درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Dogme Language Teaching (Dogme ELT) is an innovative learner-centered methodology and a movement for teaching English (or any other L2) that primarily focuses on face-to-face interaction between teacher and learners and among the learners themselves (Thornbury, 2009) without using any preplanned and established instructional materials, syllabuses, or preset activities. Despite many claims by the proponents, research evidence for Dogme ELT is very limited; accordingly, this sequential explanatory mixed-method study sought to examine the effect of Dogme ELT on L2 speaking andwillingness to communicate (WTC)across different proficiency levels among Iranian EFL learners at a private language institute. Participants included 14 intermediate, 12 upper-intermediate, and 12 advanced level learners from both genders in three intact classes as the experimental groups. Three other intact classes comprising 13 intermediate, 13 upper-intermediate, and 11 advanced level learners, respectively were selected as control groups who received the mainstream communicative language teaching (CLT) for their L2 instruction. The treatments continued for two subsequent semesters including thirty 1.5-hour sessions. Quantitative data analysis using two-way ANCOVA revealed that Dogme ELT was more effective than CLT only for the advanced but not for the intermediate and upper-intermediate learners’ speaking and WTC. Qualitative data analysis revealed that most advanced and only some upper-intermediate learners had positive attitudes about Dogme ELT. The findings of the current investigation suggest that Dogme ELT should be used for advanced EFL levels and its application should be done with more caution.

The present research tries to show how race, class, and gender and intersectionality in general, have their decisive impact on the black- American women; and how Alice Walker as a womanist, in her selected short stories, tries to show that black women in the U.S. suffer two-fold acts of oppression and discrimination, i.e. male violence affects all women in social life, irrespective of age or social standing, and at the same time being black has exacerbated the black American women’s situation. In the present study, the mentioned socio-political, socio-cultural and institutionalized intersectionality have been analyzed from the perspective of Alice Walker’s selected short stories. Full analysis have been carried out, from applied linguistic point of view,  in Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” and “Roselily” while Alice Walker’s other short stories have been consulted for further analysis and discussion. The method used to analyze the data is descriptive research method.

Vocabulary and grammar are two significant components of English which learners often find challenging in their process of learning English as a foreign language (EFL). Therefore, finding the best way to teach grammar and vocabulary has always been a controversial issue among English teachers and researchers. The present study is an attempt to investigate the effect of dictogloss (DG) task, as one of the focus on form techniques, on EFL learners’ vocabulary versus grammar development. To this end, a quasi-experimental design was utilized to examine the effectiveness of the treatment. In this design, two classes were chosen, one as the experimental group (n=20) and the other as the control group (n=20). The participants were 40 female learners of English as a foreign language at intermediate level. In the experimental group the selected grammatical structures and vocabulary were taught using the DG technique, while in the control group the traditional method of teaching, present-practice-produce was used. The results gained from comparing pretest and posttest scores indicate that, although the experimental group outperformed the control group in learning vocabulary, there was no statistically significant difference between the experimental and control group regarding grammar scores. Therefore, it can be concluded that using DG task was more effective on vocabulary learning of learners than grammar development. The findings of this study will be of help for both English teachers and learners regarding finding the best method of teaching and learning English grammar and vocabulary.

تحقیق حاضر تلاشی است برای ارزیابی مجموعه کتاب های پراسپکت و ویژن (کتاب های زبان انگلیسی دوره اول و دوره دوم دبیرستان) با توجه به سه عنصر اصلی منظورشناسی؛ نشانگرهای ادب ورزی، کنش های کلامی و نقش های زبانی. به همین منظور تمامی مکالمات (۱۷۲ مکالمه) این شش کتاب مورد بررسی و تحلیل دقیق جهت پاسخگویی به موارد ذیل قرار گرفت: پربسامد ترین نشانگرهای ادب ورزی؛ رایج ترین کنش های کلامی وپربسامدترین نقش های زبانی به کار رفته در کتاب های پراسپکت و ویژن نتایج این تحقیق نشان داد که نشانگرهای ادب و نشانگرهای اقدامی پربسامد ترین نشانگرهای ادب ورزی هستند. کنش های کلامیِ نمایندگی و بخشنامه ای پربسامدترین کنش های کلامی هستند. و همچنیمن نقش زبانیِ اطلاعاتی، پرتکرار ترین نقش زبانی به کار گرفته شده در این مجموعه کتاب ها هستند. از سوی دیگر عدم استفاده و یا استفاده محدود از برخی از عناصر منظور شناسی به عنوان نقص در این مجموعه ها شناخته شد. همچنین بر اساس نتایج حاصل از این مطالعه مشخص شد که توزیع مولفه های منظورشناسی به صورت مساوی در مکالمات هر دو سری کتاب ها صورت نپذیرفته است و هیچ ارتباطی میان سطح این کتاب ها و میزان استفاده از این مولفه ها وجود ندارد. و در نهایت، راه کارها و پیشنهاداتی به مسئولین تهیه و تدوین منابع درسی جهت به کارگیری عناصر منظورشناسی در کتاب های درسی زبان انگلیسی و تحقق اهداف آموزشی ارائه شد.

The present study was conducted to investigate the relationship between metacognitive reading strategies, reading self-efficacy, and reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. The participants were 119 Iranian B.A and M.A students majoring in English at Imam Khomeini International University and Islamshahr Azad University. A Michigan Test of English language Proficiency was given to the participants to determine their language proficiency and reading comprehension. Then, they were asked to respond to the two questionnaires of MARSI (Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory), and RSEQ (Reading Self-Efficacy Questionnaire). To analyze the data, multiple regression analyses and correlation procedures were used. The results revealed a significant relationship between the use of reading strategies and reading comprehension. Also, a significant relationship was found between the use of reading strategies and reading self-efficacy. Moreover, the findings showed a positive relationship between reading self-efficacy and reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. The results of this study may have implications for teachers, learners, and materials developers.

This paper deals with the contributions of a language teacher education model by Kumaravadivelu (2012) known as KARDS (knowing, analyzing, recognizing, doing, and seeing) to Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) university teachers’ professional identity reconstruction. The researchers used purposive sampling to select participants. A KARDS questionnaire designed, constructed, and validated by the researchers was used to group twenty teachers into a more KARDS-oriented group and a less-KARDS oriented group. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that the questionnaire was both reliable and valid. Pre-course interview, post-course interview, teacher educator’s and teachers’ reflective journals, and class discussions were used to collect data. After the pre-course interview, there was a treatment during which teachers were familiarized with KARDS. Then, Grounded Theory was used to analyze the data. Findings indicated that there were two big shifts from “uncertainty of practice to certainty of practice” and “the use of fewer macro-strategies to the use of more macro-strategies” in teachers’ professional identities in both groups. The changes were similar and/or the same in nature but not in quantity, and they should be emphasized and included in teacher education programs. The findings may drive teacher education programs, teacher educators, and teachers to welcome and embrace uncertainty and confusion in classrooms. Suggestions to reduce “uncertainty of practice” by teacher education programs and teacher educators are presented in this paper.

In this research, the teacher-researcher (henceforth, I) presents a chronological report over some life-long educational experiences in an EFL setting and during a long period—twenty - five years aimed at verifying/authenticating role conflicts. In so doing, I decided to carve my earlier educational paths to describe my diverse roles/realities. To this end, I recounted my past and presented experiences, including my three roles as (A) Language learner, (B) Language teacher, and (C) Language researcher. Using life-history narrative research designs and in line with auto-ethnography approaches, I initially embarked on critically describing my English language educational experiences from a recollection of past events in my memory through my first two roles—language learner and teacher—and mapped them onto my recently assigned role as a language researcher. The findings were self-revealing to me in that while recounting my experiences, I found out how specific intuited conflicts involving ‘impotency in using the English language for non-educational aims’, ‘the gap between theories and practice’, ‘the influence of essential others on my future decisions’, ‘the duality of exposures with people having more vs. fewer authorities’ among others had inflicted me to a great extent. Then and there, during such a long period for demonstrating my professional identity construction, I summarized my intuited conflicts. This was to designate how the unpredictability of affairs in ELT and maintaining intricate interactions with people in the community of practice, which resulted from numerous aims and led to unpredictable directions, might have influenced me as a language practitioner in my future attempts to experience a new being. The findings may promise implications for professional identity construction as mapped on recent narrative accounts for English language teachers.

Language Learners’ epistemological beliefs (LLEBs), as their conceptions about the nature of L2 knowledge and L2 knowing, are among the determinants of the route and the outcome of language learning; however, research into their dimensional and developmental nature is at the premium. This qualitative study was designed to (a) unravel the dimensions of LLEBs, and (b) delineate data-driven dimension-specific developmental patterns. Following “maximum variation” sampling, data obtained in 30 one-to-one semi-structured oral interviews were subjected to directed qualitative content analysis to detect utterances related to L2 knowledge and knowing conceptions. Seventeen themes each reflecting beliefs about one of epistemological beliefs’ core dimensions (i.e., knowledge certainty: N=4; simplicity: N=4; source: N=5; and justification: N=4) were extracted, and inter-coder agreement ensured. In the second phase, data obtained in three separate focus-group interviews from another 18-member sample selected via “critical case sampling” were analyzed to sketch differential dimension-related beliefs, if any, and sketch possible developmental paths. The results showed clear distinctions across the three sub-samples in terms of all the 17 LLEBs’ themes extracted in phase 1, roughly reflecting Baxter Magolda’s (1992) four-point epistemological development continuum from “absolute knowing” through “transitional knowing” and “independent knowing” to “contextual knowing.” The findings indicate the dimensionality and developmental nature of LLEBs, and the alignment of LLEBs with research on domain-general epistemology.

This quantitative study aimed to investigate the combined effects of two types of strategic planning, namely collaborative and teacher-led planning conditions and task complexity on Iranian intermediate language learners' oral production in terms of complexity, accuracy, and fluency. To achieve this purpose, 90 EFL learners were selected through convenience sampling from a language institute in Shiraz, Iran, and randomly assigned to two control and four experimental groups. The study adopted a quasi-experimental design in the form of pretest, treatment, and posttest. In the first step, all participants took part in a speaking pretest in which they were required to narrate a story based on a series of picture description tasks. While the experimental groups underwent 10 treatment sessions of picture description task performance along with two planning types i.e., teacher-led and collaborative planning conditions, the control groups were not allowed to plan the task performance. In the last session, the language learners took a posttest whose results were compared with those of the pretest. The findings revealed that the language learners in the collaborative planning groups outperformed the other groups in terms of both fluency and complexity. Further, teacher-led groups did better than the other groups in terms of accuracy. This study carries crucial implications for EFL teachers, material developers, syllabus designers, and speaking skill examiners.