درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Quality of Classroom Life is considered as a serious issue in academia around the world, and it has recently received global inquiry in EFL and ESL contexts. However, no questionnaire has been developed to assess the Iranian students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards the quality of life in the classroom. After developing a conceptual framework, the final draft of the developed questionnaire with 71 items was administered to the main sample of participants (n=150). An Exploratory Factor Analysis was performed to identify the components of the instrument, followed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis to measure its construct validity. As a result, the final draft of the Quality of Classroom Life Questionnaire comprised 71 Likert-point items. In phase 2, a number of EFL students and teachers (50 teachers and 322 students) participated in the study which was intended to observe the impact of Modular Instruction on the Quality of Classroom Life. Findings of the study suggested that: (a) the Iranian students and teachers had highly positive attitude towards the Quality of Classroom Life, and believed that educational view, teaching quality, classroom environment, classroom management, quality of classroom interactions and puzzle content played a crucial role in exploratory practice; and (b) the modular instruction which was the descendant of Postmethod instruction had a positive impact on the Quality of Classroom Life. The findings promise implications for teachers and teacher educators as well as the materials developers as the knowledge of classroom quality and modular instruction can enhance their understanding of the nature and conditions of learning.

The general consensus on the invaluable contributions of audio-visual materials based on cognitive theory of multimedia learning (CTML) to enhancing the quality of language classes has turned them into indispensable tools which teachers utilize for more effective teaching of different language skills. The primary aim of this study was to explore the effect of audio visual aids on reading skill at university level. The secondary aim was to find out if this change in materials could have any impact on the motivation and attitudes of the students toward English learning. To this end, this quasi-experimental study adopted a pre-test post-test research method. A total of 256 General English university students were divided to experimental (n=184) and control (n=81) groups. The experimental group received audio-visual aids as the treatment while the control group was taught by a conventional text-based method, commonly practiced in General English classes at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences (TUMS). The reading section of preliminary English test (PET) and Gardner’s attitude and motivation test battery (AMTB) were used for data collection. The results of independent samples t-test and Mann-Whitney tests revealed that the students provided with audio-visual materials obtained greater reading outcomes and also showed more positive attitudes and higher motivation toward English learning. Thus, our research revealed that the higher productivity and livelihood of reading classes can be tangible even in the in the narrow space of a single university semester.

Pienemann (1998, 2015) put forward Processability Theory to enlighten why language learners follow definite developmental paths. The aim of the present study was to run a comparative investigation into the difficulty order of different grammatical structures for male and female Iranian EFL learners predicted by Processability Theory. 185 Iranian university students took part in this study. They received a Demographic Questionnaire and a Validated Researcher-Made Grammar Test designed based on the stages of Processability Theory. Item Response Theory (IRT) Rasch Modeling was used to analyze the collected data. Results pertained to the research questions revealed that the stages predicted by Processability Theory do not account for the Iranian male/female EFL learners. Another major finding emerged from the data was that the difficulty level of different grammatical structures presented by Pienneman in PT doesn’t match the difficulty order obtained in this study by male/female EFL respondents. All things considered, results of the study provided a reliable counterevidence for the assumptions of the theory.

This study intended to explore Iranian EFL teachers’ life satisfaction as well as their empathy levels. Furthermore, the relationship between Iranian EFL teacher’s life satisfaction and their empathy was investigated. To achieve these objectives, a group of 245 male and female Iranian EFL teachers with the age range of 20 to 55 years old participated. Data were collected through Life Satisfaction and Empathy Questionnaires. Results revealed that EFL teachers were satisfied with their life and were empathic teachers. Moreover, a significant relationship was found between these two variables. The main conclusion is that life satisfaction can have positive impacts on certain aspects of life; hence, it is recommended that proper conditions be provided for the EFL teachers. Additionally, having empathy with students may create happiness in both students and the teacher. Such happiness can presumably make the student bear a positive perspective towards language learning, thereby making them more motivated to learn English.    

Metadiscourse involves the self-reflective linguistic expressions that refer to the evolving text, the writer, and the imagined readers of that text. This study utilized an interpersonal model of metadiscourse to examine the authors' use of metadiscourse in the Abstract sections of Applied Linguistics Research Articles (RAs). It investigated the distributions of interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers at a corpus of 110 RAs published by celebrity and non-celebrity authors to determine the ways academic writers deploy these resources at a hight-stake research genre to persuade readers in their discourse community. The findings revealed that frame markers with a relative frequency of 112 were the most frequent strategy category for the non-celebrity authors. Moreover, evidentials with a relative frequency of 3 were the least frequently used strategy for the celebrity authors. There were no significant differences in the use of interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers between celebrity and non-celebrity authors. These findings might have implications for the teaching of academic writing and scholarly publishing and for novice writers who aim to publish their studies in academic journals.

Previous literature on the study of identity representation in political discourse has been mainly concerned with the spoken discourse and the representation of self. However, the way different groups of political agents represent others’ identities across languages has not attracted much attention. Using Wodak’s (2007) Discourse Historical approach to CDA, the present study investigates the way EL2 and English speaking political actors and researchers in the context of Iran and the U.S represent others’ identities in their political discourse. Through purposive sampling, 28 English political speeches and columns produced by native and non-native (Persian) speakers of English were selected for analysis. The results of CDA, as well as Chi-square tests of statistical significance, indicated there were differences in the quality and quantity of the strategies employed by the two groups of political agents across language groups. EL2 speakers of English used more implicit, covert, anonymous and less transparent as well as more distant representation strategies than English agents who tended to use more explicit, direct and involved strategies. Implications were drawn for ESP material development at an advanced level.

Listening comprehension is a multifaceted L2 skill and its actual mastery has proved challenging for many EFL learners (Matthews, 2018). Pre-listening supports may help us change the dire situation in developing effective listening competence. Therefore, the current study tried to examine the effect of vocabulary preparation, grammar instruction and background knowledge activation as pre-listening tasks on the listening comprehension among 95 Iranian intermediate EFL learners in three experimental groups who were randomly selected from among 142 Iranian EFL learners after administration of a paper-based TOEFL. In group A, the teacher elaborated on the difficult grammatical structures of the listening comprehension (LC) test and the students did some exercises. Group B practiced related difficult words using synonyms, antonyms, and sentence examples. In group C, some topical knowledge about the content of the LC test was given and discussed. After the treatment, a valid researcher-made LC test was given to all groups. This procedure was followed for four more listening texts and after each treatment, a valid researcher-made LC test based on the text was administered. Data analysis using one-way ANOVA and Scheffe test revealed that background knowledge activation and vocabulary preparation significantly improved learners’ listening performances; however, grammar preparation did not exert a significant influence on EFL listening comprehension. These results were confirmed by the experts’ attitudes in the subsequent qualitative phase of the study. These findings suggest that EFL teachers should use background knowledge activation and lexical preparation prior to the main listening tasks.

Classroom climate has been demonstrated to associate with individuals’ various attributes and outcomes. Recent research has also confirmed students’ goal orientations deserving to be recognized as a significant achievement-related outcome. In this line, the current study intended to examine the relationship between Iranian EFL students’ perceptions of their classroom environment and their achievement goal orientations. The study also aimed to see whether different genders held different perceptions concerning the main study variables. To accomplish this aim, 570 high school students were randomly recruited and the two scales of students’ perceived climate questionnaire (WIHIC) and achievement goal orientation questionnaire (AGQ) were applied. The results indicated that learners held distinct perceptions of classroom climate and different goal orientations with gender having a significant influence on some of their components. Furthermore, correlations were obtained among diverse factors of the study scales. The findings provide implications for understanding the EFL learners’ perceived classroom climate and their achievement goals and hence planning the learning environments taking into account the students' goal orientations and the significant role of gender.