درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The present study was an attempt to explore the ‘washback effect’ of task-based assessment (TBLA) on EFL Iranian learners’ pragmatic development. To this end, through conducting KET (Key English Test), 60 out of 120 EFL Iranian learners studying in an English language school, were randomly selected. They were assigned to treatment group (N=30), and control group (N=30). The treatment group was assessed through TBLA and the control group was assessed via non-task based assessment for 20 ninety-minute sessions. The class sessions were held twice a week. The obtained data was examined through independent sample t-test. The findings implied that TBLA as a pedagogical measurement tool can well replace the classic assessment procedures, since all educational efforts including testing and assessment procedures are planned to maximize the educational gains and developments.

It is argued that in our current digital era, MALL (mobile-assisted language learning) is an indispensable mode either for independent self-learning or for integrating with the school curriculum. The present study explores the possibility of using gamification as a home assignment in English as a foreign language course for students of non-English majors at a university in Vietnam. Data was collected and analyzed using 69 questionnaire responses and 41 essays written by students in a class of General English. The questionnaire and essay topic prompt required students to provide an evaluation of their personal experience learning English with Duolingo outside the classroom, as part of the compulsory home assignments during a 15-week semester. The questionnaire items were in Vietnamese and the essays were either in Vietnamese or English for students’ convenience. The results showed detailed benefits and problems of learning English with Duolingo as perceived by the students. The key benefits include the fact that Duolingo is a valuable resource: rich and free; the limitation is mainly learners’ lack of experience with the application. It is suggested that with teachers’ guidance, Duolingo could be used as an effective and motivating tool for independent learning.  

This study aimed to shed light on young Iranian EFL students’ oral proficiency improvement through explicit instruction of formulaic sequences (FSs). This pretest-posttest quasi experimental study was conducted in a bilingual school in Shahrekord, Iran. Accordingly, based on ACTFL OPI test, two groups of low intermediate students with age range of 11 to 12 were chosen to be assigned as control and experimental groups. The control group with 20 participants continued its regular instruction focusing on analytic grammar rules and discrete vocabulary, while the experimental group with 40 participants received explicit FSs-based instruction through readings, by adopting a teaching procedure inspired by Lewis’ prescribed strategies for lexicon instruction. After 24 sessions of instruction, the participants were interviewed again, and their oral performance was recorded and transcribed to be scored by two experienced judges. Subsequently, ANOVA results revealed the significant oral proficiency improvement of experimental group in comparison to the control group, pointing to the effectiveness of FSs instruction.

The study aims at focusing on the relationship between motivation, culture, and success in foreign language learning in globalizing world. Many studies have been done to examine the relationship between them. The studies showed that culture can play a motivating role in language learning success. Considering Gardner's instrumental and integrative motivation, a learner with a high degree of integrative motivation is likely to make more efforts to form bonds with people of the target culture. To conduct the survey 48 students of Ardestan Azad University were chosen. Some activities and techniques were taken to promote their multicultural competence. In the first session a brief explanation was given to the students along with some questionnaires regarding cultural issues to answer. During 16 weeks of the semester students were taught and monitored through class discussions, essay writings etc. The goal of the activities was to encourage and estimate their respect, tolerance and empathy to people of different cultures. In the last session a questionnaire designed by the researcher was used to collect data. It was composed of three sections: 1) 11 statements about cultural issues to be rated with a likert scale of agreement (based on the Bennett's intercultural communicative model). 2) 10 rating questions (considering Byram& Risager's multidimensional model of ICC).  3) 5 open questions about their belief and behavior to elaborate on. The results showed that respect for others, adaptation and integration with people of target culture were the highest rated among others. An unexpected result was that there was no significant relationship between students' lesson scores and their attitude toward foreign language culture. This can be justified by globalization process by which "people of the world are incorporated into a single world society, global society". Therefore learners who belong to a global English-speaking culture are ready to suspend disbelief about others and adopt new cultural aspects while respecting and maintaining their own culture.

This paper aimed at probing the implementation of portfolio assessment in the writing classroom in an attempt to examine its effect(s) on EFL learners’ metadiscourse awareness. It addressed the following questions: Does portfolio assessment as a teaching technique have positive wash back effect on the participants’ achievement in their writing ability in an academic context? And to what extent do the students develop metadiscourse awareness in their writing by the treatment of portfolio assessment? The participants were the students of English literature enrolled for their composition course. After being homogenized for their proficiency level, they were randomly divided into an experimental group (EG) and a control group (CG). As the treatment, portfolio assessment was employed as the teaching technique for the experimental group. Data was then subjected to different statistical procedures. The results of data analysis revealed that the participants in the EG outperformed those in the CG with regard to the achievement in their overall writing ability. Second, based on chi-square results, participants in the EG used metadiscourse markers more correctly and efficiently compared with those in the CG. The results of the present study may have some implications for teaching of writing to EFL learners.

Student evaluation apprehension as one of the detrimental factors in an English as a foreign language (EFL) context, reduces and gradually diminishes student participation in classroom activities, since learners are mostly concerned with how others (teacher and classmates) evaluate/judge their performance. Due to the fact that the studies considering the important role of student evaluation apprehension are scarce in number, this study was conducted to validate the newly-designed questionnaire via exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and find the relationship between student evaluation apprehension and academic achievement, gender, and educational level of 258 EFL students. The results from EFA, CFA, and reliability analyses revealed that the new questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument measuring EFL students’ evaluation apprehension. Moreover, a significant negative correlation was observed between student evaluation apprehension and academic achievement. Besides, it was found that females experience evaluation apprehension more than males, and BA students were also found to have more evaluation apprehension than their MA counterparts.

Being expert in establishing cohesion and coherence in writing is not an easy task. The EFL learners are to pass through very long, uneven paths such as précis exercise to achieve this skill. The present study was launched to explore the effect of précis writing on the creation of a compact text. To this end, a true-experimental method of research with the pretest-posttest control design was employed. Via double-stage sampling, 40 female students were selected at Fatemeh-al-Zahra High School in Kabutarahang, Hamedan, Iran. The control group was taught some grammatical structures such as active and passive voices, reduced adjective clauses, and different tenses in English during twelve sessions; while the experimental group received a lesson plan consisting of twelve sessions of précis writing. To analyze the data collected via pretest and posttest, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was run. The findings of the study indicated that the participants in the experimental group performed better in producing cohesive and qualified texts than those in the control group. The conclusion drawn was that teaching précis, as a basic skill, can improve the writing ability and provide the students with more opportunities to utilize the cohesive devices and consequently produce more cohesive pieces of text.