درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

In recent years, educational studies have acknowledged that academic motivation is a powerful predictor of students' academic achievement. Goal orientation is one facet of academic motivation that concerns the reasons for which students pursue achievement activities. Using AGQ and R-SPQ-2F instruments, this study seeks to identify dominant achievement goal orientation held by Iranian EFL learners and examine the relationships between students' achievement goals, learning approaches, and academic achievement. The sample consisted of 80 EFL students majoring in English Literature and English Translation. The results of the data analysis indicated that the mastery goal is the dominant goal orientation adopted by learners. Afterward, performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals are respectively the achievement goal orientations adopted by Iranian EFL learners. Significant correlations were found between both mastery and performance-approach goals and deep approaches. Performance-avoidance goals were found to be significantly and positively related to surface approaches to learning. In addition, performance-approach goals were positively related to academic outcome, whereas, performance-avoidance goals were negatively related to academic achievement. There was no relationship between mastery goals and students' outcomes. The study also bears some theoretical and practical pedagogical implications regarding the importance of motivation and goal setting which will be offered and discussed in detail at the end of the study.

    Munday asserts that there exist particular norms belonging to each specific time. In other words, each era is of distinguishing norms; sometimes, transgressing these norms results in unsatisfactory outcomes. On this account, translators ought to apply appropriate norms in each era in the act of translation. The present study aimed to investigate the application of Toury’s initial norms in two different translations of The Catcher in the Rye before and after the Islamic Revolution. Firstly, the study investigated the orientation of adequacy and acceptability in both pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary translations. Then, it questioned the appropriateness of the applied norms in these two translations to each era. Accordingly, the results revealed that in the pre-Islamic Revolution translation, acceptability greatly predominated over adequacy; quite the contrary, in the post-Islamic Revolution rendering, adequacy chiefly prevailed over acceptability.      

Despite the significant role of emotions in any aspect of language learning, including its pragmatic aspect, there have been few research studies on this topic. As a stride toward narrowing this research niche, the objectives of this research were threefold. Firstly, it aimed to examine the two face-threatening speech acts of request and apology as indicators of learners’‎ interlanguage pragmatic competence (ILP) and its relationships with learners’ Emotional Quotient (EQ). Secondly, it sought to investigate ‎whether gender as an intervening variable would have any significant relationship with ILP and EQ, and thirdly whether EQ could predict ILP ‎development. To this end, 72 (50 females and 22 males) Iranian lower-intermediate level learners ranging ‎in age from 17 to 25 from two universities took part in this research. A multiple-choice discourse completion test ‎‎(MDCT) (Liu, 2004) and Bar-Onʼs ‎(1997) EQ scale were used and correlation analysis was done to search for any linkage between ILP and EQ. The Pearson product-moment correlation outcomes ‎revealed no significant relationship between EQ and ILP. However, a significant relation was found between Independence as a component of EQ and ‎EFL learners’ ILP competence. The independent samples t-test outcomes indicated ‎that female participants had a higher level of (ILP) competence than male participants; however, male and female participants did not differ significantly regarding their EQ level. The findings indicate that ‎EQ, in general, is not influential in EFL learners’ ILP competence. The paper concludes by providing pedagogical implications for EFL learners and instructors.

Mispronunciation is still among the frailties of language learners the world over. The present study reports an all-out investigation into pronunciation training for the Persian-speaking EFL learners at the intermediate level of language proficiency. More specifically, the present study investigated (a) the underlying causes of mispronunciation at the level of segmental features, (b) the crucial importance of error analysis prior to developing any materials concerning suprasegmental features, and (c) the effectiveness of materials developed on the basis of the findings in the first two phases of the study. Sixty-Four Persian-speaking intermediate EFL learners were selected as participants for the purposes of this study. Twenty-Four of them assisted in the second and forty of them in the third phase. Since the results obtained in the first two phases were to be used for the preparation of the materials in the final phase, the researchers devised a pretest posttest design to prove or disprove the efficacy of the whole study. Thus, two intermediate classes in one of the language schools in Isfahan were chosen and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The first phase of the study confirmed the great impact of Persian language on EFL learners’ English pronunciation (51.82%). The second phase supported the idea that some suprasegmental features such as linking sounds are obstacles to proper pronunciation for Persian-speaking EFL learners. The results obtained from the last phase of the study indicated that pronunciation training with supplementary materials is rewarding albeit the progress might be slow.

This classroom-based study sets out to study the relationships that EFL learners would form in peer responses in an EFL writing class. It examines Storch’s (2002a) patterns of peer interaction when intermediate learners are paired with partners of different L2 proficiency levels. To discover the factors that could affect the nature of peer interactions, at first a proficiency test of TOEFL was administered and thus the participants were distinguished based on their scores, into the beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. Further, the participants were asked to choose a partner and review each other’s writing in pair while being audio recorded. To examine learners’ behaviors from the perspective of participants involved, they were interviewed individually after the recording session. As the focus was on intermediate partnership, the data of 12 intermediate students (i.e. 6 pairs) interacting with an advanced, intermediate or beginner partner were analyzed. The findings showed that although proficiency levels narrowly affected the participants’ performances in peer responses, they did not determine them. The study revealed that it is not just the actual proficiency levels but the relationships that learners form, the roles that they adopt, and their partner’s behaviors as the factors which shape the dyadic talk. It was further found that the partners’ roles are shaped by their positioning in relation to their peers and the issues on which learners focus during their engagement in the task. چکیده: این تحقیق بر آن بود تا چگونگی ایجاد رابطه بین افراد در پاسخگویی توسط  فراگیران خارجی زبان انگلیسی  را مورد بررسی قرار دهد. در واقع، این تحقیق بر اساس الگوی تعاملی استرچ (2002الف)، روابط فی مابین فراگیران سطح متوسط با طرفهای دارای توانش متفاوت زبانی را تحلیل می نماید. برای این منظور، ابتدا شرکت کنندگان در تحقیق، بر اساس آزمون توانش زبان به سه دسته مقدماتی، متوسط و پیشرفته تقسیم شدند. سپس از هرکدام از انها خواسته شد که با تعیین یک نفر نگارش های همدیگر را بررسی نمایند که در این مورد تعامل بین انها ضبط گردید.  پس از این مرحله، برای استخراج الگوهای تعاملی آنها، افراد شرکت کننده مورد مصاحبه قرار گرفتند. تحلیل اطلاعات گردآوری شده نشان داد که توانش زبان تاثیر جزیی و غیر تعیین کننده بر روی نوع تعاملات افراد دارد. به عبارت دیگر، عواملی دیگری به جر توانش زبان مثل رابطه شکل گرفته، نقش افراد، و رفتارهای افراد بر روی گفتار دو گانه تاثیر گذار      می باشد. از طرف دیگر، نتایج نشان داد نقش افراد تابع چگونگی رابطه بین افراد و موضوعات مورد توجه در بحث می باشد.  کلمات کلیدی: پاسخگویی هم گروهیان، الگوهای تعاملی، یادگیری مشارکتی، سطح توانش زبان، نگارش

The present study aimed to explore whether there is any significant relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ traits in terms of personality type and their classroom management orientation. To this end, 130 EFL teachers from private language institutes and schools participated in this study. Three data collection instruments were used: a) personal demographic questionnaire, b) Attitudes and Beliefs on Classroom Control inventory, and c) Five Factor Model personality questionnaire. The results showed that, out of five factors of personality trait and three factors of classroom management orientation, there were two significant relationships; there was a significant relationship between conscientiousness personality trait and instructional classroom management orientation, and there was also a significant relationship between conscientiousness and behavioral classroom management. No other significant relationship was found between other factors of personality and classroom management. The findings of this research can help raise awareness of teachers and teacher trainers alike of teacher personality traits and their possible relationship with classroom management orientation (of teachers).

Iranian National University Entrance Exam (INUEE) as a nationwide high-stakes test is held annually to screen Iranian high school graduates and admit them into higher education programs in universities. This high-stakes examination has a wide range of impacts on test takers as the primary stake-holders and the parents, teachers, and high school principals as the secondary stakeholders. This study reports the impacts of INUEE on high school teachers and principals. To this aim, 27 teachers and 18 principals from three western provinces of Iran sat for a structured interview. Each interview lasted nearly 30 minutes. All the interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Next, following the Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) as the basis of analysis, the transcriptions were subjected to content analysis to extract common patterns and recurring themes. Content analysis was applied to codify the transcribed interview data through an inductive process of frequent moving back and forth to extract common patterns and recurring themes of the data. After coding and 'quantitizing' the data (Dörnyei, 2007), the basic themes were identified, frequency counted, and tabulated. The results indicated that from the majority of the participants' perspective, the INUEE has detrimental consequences for students, teachers, school principals, and the educational curriculum. The findings of the study underscore the consequential invalidity and unfairness of the test and its negative impacts on different aspects of the educational system. The findings provide practical implications for educational policy-makers, school principals, and teachers highlighting the necessity of their awareness of negative consequences of INUEE.

This study attempted to compare typed and handwritten essays of Iranian EFL students in terms of length, spelling, and grammar. To administer the study, the researchers utilized Alice Touch Typing Tutor software to select 15 upper intermediate students with higher ability to write two essays: one typed and the other handwritten. The students were both males and females between the ages of 22 to 35. The analyses of the students’ scores in the three mentioned criteria through three paired samples t-tests indicate that typed essays are significantly better than handwritten ones in terms of length of texts and grammatical mistakes, but not significantly different in spelling mistakes. Positive effects of typing can provide a logical reason for students, especially TOEFL applicants, to spend more time on acquiring typing skill and also for teachers to encourage their students with higher typing ability to choose typed format in their essays. 

The present qualitative research sought to investigate EFL teacher educators’ experiences and attitudes toward critical thinking and its role in teacher professional development. The adopted design was a case study and the theoretical framework was the theory of transformative learning (Mezirow, 1978). For the data collection purpose, 30 EFL teacher educators participated in in-depth interviews. The  whole procedure of  the data collection was audiotaped for further reference in data analysis. The interviews were transcribed to familiarize with the data and the transcribed interviews were member checked with the participants. The collected data were analyzed through reflective thematic analysis. The data analyzed paved the way for generating three themes: cognition, metacognition , and personal growth/self attainment . The findings of the study comprise a number of implicatios for both theory and practice. One aspect of our contribution is that the notion of critical thinking can be conceived as more than cognitive and metacognitive one; it should be conceptualized as possessing both facets as well as other possible subsets. Beyond that, we suggest that critical thinking should be conjectured as being both a process and a product.