درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The measurement of test-taking strategies and practices, mostly studied through qualitative methods, has been an important aspect of language testing and assessment research. The current study examines the test-taking strategies of International English Language Testing System (IELTS) test-takers and reports the process of designing and validating an IELTS test-taking strategy questionnaire. To achieve this aim, a questionnaire with 62 items was developed and piloted on 534 IELTS test-takers. To ensure its validity, the questionnaire results were analyzed through Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses (EFA and CFA). The final 49-item instrument with eight factors, “test-management (TM)” and “test-wiseness (TW)” strategies in each skill, had adequate psychometric properties. The findings revealed positive correlations between TM and TW strategies, representing strong correlations between Reading TM and Listening TM, Reading TW and Listening TW, and Listening TM and Speaking TM. The developed questionnaire can serve as a diagnostic tool to monitor test-takers’ performance and strategies, mainly in high-stakes tests like IELTS.

Recently translation researchers have endeavored to adopt new directions in the current translation quality assessment (TQA) approaches. To this end, they made them more congruent with the desired requirements of a translator’s competence, especially considering the latest paradigm shifts, including ideological skewing and localization (Tiselius & Hild, 2017). Thus, such frameworks as Angelelli’s (2009) definition of translation competence (TC), as the study’s theoretical framework, need to be improved. An attempt was made in this study to design a rubric based on the proposed TQA model representing the TC construct with its comprehensive sub-components and finally, to test its applicability to the Persian translation of The Catcher in the Rye . The assessment procedure through which the obtained results were textually analyzed based on the proposed rubric specifically for each sub-component, revealed the inadequacy of the translation quality on the whole and the underlying implications of the rubric’s applicability to other translation products.                                                                                                                                                                   

Although previous studies have shown the benefits of graphic organizers in improving learners' vocabulary knowledge, scant attention has been paid to the possible differences in the effect of individually-developed, cooperatively-developed, and teacher-developed graphic organizers on intermediate L2 learners' vocabulary knowledge. The present study addressed this topic by examining 80 intermediate language learners. The participants were selected based on convenience sampling procedure and studied English in four classes. The learners in the conventional group received the translation/definition of the lexical items. Those in the teacher-generated were provided with the graphic organizers prepared by their teacher, and the participants in the other two groups made the graphic organizers either individually or cooperatively. The researchers employed Vocabulary Knowledge Scale as the pre-test, immediate post-test, and delayed post-test to examine the participants' vocabulary knowledge. The findings of this study indicated that the mean scores of the control group in the immediate and delayed post-tests were significantly lower than those of all graphic organizer groups. In addition, the cooperatively-generated graphic organizer group was significantly more successful than learner and teacher-generated graphic organizer groups, but there was no difference between the learner and teacher-generated groups.

The purpose of this study was to compare the functioning of five restrictive CDMs, including DINA, DINO, A-CDM, LLM, and RRUM, against the G-DINA model to identify the best-fitting CDM which can better explain the interaction underlying the attributes of the reading comprehension section of an Iranian high-stakes language proficiency test. To achieve this aim, item responses of 1152 examinees to the items of the test were examined. The six CDMs were initially compared in terms of relative and absolute fit statistics at test-level to choose the best model. It was found that the G-DINA model outperformed compared to the restrictive models; thus, it was selected for the second phase of the study. Concerning the second purpose of the study, the G-DINA was used to identify strengths and weaknesses of the examinees. The results revealed that making an inference and vocabulary are the hardest attributes for examinees of the test, and understanding the specific information is the easiest attribute. Finally, the models were also compared at item-level. The presence of a combination of L2 reading attributes was found.

Critical thinking has been a significant issue in the realm of EFL teaching and learning. This study aimed at investigating the contribution of paper-based and web-assisted feedback on Iranian EFL learners’ level of criticality in acquiring the writing skill. Besides, it was endeavoured to explore the extent of feedback contributions to the five constituents of critical thinking. Accordingly, a non-randomized control group pre/post-test design was taken into consideration, accounting for the two experimental treatments along with one control group. The levels of critical thinking of 61 EFL learners were initially rated prior to the 11-session treatments, and finally were re-appraised at the termination of the semester at University of Hormozgan. The out-turns of the one-way between-groups ANOVA set forth a statistically significant difference between the critical thinking scores of the four groups with respect to the type of feedback they received. Moreover, the outcomes of paired samples t-test revealed a statistically significant increase in all the four within-group criticality scores from pretest to posttest. Furthermore, the results of MANOVA illuminated a significant feedback contribution to the argument level of critical thinking, substantially due to the web-assisted type. So, web-assisted feedback was concluded to play a crucial role in facilitating EFL learners' journey towards becoming more critical writers. Finally, some pedagogical implications were conveyed parenthetically.

The documentation of test takers’ achievements has been accomplished through large-scale assessments to find general information about students’ language ability. To remove subjectivity, Cognitive Diagnostic Assessment (CDA) has recently played a crucial role in perceiving candidates’ latent attribute patterns to find multi-diagnostic information rather than single proficiency classification. However, there are some gaps in the literature about in detail investigation of test takers’ listening comprehension language ability in responding to placement test items of a public English language center. The present study aims to validate an English placement test at a language center through a retrofitting process. In an exploratory mixed-method design, 449 participants from the same language center, including 274 females and 175 males, were selected. The performance of randomly selected participants in a language center placement test was analyzed by applying the GDINA model from R-studio packages, to detect Differential Item Functioning (DIF). Results of the study revealed DIF in some items since there is some bias in test items. The implication of this study is to provide meaningful interpretations of respondents’ attributes and improve teaching and learning by finding the strengths and weaknesses of candidates. For this purpose, the findings derived from the result of the study can raise the awareness of test developers in preparing unbiased items for the placement test, and at the same time, assist test-takers to become more critical of their English language achievements. It is also helpful for materials developers to become aware of developing materials free from bias.

Implicatures are the implied meanings that people communicate to their listeners. They may differ from one culture to another, making translations more challenging. The purpose of this study was to examine how implicatures were treated in the English translations of Persian texts and the extent of pragmatic equivalence. To this end, implicatures in four Persian children's stories written by Hooshang Morādi Kermāni were identified and compared to their English translations, translated by Caroline Croskery. The Gricean Cooperation Principle served as the theoretical framework of the study, and four maxims of quality, quantity, relation, and manner were used to analyze implicatures. Chesterman’s strategies of pragmatic equivalence were also used to determine the strategies used in translation. According to the results, the translator was largely successful in achieving pragmatic equivalence. Additionally, literal translation, explicitness, equivalence strategy, and illocutionary change were found to be used more commonly than the other pragmatic strategies. The findings of this study could have benefits for translators to deal with pragmatic issues and for syllabus designers to create more practical content.

The interdependency between education and psychology has been valued for a long time and the educational psychology as an interdisciplinary field reconciling these two disciplines has been introduced to the field of teacher education. However, theoretically present in teacher training programs, the practical ways of applying educational psychology has not gained enough attention. The interviews with 21 Iranian EFL teachers and educators reveal that those teachers start their career after doing a teacher education course, do not have enough awareness to deal with learners’ cognitive and emotional problems. Therefore, the researchers tried to put psychological theories into practice through assigning some mini-action research during the teacher education courses. To check the effectiveness of the method, two groups (experimental and control) were selected and then their awareness of psychological issues while reflecting on their teaching process were compared after the treatment. The qualitative findings of the study indicate that the method was successful in increasing pre-service teachers’ psychological awareness towards language teaching. The method is beneficial for those designing and planning teacher education courses.

Translating taboo words is one of the challenging tasks that translators face during subtitling and dubbing movies. The translation of taboo words should be handled carefully since they may violate the norms of the target society. In this regard, the translators use different strategies to find an equivalent in the target language. This study tried to identify the strategies used by Iranian translators in dubbing and subtitling the F*k words as taboos in American English-drama crime television series based on Davoodi’s (2009) model. Thus, this was a corpus-based study that has a quantitative method with a descriptive comparative approach. The corpus of this study was limited to F*k words found in the TV series called Big Little Lies season one. This TV series was selected as the corpus of this research because this series movie was incredibly more suggestive and popular in recent decades and targeted a wide range of audiences and adults. Thus, 80 F*k words were identified for further analysis based on Sharifi and Darchinian's (2009) model. Descriptive statistics were used to determine frequencies and percentages of the applied strategies in the Persian subtitled and dubbed of the F*k words. The findings showed that Substitution, and Euphemism were the first and second used strategies by Iranian translators for dubbing and subtitling the F*k words, respectively. Additionally, the results of the Chi-square test revealed that there was not a significant difference between Iranian translators’ strategies for subtitling and dubbing F*k words. The results of the present study can be beneficial for Iranian subtitlers, dubbers, and translation students in the subtitling and dubbing of F*k words as taboos in crime drama movies from English into Persian.

With the improvement of technologies in language learning and teaching, new models and approaches are being proposed to enhance the students’ performance. One of the practical models is Flipped Classroom (FC), which has been attracted by many teachers and researchers, especially in the K-12 education system. This study explored the effect of the online FC approach on the improvement of EFL learners' performance in high schools in Iran with a quasi-experimental design. To run the experimental study, through convenience sampling forty-three high school students were divided into an experimental group and a control group and to evaluate the efficacy of the online FC approach. The comparison of the results of experimental and control groups’ pre-test and post-test scores by an independent samples t-test revealed that incorporating the online FC approach into EFL educational context remarkably improves the EFL students' learning performance. It is significantly applicable for learning a language, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic which majority of the classes have been running online. Additionally, to manage online FC more efficiently, some suggestions are provided for teachers.