درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The present study was conducted to identify novice and experienced Iranian EFL teachers’ beliefs towards the most effective written corrective feedback types and the most serious errors they might address while correcting students’ paragraphs and see whether there exist any tensions between what they believed and what they practiced through the methodology of pre-observation interview, observation, and post-observation interview. The results revealed that for novice teachers, there were fewer tensions between their stated beliefs and observed practices, yet this tension was more obvious while interviewing experienced teachers. Some implications for language teacher education will also be discussed.

The advent of Web 2 tools and their features have allowed Internet users not only to seek information but also to generate and edit on-line information. However, excessive reliance of students, particularly EFL students, on the Internet has raised the issue of information credibility or quality of the information found online. This study sought to investigate the relationship between Iranian EFL university students’ credibility judgment and their learning styles and critical thinking. It also intended to examine the extent to which the learners employ credibility judgment strategies to verify web-based information. To this end, 212 Iranian EFL students, 165 female(s) and 47 male(s) (or add) students, received three questionnaires: Honey’s (2004) Critical Thinking questionnaire, Kolb's (1984) Learning Style inventory, and the adapted version of Credibility Judgment questionnaire originally developed by Metzger, Flanagin, and Zwarun (2003). The results of descriptive as well as bivariate and multivariate correlation analysis revealed that, first, Iranian EFL students employ credibility judgment strategies at a moderate level, and second, critical thinking is a better predictor for credibility judgment behavior of EFL students than learning style. Moreover, three learning styles were significantly related to the currency sub-scale of credibility judgment. The findings can assist curriculum planners, policymakers, and instructors to develop plans for empowering EFL students with the skills they need to evaluate on-line information for accuracy, objectivity, authority, and currency.

Writing is thought as the most complicated skill in second language acquisition; therefore, L2 researchers have always been in pursuit of discovering an effective approach to improve it. One of the most debated ways is feedback which has a key role in improving the quality of writing. Much of the previous research on feedback has focused on analyzing different types of feedback and their effect on the learners’ writings and few studies have examined the effectiveness of computer feedback. Therefore, the present study was conducted to 1) determine what aspects of students’ writings receive computer feedback, 2) examine the difference in the effect of computer-generatedfeedback (CBF) and Teacher-based feedback (TBF) on improving the students’ writing quality and 3) compare the differences in Depth of Processing (DOP) in processing computer and teacher feedback. The results indicated that content, style and organization of their essays received feedback from the teacher and the computer. Teacher feedback was more effective in terms of its impact on improving the quality of the writing of the students than computer-generatedfeedback and it resulted in deeper processing of lexical items, whereas computer-generated feedback invoked medium processing on grammar.   

Teacher training programs in Iran have undergone extensive investigations and modifications since the establishment of educational institutions. This interest in teacher education has emerged from the innovative approaches to teaching suggested by the trends and findings of the time. Regarding the importance of curriculum evaluation in the EFL teacher education, this study mainly focused on the adequacy and effectiveness of the latest EFL pre-service teacher education curriculum through the eyes of the key stakeholders. Both quantitative and qualitative data were used in the study. The participants of the study were 227 teachers, teacher educators, and senior student teachers. The data were gathered through a 35-item Likert scale questionnaire on the curriculum courses with stated objectives for each course and semi-structured interviews. The findings revealed that the latest curriculum was adequately laid out and positively evaluated by the participants in terms of pedagogic and linguistic competence although there were some shortcomings and slight differences in the participants' perceptions. There were some slight perceptual differences among the participants. The findings of this study may provide some helpful suggestions for promoting the latest EFL pre-service teacher education curriculum.

Enhancing speaking ability is an important component of the acquirement of a language. The innovative aspect of this study is improving speaking ability through online strategy-based instruction by applying the Moodle course management system as an instructional platform. To this end, a group of 80 Iranian female and male students at the advanced level participated in the treatment. Participants of the study were divided into four groups of 20. The subjects in experimental groups benefited from two particular instructional focuses of this study include social and affective strategies. In order to assess the effect of the treatment pre and posttests design were utilized. Consequently, the data were analyzed through One-Way ANOVAs and t-tests. The findings revealed that strategy treatment was successful in improving the participants’ speaking ability. Therefore, the findings suggest that online strategy-based instruction can positively influence the speaking ability of Iranian advanced EFL learners. In addition, a questionnaire from Kitchakarn (2015) was employed to understand students’ perceptions and attitudes toward computer-based learning. The statistical analysis of the questionnaire revealed positive attitudes of participants toward computer-based learning.This study may have pedagogical implications for material practitioners, CALL package designers and distance learning planners to include strategy instruction in English courses.

This study investigated mitigation in the supervisory discourse of Iranian language teacher supervisors to see what mitigation devices these language teacher supervisors in Iran used to achieve a balance message clarity and politeness when delivering negative feedback. Using convenient sampling, 10 post-observation feedback conferences from Iran Language Institute, Shiraz University Language Center, and Safir English Language Academy in Shiraz, Tehran, and Mashhad were recorded and transcribed. The data were examined using Wajnryb's (1994) typology of mitigation devices. The findings of the study indicated that Iranian language teacher supervisors tended to use what Wajnryb (1994) called “above-the-utterance-level” mitigation, something between “hyper-mitigation” (highly mitigated language) and “hypo-mitigation” (hardly mitigated language) though they could have made a more appropriate use of the host of possible mitigation devices to further soften their rather directive language thereby promoting reflection on the part of the teachers. The most frequently used mitigation devices included qualm indicators, modal verbs, interrogatives, clause structures and hedging modifiers respectively with the rest of the mitigation devices considerably underused indicating that training in supervisory discourse is essential for Iranian language teacher supervisors. The findings hold implications for teacher education programs, language teaching institutes and language teacher supervisors to consider and work on mitigation devices to be able to deliver negative feedback both clearly and politely.

A longitudinal study was planned, and a scale was suggested for assessing EFL learners’ oral presentations. The scale had three major evaluation components: `Preparation’, `Organization’, and `Presentation’. The students were informed about the rating scale against which their performances would be evaluated. Throughout the course each student had five performances on different occasions. The results of the study indicated that: (a) significant improvement was observed in the learners’ performances, (b) ANOVA results indicated that the five performances were significantly different, (c) there were high correlations between each paired performances, and (d) the rating scale was a reliable and consistent measure by means of which the instructor could assess the student’s speaking ability.

Therapeutic discourse is a special type of organizational discourse which is used by psychotherapists when treating their patients. The present study uses the conversation analysis approach to find the principles of turn taking in the therapeutic situation. This study specifically examines the therapeutic discourse of treatment sessions for patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) based on the Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) approach. The method used in this research is qualitative. The corpus used in this study included 2520 minutes of conversation in psychotherapy sessions. The participants in this study were 16 people of both sexes. ATLAS ti. computer software has been used to construct and present the verbal pattern. The results of this study show that most of turn taking were related to female clients and psychotherapists. This result is related to the relationship between clients and psychotherapists, women's verbal habits, excessive curiosity, and their challenging personality. The presence of overlap in the speech of female psychotherapists and clients and pause in other conversations have been the most widely used signs of turn taking in this type of conversation. The present study has faced some limitations. One of the most important limitations of this research was the prevalence of Covid 19 virus. Also, obtaining the consent of some psychologists and clients to record their videos and voices in psychotherapy sessions has been another limitation of this research. Given the importance of communication and linguistic studies in psychotherapy, it is suggested that future research be conducted on the following topics: “Comparison of GAD Patients’ Speech Pattern with Speech Pattern of Other Anxiety Disorders” and “The effect of direct and indirect expression on anxiety in patients with anxiety disorders”.

Literature review indicates that an effective and good teacher has an important role in students' performances and their success. Pivotal roles of teachers may affect students’ attitudes and motivations to language learning. Improving the field of foreign language teaching and learning without improving the qualities of EFL teachers seems impossible. This attempt, at first hand, requires recognizing and identifying the qualities of effective EFL teachers. The purpose of this study was to characterize and investigate qualities of an effective English language teacher (EELT) as perceived by Iranian English language learners. A questionnaire which was based on four categories including English proficiency, pedagogical knowledge, organization and communication skills, and socio-affective skills was administered to 60 foreign language learners at Azad University of Tabriz. The collected data were statistically analyzed. The results showed that students expect a good English teacher to have the ability to develop proper relationships with students, ability to build students’ confidence, ability to maintain discipline in the classroom as the most important points. The findings of the present study have some useful implications for language teachers to know more about the perceptions and opinion of the students about themselves. They can plan and implement behaviors and activities that would encourage learners to get involved more in the English language learning process.