درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

One skill that student teachers need to develop during their academic studies is the capacity to produce accurate and well-organized texts. This study reports on the comparative impact of metalinguistic feedback (MLF), teacher interactive feedback (TIF(, and the peer-feedback (PF) on the accuracy and organization of postgraduate ELT student teachers’ writing. The participants were 57 postgraduate students who were recruited from a population of 70 postgraduate students, in three classes, that were randomly assigned as the MLF group, the TIF group, and the PF group based on the focus of the presentation and the feedback type they would receive during the 14 session treatment. A hybrid process-oriented and genre-based methodology was employed to teach the identical teaching materials to all the groups with a focus on grammatical features and relevant grammatical exercises in the MLF group,   on reflective and interactive negotiation of form and meaning in the TIF group, and on individual peer-assessment of the peer’s writing in the PF group. The results revealed significantly higher levels of accuracy among the MLF group with no significant difference in the organization of the groups’ writing. The findings underscore the role of MLF in enhancing accuracy. 

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.   

The present study investigated the use of lexical bundles (LBs) in research articles authored by English L1 and Persian L1 academic writers, with a special focus on the syntactic roles of LBs in a larger context of sentence level. Four-word bundles were retrieved and classified structurally. The use of identified LBs was compared in two writer groups. The syntactic roles and relative complexity of the bundles’ structures were analyzed in relation to Biber, Gray, and Poonpon’s (2011) hypothesized stages of writing development. The results indicated different patterns of reliance on LBs, with Persian writers making greater use of LBs at higher frequency. In addition, Persian academic writers tended to use high frequency bundles differently from native-speaker academic writers. The results of the syntactic analysis of LBs reflected more frequent use of LBs functioning as compressing lexico-grammatical structures in a native English-speaker corpus, which is indicative of a more complex academic register compared to that of a Persian L1 corpus. The pedagogical implications of the findings for the explicit instruction of syntactically complex corpus-driven LBs for discipline-specific genre writing and suggestions for future research are discussed.

It is by now well established that materials may have an impact beyond simply learning a language they present. Hence, in this study attempts have been made to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of a textbook Summit 2B which is currently being widely used in Iranian EFL classes. The textbook has been evaluated based on criteria provided by McDonough and Shaw (1993) on the basis of two stages: an external and an internal evaluation. Efforts have been made to critically evaluate the textbook in terms of the layout, grading and sequencing of assignments, design, content, different activities, sort of texts utilized, and the skills emphasized in the book. The findings showed that albeit there appears to be some shortcomings, Summit 2B seems to be more efficient to meet the requirements of EFL learners as compared with the other textbooks which have hitherto been used at different language classes. Accordingly, investigating and evaluating the book proved to be very lucrative and valuable in terms of pedagogy as well as the efficient attributes that suits the context of the present study. Finally, the implications as regards the efficiency of this particular course book as the consequence of evaluating it have been put forward and the strengths and weaknesses related to it have been argued.

Language education, among most other aspects of life, has been affected by the ever-advancing technology. To be most efficient, educators need to know the affordances technology brings to the teaching and learning process. Augmented Reality is a recent technology that can be accessed through the Internet and mobile phones and brings several advantages to the language classroom. This mixed-methods study aims to examine the effect of Augmented Reality on adult language learners’ attitudes and motivation. To this end, data were obtained through a questionnaire administered to 40 adult EFL learners in Iran of different ages and educational levels who participated in a pre-test post-test design, followed by a semi-structured interview. Results confirmed that adult learners, disregarding their age and educational background, benefit from AR in the sense that it enhances their attitudes and motivation towards learning the language. The themes revealed in the interviews clarified that this enhancement is because AR is exciting to learners since it gets them engaged in the learning process and attracts them through gamification. Results of the current study have implications for language specialists and teachers to design and incorporate AR-infused materials in teaching to increase learners’ motivation, and consequently, their learning.

In a broad dichotomy, cultures are divided into collectivists and individualists. This difference between cultures is manifested in educational settings and the way students and teachers approach educational tasks and activities (Hofstede, 1986). This study investigated the way the dominant culture can affect the cognitive and affective load of classrooms and eventually account for the development of students` moral judgment. To this end, 400 Iranian university students majoring in English language and literature were asked to complete FAMC test (Javadi mehr et al., 2015a). This test measures the role of four factors of "focus, sharing, challenge and support" in the development of moral competency. The results revealed that there was a growth in the pattern of affective and cognitive factors from the first to the last year of studying in this major. The results also indicated that challenge was the least attended cognitive factor but support was always the most prevalent factor in all academic years. The findings are then discussed by taking into account the findings of other related studies conducted in individualist and collectivist societies.

The changing culture toward multimodality enforces acquiring visual literacy in every aspect of today’s modern life. One of the fields intermingled with using various modes in different variations is language teaching and learning, especially for and by young learners. Young language learners’ (5-12 years old) lack of world experience forces them to make the most use of non-verbal modes of communication to receive and send the intended message, enhanced in foreign language learning environment. As a result, the language teacher him/herself will be supposed to be armed with visual literacy of this new language and to have the ability to successfully transmit this knowledge to the students. The present study aims to investigate whether the three focused factors in educational semiotics; namely, Process of abduction, Principle of kinesics, and Proxemics- proposed by Sert (2006) exist in the curriculum of Iranian pre-service language teachers in one of the educational districts in Isfahan. By distributing two questionnaires among TTC course instructors and pre-service teachers, and obtaining the percentage of the analyzed data, the findings showed that the number of institutes which focus on the matter are rare. Also, it was revealed that the pre-service teachers, majoring in English Language, performed better in terms of realizing the meaning of body language units and comparing and contrasting them (principle of abduction). The results will be useful for future teachers and their educational curriculum in favor of enhancing the fifth language skill, foreign language visual literacy.

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.

Classroom discourse refers to the language and interaction used by the teacher and the students to communicate and shape learning in the educational context. The present study focused on Iranian EFL teachers’ classroom discourse by observing their dominancy, teacher talk, question types, and interactions in their classes. To do so, through a non-experimental, descriptive research design, 20 female experienced teachers with the age range of 30-40, teaching at an upper-intermediate level in different language institutes in Isfahan, Iran were selected based on the convenience sampling. Two classes of the teachers were observed, the sessions were recorded, and their classroom discourses were transcribed and later analyzed. Moreover, to increase the validity and reliability of the research, a semi-structured interview was conducted with volunteer participants; their reflections on their communication with the learners and discourse types were collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics in terms of frequency and percentages. The findings of the study showed that the teachers made use of specific discourse to ascertain their dominance and control in their classes. The findings also revealed that the teachers used more monologic discourse patterns in their classes rather than dialogic ones. Teacher talk far exceeded student talk, Initiation-Response-Feedback pattern dominated the classroom discourse; and display questions were used more frequently than referential ones. These findings could benefit teachers to be more conscious about type of CD and its effect on student-to-student and teacher-to-student interactions. It could also serve the purpose of critical classroom discourse analysis

This study intended to explore the effect of Augmented Reality (AR) on lowering foreign language anxiety (FLA) in adult Iranian EFL learners. To this end, a triangulation study including a quasi-experimental pre-test post-test design in the first phase, and an oral interview in the second phase was designed and implemented. Forty adult Iranian EFL learners took part in the quantitative study and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The authors developed and delivered the AR-infused materials through the Zappar application, an AR platform. The treatment involved the conventional language teaching method for the control and the AR-integrated one for the experimental group for 20 sessions. The anxiety level of learners in both groups was assessed before and after the treatment to check for any effects. Data on participants’ FLA has been gathered through Horwitz’s (1986) Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Survey (FLCAS) questionnaire and analyzed via ANCOVA in SPSS. Also, the participants in the experimental group were interviewed at the end of the experiment to provide feedback on their AR-integrated language learning experience. Results revealed that AR did not affect learners’ foreign language anxiety levels. Also, some learners found it not very relaxing and easy to use. This could be attributed to the novelty of the experience and the cognitive load imposed on learners. The study’s outcomes were in contrast to several previous research findings; however, since research in this area is still in its infancy, more research should be done on the impact of AR on language education.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the students’ English foreign language learning anxiety and English language performance test result. Thus, the objective of the study was to assess the relationship between students’ English foreign language learning anxiety and their English language performance. To attain this objective, a descriptive survey research design was employed. Students’ first semester English final examination result was used to explore the relationship between students’ English classroom anxiety and their English performance test result. In line with this, foreign language classroom anxiety scale and the students’ language performance scores were used to collect data. One hundred and seventy six (176) first year students were involved in the study. Multiple instruments that included questionnaire and document analysis were used to gather data. Both quantitative and qualitative data analysis methods were employed to analyze the data. The findings indicated that most of the students were found to be anxious. Furthermore, the findings showed that there was a significant negative relationship between students’ English foreign language learning anxiety and their English performance test result. Also, the findings of the study revealed that anxiety is much more prevalent in line with the subjects of the study and had negative correlations with their English language performance exam result. Finally, it was recommended that EFL instructors should acknowledge anxiety feelings as legitimate and attempt to lesson students’ feelings of inadequacy and failure by providing positive experiences and feedback to counter act anxiety.