ metacognitive online reading strategies in academic texts with their CT skills. To these ends, 80 Iranian EFL university students, selected nonrandomly from Shahrekord University, took part in this study and responded to the Pookcharoen’s (2009) Online Survey of Reading Strategies and Facione, Facione, Blohm, and Giancarlo’s (2002) California Critical Thinking Skills Test. In the follow-up, to probe into metacognitive online reading strategy use, 10 Iranian EFL university students were selected to do think-aloud online reading tasks. The descriptive statistics indicated that the EFL university students greatly preferred to use problem solving strategies more, followed by different global and support reading strategies respectively. Also, evaluation and inductive (sub)skills of CT were used mostly by the university students. Moreover, the results of the think-aloud provided evidence in support of quantitative results, confirming various problem solving, global and support strategy use in online academic reading. Furthermore, Pearson correlations revealed a positive and significant relationship, though it was small, between metacognitive online reading strategy use and CT skills. Integrating the findings from the quantitative and qualitative components call for metacognitive strategy assistance and instruction and CT development to improve online reading comprehension.

This research sought to investigate the relationship between simultaneous interpreters’ oral cloze performance, their emotional intelligence, and gender. In other words, the study tried to predict the variability in performance on simultaneous interpreting (SI) oral cloze test based on the variability in gender, emotional quotient (EQ) and its subscales. To this end, a number of seventy participants majoring in English Translation attending the course Oral Interpretation were selected. The Emotional Quotient Inventory (Bar-On, 1997) questionnaire was given to participants to gather the data. The students were also asked to take an oral cloze exam. The results of the study showed that no significant relationship was found between total EQ and oral cloze performance. However, two of the subscales of EQ, i.e. Flexibility and Stress Tolerance were found to be positive predictors of SI oral cloze score together. The results of the study indicated that the mere acquisition of oral cloze skill as one of the skills required for simultaneous interpreting, cannot guarantee students’ achievement in interpreting. Rather the consideration of personality traits can have a facilitative effect. Moreover, with regard to gender no association was found between student interpreters’ performance and their gender.

Translation seems a spoon feeding activity if it is taken mere transference of meaning from one language to another i.e. source language to target language. A good translation is usually considered, a translation in which merit of the original work is so completely transfused into another as to be distinctly apprehended by the native speaker of the country to which that language belongs as it is by those who speak the language of the original work. This vendetta leads to the presupposition that there may be other types of translations i.e. a bad translation, an average translation, or the best translation. There is another controversy of free (sense) and literal translation (sense & style). Sometimes it is taken as word for word translation and sometimes as sense for sense translation. But the problem arises when the cultural, poetical, linguistic, stylistic, and technological issues are involved in translation. To find out its inherent impossibility, the participants were given one quotation to translate it from Urdu to English. It is concluded that although the quotation which was given for translation was quite simple and did not have cultural and equivalence problems to a great degree, yet the varied responses with respect to structure, understanding, punctuation, and expression show that it was not an easy task

The current study aimed to develop a Formative Assessment of Writing (FAoW) instrument through operationalizing Black and Wiliam’s (2009) Formative Assessment (FA) and Hattie and Timperley’s (2007) feedback model. Following intuitive approach of scale construction (Hase & Goldberg, 1967), a comprehensive review of the literature was undertaken, and 30 Likert scale items were devised.  The items tapped students’ experiences of FA practices in writing classrooms and their attitudes towards the helpfulness of each practice.  In a focused group interview, the items were intuitively classified by three experts of writing and assessment based on the five components of FA (clarifying criteria, evidence on students’ learning, feedback to move learners forward, peer assessment and autonomy) and in three stages (“Where the learner is going/Pre-writing, “Where the learner is right now/Writing and “How to get there/ Post-writing”). The expert interviews resulted in revisions and 20 additional items. They also agreed that items in FAoW instrument corresponded with the theoretical frameworks of FA as well as the three stages of feedback.