درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Investigating teachers’ cognitions, both in general education and in language teaching, has gained momentum in the past few decades. Yet, the practical knowledge-base (PKB) of practitioners who teach languages to students with special needs has not been amply explored. The present study aimed to investigate the personal PKB of EFL teachers of individuals with Down syndrome (IDS). To this end, several classes of three Iranian EFL special education teachers were observed and video-recorded, and the teachers were interviewed using the stimulated-recall method. Analysing the data resulted in the emergence and conceptualization of a framework characterizing the PKB of Iranian EFL special-education teachers in terms of eight major knowledge types: knowledge of learners’ characteristics, learner-based pedagogical knowledge, knowledge of classroom management, visual-impact knowledge, knowledge of self, curriculum knowledge, language subject knowledge, and contextual knowledge. These knowledge types and particularly their subcomponents are argued to be heavily reminiscent of the teachers’ learner-centered (vs. content-oriented) attention to their students’ special needs, characteristics, motivations, limitations, potentials, and deprivations. Dealing with an under-researched domain, the study is hoped to sensitize ELT special-education teachers, teacher trainers, and policy-makers to the possibilities and requirements of quality teaching to IDS. 

Materials are the most noticeable components of every language-learning context. One of these materials is the specific textbooks being used by English language academies; they are crucial in directing EFL teachers and learners and guiding them through the route of language learning. The present study attempts to compare the cultural content of two course books being used currently in Iran called ILI and Rise and Shine series in order to see which one is more useful in developing the intercultural competence of EFL learners. The participants of this study include 30 EFL teachers (15 teachers in ILI who teach advanced level books and 15 teachers in Chitsazan academy who teach advanced level books). The instrument of this study includes a questionnaire adapted from (Ahmadi Safa, Moradi et al. 2015) that consists of 38 questions designed based on Likert scale. The collected date were analyzed by an independent t-test. The obtained results revealed that Rise and Shine series include more intercultural features than ILI series and they are more applicable in improving the intercultural competence of EFL learners.

Task-based language teaching is considered an effective way to achieve a harmony between grammar and communication. The present study investigates two different ways of teaching modal verbs: task-based versus traditional approaches. To this purpose, an Oxford Placement Test was administered to select 40 homogeneous participants out of a larger population who took this test. The selected participants were randomly divided into experimental and control groups of 20 students each. Those in the experimental group attended an English class six days a week, practicing grammar through tasked-based approach, while the control group did not receive any task-based work. The OPT was administered at the end of the semester again to see which group could do modal verbs better. A final test of modal verb tasks was also administered at the end of the study to see if all the learners have improved in using modal verbs in the same way/at the same amount through task-based language teaching. The results of this study indicated that there is a statistically significant difference between the experimental group and the control group, meaning that teaching modal verbs through task-based approaches has been more effective than teaching them in traditional ways. It was also revealed that the modal verb can was improved much more, while have to and must were improved less. The results of the study may have a significant implication for teaching modal verbs in particular and language learning in general.

The current paper primarily provides an account of how apology speech acts are internally intensified in Persian. Moreover, the study checks to what extent contextual variables, namely social distance and severity of offense, may motivate the internal intensification of apology speech acts. To these ends, the study collected the required speech acts through a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) from among Persian male native speakers. The data was analyzed based on the coding scheme developed by Blum-Kulka, House, and Kasper (1989). The results revealed that apology speech acts are intensified in Persian in most cases through universal strategies of internal intensification. Moreover, the Persian speakers are sensitive to severity of the offense, as a context-internal variable, which motivates more internal intensifications of apologies. The findings, however, revealed that social distance as a context-external variable does not prompt the use of internal intensifications differently in situations where there is social distance between interlocutors compared to situations where there is no social distance between interlocutors.

Learner autonomy (henceforth LA) has become a buzz word in education in general and language education, in particular, for more than a decade now. Focusing on investigating Iranian EFL teachers’ conceptions of LA, the current study, taking a mixed method approach, attempted to illustrate how Iranian EFL teachers’ conceptions of leaner autonomy mapped out. To that end, 7 teachers, purposefully cluster sampled, were interviewed. After data saturation, the result of the interviews and the data gleaned from the literature were fed into the development of a questionnaire. The questionnaire, having being validated through a pilot study, was administered to 585 EFL teachers snowball-sampled, 2 of whom were, later on through negative case analysis, interviewed, and were required to provide the researchers with a narrative. Running a number of factor analyses, the researchers modeled the participants’ mindsets toward LA, which can be quite significant as it can have some theoretical and pedagogical implications, including, inter alia, situating LA promotion into the pedagogy of TEFL in Iran by running LA promotion workshops as well as developing a pool of LA promotion activities and software programs available to the stakeholders, especially the teachers.

With the advancement of technology and its role in making life more convenient, some EFL teachers prefer to use it in their classrooms. In view of this, the current study aimed to explore the effect of Anki and WhatsApp on the vocabulary retention of Iranian EFL learners. The study’s design was quasi-experimental with three groups of WhatsApp-based vocabulary instruction, Anki-based vocabulary instruction and the traditional one. Sixty EFL learners studying English in a language institute participated in the study, and were divided into three groups of twenty. To ensure their homogeneity, a Solution Placement Test was given to them. After the treatment, the post-test was given to them to check their vocabulary retention. The results of the repeated measures ANOVA indicated that Anki-based and WhatsApp-based vocabulary instruction were effective in enhancing their vocabulary retention. The results of MANOVA showed that there were significant differences among the three groups in their vocabulary retention.

This study aimed to create medical terminology flashcards in the form of teaching and learning aids for use in the specialized language and medical terminology courses at Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Iran. To achieve the objective of the study, first, a needs analysis was conducted, which showed the scarcity of such educational materials and students’ needs for them. Next, the structure and the content of information of the flashcards were developed; then, the designed flashcards were examined and modified. Afterwards, professors who were experienced in teaching medical terminology and specialized language courses evaluated the flashcards using a questionnaire. Moreover, an interview was conducted with the professors on ways to improve the quality of the flashcards. The results showed that the professors were satisfied with the potential learning effects, the structure, and the content of information of the flashcards. They also suggested a few modifications to the flashcards and recommended that the flashcards should be used in the university courses. The study has implications for the development of educational materials in the form of teaching and learning aids.

Processability Theory (PT) is regarded as one of the prominent theory of second language acquisition (SLA) developed to illuminate the developmental sequences in SLA as well as some other linguistic phenomena (Pienemann, 1998a; 2011).Since 1990s, Processability has been at the center of attention in second language acquisition research. Within the framework of Processability theory and through analyzing the written performance of Iranian EFL learners, the present research focused on the acquisition of “Copula inversion” and “Negation” across five proficiency levels, from elementary to advanced and compared it with the stage-like development model of morpho-syntactic structures proposed by Pienemann (1998a, 2011). The study followed a descriptive method of research and the data was collected from 350 participants in five different proficiency levels from elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper-intermediate and advanced. The participants were asked to provide samples of their written performance on different tasks such as introduction task, habitual action task, story retelling task, audio-video-retelling task, picture description task, composition, communication task. The data in this research was analyzed both qualitatively, in order to identify and classify the type and order of the morpho-syntactic structures; and quantitatively, by calculating means. The results of Kruskal-Wallis test revealed that “Negation” emerged at the elementary level of the language learners’ performance and “copula inversion” emerged at the intermediate level. Just the same, the competence of the learner grows stronger in concern with these variables through the higher proficiency levels. These findings imply that PT is valid for Iranian EFL learners, as well.   

Professional identity has been perpetually an underlying factor in teacher development. The maintenance of a strong professional identity is a key factor in teacher development which is ultimately a fundamental aspect in the prosperity or failure of any educational system. As a dynamic phenomenon, teachers’ professional identity can be influenced by a variety of factors and particularly any type of educational reform. The present study with an explanatory mixed method design was used to investigate transitions in Iranian EFL teachers’ professional identity in the context of Fundamental Reform Document of Education (2012). For the quantitative phase of the study, a researcher-made questionnaire developed based on the four components of professional identity namely, self-image, self-esteem, job motivation and task perception proposed by Kelchtermans (1993) was distributed among 98 Iranian EFL teachers. Considering the ongoing nature of the professional identity, the questionnaire was assigned to the teachers during the pre-reform and post – reform era. In the qualitative phase, in order to capture a comprehensive picture of the salient factors of teachers’ professional identity and their underlying reasons, a set of semi-structured interviews with 7 volunteer teachers were conducted. The findings revealed that the introduction of the curriculum reform made no change in teachers’ professional identity in terms of self-esteem and task perception, but it slightly affected teachers’ self-image and job motivation. The findings also revealed a potential transition path in Iranian EFL teachers’ professional identity development. Finally, some implications for policy-makers and material developers and suggestions for future researchers were discussed.

This study aimed at investigating the possible impact of gender and proficiency level on the relationship between autonomy and listening comprehension ability among Iranian low and high proficiency male and female EFL learners. One hundred six English learners, based on the results of Oxford Placement Test (OPT), version II, took part in this study. Both female and male learners with the age range of 13 to 29 from two girl language institutes in Khomeynishahr and one boy school in Shahrekord participated in the study. The instruments of the study consisted of an OPT, an autonomy questionnaire, and two listening comprehension tests. First of all, the participants were required to take the OPT and autonomy questionnaire and then in a different session they were asked to sit for the listening comprehension tests. The collected data were analyzed by means of SPSS and the results of statistical analysis indicated that (1) gender could not modify the relationship, (2) proficiency level, on the other hand, had a significant effect on the relationship between autonomy and listening comprehension ability and those with higher proficiency outperformed the lower proficiency learners. The findings of this study could have implications for learners, teachers, and material developers.