درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The issues of humor and collocation are among the themes that have recently attracted the attention of researchers in language pedagogy. In line with this current trend of research, this study investigated the effect of reading humorous texts on learning collocations by Iranian EFL learners. To achieve this end, 59 Iranian EFL students majoring English Literature and English Translation were selected as the participants, and their language proficiency and knowledge of collocation were determined via Success Test and Collocation tests. They were given a pre-test (in order to determine their knowledge of specific collocations used in humor texts), five tests with five humor texts, and a post-test (in order to find the effect of reading humor texts on learning collocations). Paired sample t-tests and ANOVA were then employed to analyze the collected data. The findings of the study revealed that humor texts can bear positive impacts on collocation learning of Iranian EFL learners. The findings of the study can have implications for teaching collocations.

This article examines the impact of gender, age, and education on the attitudes of Kurdish speakers in Mahabad towards standard Persian and the Kurdish language. Since people’s emotions towards their own or others’ languages are related to their language attitudes, this important component plays a significant role in measuring success in language planning, learning speed, language selection and use, and predicting the extinction or sustainability of a language. The study’s statistical population consisted of 80 Kurdish-Persian bilinguals in Mahabad who were randomly selected. This study is situated within the theoretical framework of sociocognitive linguistics, and the research perspective was measured through an indirect method (matched-guise test). After distributing the questionnaire and conducting the matched-guise test, the collected data were analyzed. The results of the statistical analysis showed that the variables of gender, age, and education in Mahabad had no significant impact on the attitudes of bilingual Kurdish speakers towards standard Persian and the Kurdish language. The Kurdish speakers of Mahabad exhibited numerically positive attitude towards the standard Persian language compared to Kurdish language, but no significant difference in terms of any of the mentioned variables was observed between the two languages under study.

In tandem with communicative approaches to language teaching, there is a growing understanding in SLA that assessment needs to be integrated into language learning. This contention has led to the development of the Learning-Oriented Assessment (LOA) approach for assessing language skills and aspects in language classrooms. To our knowledge, interventionist studies to improve EFL teachers' LOA-based assessment practices are in their infancy. The present study examined Iranian EFL teachers' perspectives on LOA in language teaching. To this end, the researchers selected 44 EFL teachers in four language institutes in Urmia (Iran) and provided them with tailor-made LOA-based training in 12 sessions for one month. The teachers were informed that LOA procedures are to be adopted and used in their classes. During the following semester, the researchers observed the participants' classes periodically and provided them with comments on their LOA procedures. Following the course, interviews were held with the participants to probe into their perspectives on LOA. Drawing upon thematic analysis, the researchers analyzed the recordings to develop a model for the participants' perspectives on LOA procedures. Development of teacher noticing skills in LOA procedure, its beneficial impact on language learning vis-à-vis traditional testing procedures, implementation challenges, widespread use at all proficiency levels, and the need to develop user-friendly LOA-compatible software and applications constituted the major themes based on the interview data. The findings demonstrate that the participants harbored favorable views on LOA and regarded it to be more efficacious than traditional testing procedures.

Highlighting the inseparable link between language, culture, and technology in English as a foreign language education, this qualitative exploratory study examined the impact of cultural and multicultural awareness on Iranian EFL teachers’ professional development within augmented virtual reality (AVR)-based and conventional teacher education programs. Thus, 28 EFL teachers participated in semi-structured interviews and reflective inquiries following eight-week training courses. Data analysis was done manually via qualitative thematic analysis and by MAXQDA according to Guskey’s (2002) professional development model. Consequently, seven themes for the conventional group (maintaining a culturally responsive environment, enhanced teachers’ behavior, curriculum improvement, creative ideas, enhanced skills, efficient communication, and preparing students for effective communication) and five themes for the AVR group (experiencing authentic material and environment, accessibility features, less interactivity in the classroom, teachers’ passion and confidence improvement, and less cultural boundaries) were extracted. The study highlighted the crucial role of cultural and multicultural immersion and adaptive teaching strategies in creating culturally responsive environments. This approach equipped EFL instructors to address diverse student needs and foster inclusive learning spaces effectively. Moreover, the AVR technology deepened cultural immersion and supported modern teaching approaches, enhancing educators' ability to engage with diverse cultural classrooms. Despite the observed improvements in trainees’ passion and confidence, a need for reconsidering technological aspects in contemporary teacher education was identified. Ultimately, the findings offered pedagogical implications for EFL teacher education and teacher trainers to equip teachers with the necessary skills to address cultural and multicultural challenges in EFL teaching and stimulate their professional growth.

The evaluation of students' writings and the allocation of scores are traditionally time-intensive and inherently subjective, often resulting in inconsistencies among human raters. Automated essay scoring systems were introduced to address these issues; however, their development has historically been resource-intensive, restricting their application to standardized tests such as TOEFL and IELTS. Consequently, these systems were not readily accessible to educators and learners. Recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have expanded the potential of automated scoring systems, enabling them to analyze written texts and assign scores with increased efficiency and versatility. This study aimed to compare the efficacy of an AI-based scoring system, DeepAI, with human evaluators. A quantitative approach, grounded in Corder's (1974) Error Analysis framework, was used to analyze approximately 200 essays written by Persian-speaking EFL learners. Paired sample t-tests and Pearson correlation coefficients were employed to assess the congruence between errors identified and scores assigned by the two methods. The findings revealed a moderate correlation between human and AI scores, with AI diagnosing a greater number of errors than human raters. These results underscore the potential of AI in augmenting writing assessment practices while highlighting its pedagogical implications for language instructors and learners, particularly in evaluating the essays of EFL students.

Our planet faces major environmental issues that must be addressed through ecological initiatives, education, and awareness raising. In language education, ecolinguistics has grown substantially during the last decade and has taken a cognitive step toward fostering and improving people’s ecological awareness; however, there was no mention of pedagogical practices of ecolinguistics rooted in theories of second language teaching and learning. Thus, the present study sought to apply a framework of English teaching based on the Activity Theory to raise EFL learners’ ecological critical language awareness. The researchers of the current quasi-experimental study employed a non-equivalent pretest and posttest control-group design to assess the effectiveness of using an AT-based framework in EFL classes to foster learners’ critical language awareness of ecological issues. An experimental group (n=45) and a control group (n=45) with intermediate-level members selected through convenience sampling took part in the study. The experimental group was taught with the AT-based framework, while the control group was not. The result of the independent samples t-test indicated that the ECLA of the experimental group had risen significantly compared to the control group. Also, the results of a series of paired samples t-tests comparing the pretest and posttest of the experimental group’s score on each domain of the ECLA showed that the learners’ awareness of all six domains had significantly improved. The study suggests that implementing the AT-based framework to teach ecolinguistics in language classes can be a promising way to raise learners’ ECLA.

The study aimed to investigate the Iranian EFL teachers’ knowledge of educational ethical codes in academic settings through the employment of a newly-designed questionnaire, developed by the researchers. To this end, six university professors as experts were invited to participate in an unstructured interview related to the issue under study. The preliminary themes were extracted from the relevant literature and the experts’ opinions through qualitative analysis. Next, the initial questionnaire items were generated and approved by three experts. The reliability of the constructed questionnaire was calculated using Cronbach's alpha. Afterwards, the 40-item questionnaire was administered to 400 EFL teachers resulting in the elimination of eleven items through exploratory factor analysis. Five factors were drawn from the responses of teachers through EFA representing their knowledge of educational ethical codes. Additionally, the confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the five extracted components of the newly developed questionnaire including educational, affective, socio-cultural, behavioral, and professional ethics factors were all acceptably loaded on their constructs at an acceptable level, and the scale can successfully determine EFL teachers’ knowledge of ethical codes in educational settings. The findings of the study have valuable implications for teachers, students, teacher trainers, educational policymakers and administrators.

Appraisal theory has provided researchers with a powerful analytical tool to explore how language users express their feelings, attitude and judgments in texts. The present study was conducted to explore the use of appraisals in Persian recounts with a focus on the attitude subsystem. Forty-eight online recounts were selected (22 female writers and 26 male writers). The analysis was conducted two times at a one-week interval using the UAM corpus tool software. The results indicated that women generally used more attitude resources in their recounts compared to men and they also used more affect than men, both men and women encoded their evaluation more explicitly rather than implicitly, and in both types of recounts, attitude subsystems appeared in a special order in terms of frequency. In conclusion, predominant use of attitude in Persian recounts can be considered as evidence of effectiveness and applicability of the appraisal theory.

The emergence of flipped learning has provided new opportunities to improve the quality of English language learning. First, the present study attempted to investigate the effects of flipped learning on enhancing the vocabulary knowledge of EFL learners. Second, it aimed to investigate the perception of the participants toward the flipped learning. To this end, 23 EFL learners from an English institute in Iran were assigned to the flipped and conventional groups. In the flipped classroom, the course materials selected by the teacher were posted via Telegram Application in advance to the class and the class time was spent on different peer and group activities including pre-communicative sentence arrangement, communicative activities, pair, and group discussion, role-play and storytelling. Multiple data collection sources, including a vocabulary knowledge test, a student-recorded portfolio, and a flipped learning experience questionnaire were employed to elicit the required data. The results revealed that the participants in the flipped learning classroom performed a little better than the participants in the conventional class; however, it was not statistically significant. Besides, they did not have a positive attitude toward flipped instruction. The author presents insights into the impacts of flipped instruction on the quality of vocabulary learning and the participants' perception of flipped learning and offers recommendations and implications for practice.

Dominating people’s lives, Social Media (SM) has gained a special place in every individual’s life in terms of becoming a tool to communicate with peers, families, and friends. Providing innovative functionalities, like forming groups, liking, reacting, and motivating, to modernize digital schooling, has made SM pervasive among students and teachers. The present paper tries to conceptually review and discuss the applicability of positive psychology in EFL education along with social-media-based language learning. Recently, in favor of distance learning, the world has witnessed a dramatic change in education, particularly in L2 learning, happening through social media (SM). However, there is a lack of a systematic study on the application of positive psychology in social media-based language learning, Therefore, it can be helpful to consider the effects of social media on L2 learning from a positive psychology perspective. As a first step in the field, the study aims to clarify how learners’ positiveness can bring about success and flourishment in social media-based L2 learning. Afterward, potential pedagogical implications and limitations are explained. With the hope of expanding the literature on PP in social-media-based Language learning, suggestions for future studies are proposed.  

The present study intends to extend the current ancillary understanding horizons of the developmental theory of individual-differences relationship-based (DIR) framework and emotioncy framework, to investigate aspects of emotioncy tensions that include identity-related attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs by providing "what-to-do" information when enacting identity tensions. Through validating the Student Identity Emotioncy Tension Scale (SIETS), the researchers suggested that social identities are also associated with specific emotional tensions by providing "what-to-feel" information during identity enactment. To do so, a total number of 300 students filled out the scale. In the validation process, statistical procedures were exerted to validate the scale. First, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was used to ascertain the underlying factors. Then, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Communalities were checked for the relevance of component variance. Cronbach’s coefficient was used to check the reliability of the 18 items. The results indicated that the scale can be best explained by a three-factor solution with an acceptable reliability. In the qualitative phase of cognitive interviews, students were interviewed to further examine the quality of the items. In the end, the findings were elucidated and implications for future research and practice were presented.