درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Theoretically drawing on Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of mind (SCT) and following a sequential exploratory mixed method design, this study probed into the impact of Group Dynamic Assessment (GDA) on the short and long-term Iranian high school students’ grammar ability. Also, a focus group interview was conducted to explore students’ attitudes toward concurrent GDA. This study used a convenient sample of 42 Iranian third-grade students in a private high school who prepared to participate in the Iranian University Entrance Exam (IUEE). The students of the two groups (i.e., GDA and Non-GDA) followed the same procedure (i.e., DIALANG test, pre-test, three conventional teaching sessions and one enrichment session, focus group interview (for GDA group), post-test and transcendence test). Quantitative findings using three independent sample t-tests and two repeated measure ANOVAs revealed that the GDA group significantly outperformed the non-GDA group regarding grammar ability and could apply them in more demanding circumstances. Besides, the thematic analysis of qualitative data showed that the concurrent GDA assisted students to improve their grammar ability. The study's findings highlight the importance of applying GDA as a mediational procedure that assists students in developing their grammar ability in L2 contexts. The findings of the study may assist L2 teachers to apply GDA procedure in their classrooms to save time for teaching and assessing grammatical structures.

This study aimed at determining the effect of teaching idiom strategies, that is, socializing learning and cognitive linguistic approach, on Iranian EFL learners' recognition and production of ambiguous idioms. To this end, 78 upper-intermediate students of Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch, Iran, formed the total population of the study. Then, Proficiency English Test (PET) was administered to ensure the homogeneity of the needed sample. Based on the results of this test, 60 students were selected as the final participants. They were randomly assigned to two experimental groups: WhatsApp socializing group and etymological elaboration group. A pretest was used to ensure the unfamiliarity of the idioms. The criteria for choosing ambiguous idioms were that all ambiguous idioms required to have etymology and could be illustrated using a picture Also, posttests for the recognition and production of ambiguous idioms were used to compare the performance of the two groups. The statistical analysis of results indicated that the etymological elaboration group outperformed the socializing group in both idiom recognition and production. The findings of this research have pedagogical implications for teachers, syllabus designers, and materials developers in using appropriate instructional methods for teaching idioms.

Cognitive appraisal of individuals directs to the creation of an emotional response, which is related to emotional intelligence. The present study shows the presence of induced emotions as an unrelated factor on the construct of a TOEFL iBT reading test which can interplay with emotional intelligence for regulating the induced emotions towards reading passages. The present participants were 393 Iranian EFL TOEFL iBT candidates. The present researchers detected induced emotions based on PANAS before and after reading the three selected passages of a TOEFL iBT reading section. Also, emotional intelligence was detected by Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test after reading the selected passages. Our results confirmed this hypothesis statistically by reporting that induced emotion from the passages of the selected TOEFL iBT test has a significant effect on emotional intelligence. This study found that if test developers provide a condition for test-takers to activate their emotional intelligence, they might control the induced emotion as the construct-irrelevant variable during reading.

Writing as one of the important skills needed for communication has always been the topic of research in English teaching contexts. To improve the writing of English students, teachers employ different methods. This study was designed to investigate the impact of the inquiry learning method on the grammatical accuracy of Iranian EFL learners’ writing. To do so, 90 intermediate EFL learners from Abadan Medical University were selected through the Oxford Placement Test (OPT) and participated in a quasi-experimental study, and then they were randomly divided into experimental and control groups (EG & CG). Their ages ranged between 20 to 30. A pretest was administered to compare the results of their performance at the beginning of the study. The inquiry learning method was taught to the EG as the treatment, while the conventional method was employed for the CG. In the experimental class, the teacher did not teach everything directly, and the learners were expected to discover the knowledge and generate rules, but the presentation of materials in the CG was conventional without any discussion, and the students in the CG were mainly passive. After the instruction, a posttest was given to both groups to observe the impact of the inquiry learning method on the grammatical accuracy of their writings. The analysis of the data was accomplished through the application of a dependent sample t -test and an independent-samples t- test to compare the mean scores, and the results indicated that the inquiry learning method improved the EGs̕ writing, and they outperformed the CG. The findings of this study could have implications for the EFL learners, teachers, and material designers that may help them in EFL language learning and teaching.

Television can be considered a rich, helpful, and valuable source to expose L2 learners to huge amounts of comprehensible input so that they can improve their L2 knowledge and, in particular, their L2 vocabulary knowledge. This study aimed to discover how effective sustainable and extensive TV viewing can be in L2 vocabulary learning, considering the language of the on-screen text (L1 or L2) and instruction type (preteaching L2 items or not). Eighty L2 learners (58 female and 22 male), who had an intermediate English proficiency and were divided into four groups, participated in the intervention over an academic term in a language institute. Participants viewed 14 episodes of a TV series under four experimental conditions: (1) captions and preteaching, (2) captions without preteaching, (3) subtitles and preteaching, and (4) subtitles without preteaching. A pre/posttest design to examine the gains regarding both L2 vocabulary meaning and form was adopted. Results suggested that extensive exposure to TV series positively affected the participants’ L2 vocabulary learning, both in terms of meaning and form. Participants exposed to L2 captions outperformed those who had received L1 subtitles, concerning both L2 vocabulary meaning and form. Finally, the analyses showed that, overall, the groups that had undergone preteaching performed better, regardless of the language of the on-screen texts.

The main role and responsibility of second language writing teachers is to help learners to write with minimal errors. To do so, teachers need to provide students with appropriate types of feedback. In this research, the researchers examined the effect of post-text written corrective feedback on written grammatical accuracy of Iranian intermediate EFL learners. In the first phase, Nelson Proficiency Test was administered to 45 intermediate students studying in two different classes at Cambridge Language Institute in Sari. 35 students were selected. Then, they were randomly assigned to experimental and another groups. The research was carried out in 12 sessions. The experimental group received post-text feedback on their writing tasks while the control group received the conventional type. After collecting data, the researchers used paired and independent sample t-tests to analyze the data. The results indicated that those students who received post-text feedback outperformed the ones in the control group. It means that indirect corrective feedback is more beneficial to students than the direct one. Therefore, post-text feedback can be adopted by EFL instructors to promote students’ written grammatical ability.

Instructional materials as a basic component of curriculums and a central constituent of standards-based programs play a provisional role in both setting the aims and leading the way. English textbooks in Iran’s public education are officially developed and used nationwide. One recently introduced English textbook series is Prospects (I-III) . It is intended for the the Iranian junior high schools and is normally supposed to guide teachers and provide students with the basic exposure to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context. The textbooks, together with the lessons, have to be aligned in targeting educational objectives given the sequential nature of the intended grades and the serial contents of instruction. This study evaluated the vertical and horizontal alignment among the series’ textbooks and lessons drawing on Bloom’s revised taxonomy of educational objectives (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). The evaluation initially involved descriptive content analysis of the activities within and across the textbooks using a checklist developed based on the taxonomy. Then, the content matrixes were subjected to Porter et al.’s (2007) alignment index for the statistical assessment of lessons and textbooks’ alignment. The findings generally suggested that the lessons were tuned adequately, albeit accommodating mainly lower-order knowledge types and cognitive skills at the cost of discarding the higher-order ones. In addition, the statistically positive and significant PAIs of 0.93, 0.78, and 0.74 between Prospect I & II, Prospect I & III, and Prospect II & III, respectively pointed to a harmony in the series’ content. The paper discusses the findings and implications in the Iranian EFL context