درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The present article reflects the results of a needs analysis survey carried out on a group of 52 students in a general English course at Islamic Azad University of Hamedan, Iran, in which a 32-item questionnaire adapted from Kavaliauskiene and Užpaliene (2003), Iwai et. al (1999) and Seedhouse (1994) is used to investigate the students' conceptions of good learning of English expressed in terms of their own wants and lacks. The results of the data analysis point to a need to improve the course syllabus in different ways.

Computer technology has provided language testing experts with opportunity to develop computerized versions of traditional paper-based language tests. New generations of TOEFL and Cambridge IELTS, BULATS, KET, PET are good examples of computer-based language tests. Since this new method of testing introduces new factors into the realm of language assessment ( e.g. modes of test delivery, familiarity with computer, etc.),the question may be whether the two modes of computer- and paper-based tests comparably measure the same construct, and hence, the scores obtained from the two modes can be used interchangeably. Accordingly, the present study aimed to investigate the comparability of the paper- and computer-based versions of a writing test. The data for this study were collected from administering the writing section of a Cambridge Preliminary English Test (PET) to eighty Iranian intermediate EFL learners through the two modes of computer- and paper-based testing. Besides, a computer familiarity questionnaire was used to divide participants into two groups with high and low computer familiarity. The results of the independent samples t-test revealed that there was no statistically significant difference between the learners' computer- and paper-based writing scores. The results of the paired samples t-test showed no statistically significant difference between high- and low-computer-familiar groups on computer-based writing. The researchers concluded that the two modes comparably measured the same construct.

The teaching of writing has recently begun to move away from a concentration on the written product to an emphasis on the process of writing. Feedback is a fundamental element of the process approach to writing. It can be defined as input from a reader to a writer with the effect of providing information to the writer for a revision. This study reports on the effectiveness of two types of feedback provided by two different sources– the teacher and the peers– on students’ overall writing quality in an EFL context. To fulfill such an aim, a group of 60 Iranian Persian native speakers aged between 22 and 25 majoring in English Translation were chosen from among a greater population of 98. They were assigned to three homogeneous groups based on their scores on Oxford Placement Test (OPT) and a sample writing assignment on a given topic by emphasizing the expository genre through providing some reasons. They covered five topics before and after receiving feedback– ten written texts– in the span of a 15-week semester. Then, the papers were rated analytically. The findings revealed that feedback had a noticeable effect on the students’ draft editing, and of the two sources of feedback, the students benefited from teacher’s feedback more than their peers’ feedback. Other possible implications interpreted from this study supported the occurrence of a change in students’ roles in communicative foreign language learning settings and that, they could take the role of autonomous learners and turn into common respondents to other students’ writings and in this way their L2 knowledge construction and implementation increased

Following Swales’s (1981) works on genre analysis, studies on different sections of research articles in different languages and fields abound. This paper compares Applied Linguistics research article abstracts published in Oxford University and Islamic Azad University of Tabriz in English using Swales’s (1981-1990) move structure model and Halliday’s (1994) description of transitivity processes. One hundred and forty eight English research article abstracts were analyzed at macro and micro level based on the Swales’s model (IMRD) and transitivity system. The results demonstrated that the four structural moves of Swales and transitivity processes of Halliday were evident in both abstract sets but were differently distributed. The research suggests pedagogical implications for TEFL practitioners, especially for the writing skill and for the preparing research article abstracts (RAAs).

Derived from the emerging paradigm shift in English language teaching and assessment, there has been a renewal of interest in dynamic assessment (DA) to be used as an alternative to the traditional static testing in language classrooms. However, to date, DA practice has been mostly limited to clinical treatments of children with learning disabilities, and it has not been widely incorporated into the EFL contexts. In order to find out the reasons behind the slow trend of DA practice, this research adopted a framework, based on the post method pedagogical principles and recommendations, to delve into the prospect of methodological realization of DA approaches in Iranian EFL classrooms. To this end, two instruments, a questionnaire and an interview were developed to explore the practicality of DA through seeking 51 Iranian EFL teachers' perception of DA practice in their classrooms. The results indicated that most of the teachers were negative about the practice of DA in their classrooms and believed that a full-fledged implementation of DA in Iranian EFL classrooms is too demanding. The feasibility of DA in Iranian EFL classrooms, where teachers are deprived of DA training, guideline, and technological resources, is questioned seriously due to the factors such as time-constrained nature of DA procedures, large number of students in EFL classrooms, the common practice of static tests as the mainstream, and overreliance on the teachers' teaching and assessment abilities. The paper suggests the framework of inquiry in this study, which was derived from the post method pedagogy, to be utilized as a blueprint for a critical appraisal of any alternative method or theory which is introduced into ELT contexts.

This study set out to investigate the effect of peer- editing as a metacognitive strategy on the development of writing. It was hypothesized that peer-editing could be used to raise grammatical and compositional awareness of the learners. Forty pre-intermediate sophomores at Islamic Azad University-Tabriz Branch participated in the study, taking the course Writing I. To warrant the initial homogeneity of the groups, a nonequivalent pretest –posttest design was selected and the groups were randomly determined as the control and the experimental groups, each with twenty subjects. The treatment following the pretest involved a three-phase planning procedure including: consciousness awareness via error recognition activities, error categorizing activities, and self/peer editing. Statistical analysis of the post-test composition did not reveal any significant difference between the two groups. It seems that peer-editing entails a firm grammatical foundation which needs to be formed early in the process of language learning. The results underscore the need to reorient the method of teaching grammar at university level in a way to accommodate a task-based approach to cognitive and metacognitive strategies-based training.