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The present study aims at scrutinizing the inference complexity level (henceforth ICL) of test items of the Iranian State University TEFL Ph.D. entrance exam (ISUTPEE) from 2010 to 2017 through the lens of Kintsch's construction-integration theory (C-I) (Kintsch, 1988, 1998). Though there is ample research on inferencing in the field of reading comprehension, the existing literature reveals a serious gap in relation to inferencing complexity of test items in high-stakes exams that exert profound effects on the academic achievements of the individuals. Inferencing is examined in this study to explore the ICL of the test items of the Special Knowledge Test (SKT) according to three levels of memory representations of Kintsch's model: the surface model, the textbase, and the situation model. To this end, the test items for eight consecutive years of the ISUTPEE were examined in relation to the three distinct kinds of mental representations. To ensure the reliability of coding by the researchers, two other specialist coders assessed the ICL of 33% of the items. The intraclass correlation among the three sets of codes was 0.91. The results of the study showed that a large number of questions, accounting for more than 80% of the items, merely activate the surface and the textbase model of information representations in memory. Furthermore, the ICL for each of the four parts of SKT was examined. This analytical study carries a stark warning regarding a deficiency of systematic attention to ICL in the development of test items.

Dans cet article nous analysons les procédés stylistiques et les artifices romanesques employés par Flaubert dans  Madame Bovary  afin de résoudre le problème de l’inadéquation du langage et du réel. Nous étudions ces techniques d’écriture dans la parole d’Homais. L’apport de cette étude réside dans l’application de la méthode génétique qui permet de suivre l’évolution de l’écriture de Flaubert à travers les différents états rédactionnels des manuscrits. En étudiant le style de cet écrivain à l’état naissant, nous essayons de puiser dans les brouillons comment il représente cette parole et avec quels procédés stylistiques. Homais est un personnage très important dans le roman car il incarne la parole défectueuse, celle qui trouble l’écrivain dans sa quête du style parfait et dans sa lutte contre le problème du « chaudron fêlé ». C’est un homme qui parle non pour communiquer mais pour émouvoir et quoique redondante et incomplète, sa parole cherche à tout dire. A travers le personnage d’Homais et employant ses mots, le romancier vise à subvertir le langage incrusté dans la Bêtise humaine.

La contribution se concentre sur l'analyse de la survivance du matériel mythologique dans la littérature française des treizième et quatorzième siècles. Pour cette analyse, trois textes ont été choisis pour représenter autant de manières de comprendre la mythologie au Moyen Âge, en France et en Italie.   La première œuvre, le roman d'Hector et Herculés, met en évidence la modernisation des matériaux épiques, qui se déclinent selon les canons du roman et de la chanson de geste. Le roman d'Hector et Herculés présente in nuce le contact entre mythologie et religion chrétienne qui est bien explicité dans le second texte, le Huon d'Auvergne. La chanson de geste raconte les aventures du héros éponyme, qui est envoyé en enfer par Charles Martel. Son pèlerinage rappelle étroitement les aventures d'Ulysse et les héros des romans courtois. En outre, le Huon d'Auvergne associe étroitement la conception chrétienne à la survie du matériel mythologique. Un exemple en est donné par l'épisode des femmes diaboliques, qui ressemblent de près au règne de la Sibylle des Apennins.   Le dernier texte est l'Histoire Ancienne jusqu'à César, un récit historique qui part de la Genèse et raconte l'histoire de l'humanité jusqu'à l'époque romaine. Déjà dans sa structure, l'Histoire combine le texte sacré avec l'histoire, la mythologie avec les chroniques. De cette façon, les héros de la guerre de Troie peuvent à la fois invoquer leurs dieux pour la victoire de la guerre et se dire chrétiens.   À travers les trois exemples présentés, il sera montré comment le Moyen Âge a préservé la mythologie, en essayant à chaque fois de la proposer dans une perspective chrétienne. 

The primary aim of this study was to shed light on the impact of a new instruction model, reflective reciprocal teaching (RRT), on English as a foreign language learners' (EFL) reading comprehension ability. Its mode of inquiry was a mixed-method, and it took on a quasi-experimental design, including a pretest, treatment, and posttest paradigm. The sampling techniques were both convenience and random sampling by which 100 EFL freshman learners were selected and assigned into three groups of reflective reciprocal teaching (RRT), reciprocal teaching (RT), and control. Two tests, namely Oxford Quick Placement Test and Michigan English Language Assessment Battery, were used to measure EFL learners' proficiency level and reading comprehension ability in its quantitative phase. ANOVA was utilized to analyze the collected data. Also, during the next step, which aimed to explore the learners' perceptions of RRT instruction, semi-structured interviews were used to collect qualitative data. The results indicated that the RRT group outperformed the control group regarding their reading comprehension ability; however, the RT instruction did not significantly impact this issue. Accordingly, the qualitative data analysis findings indicated that self-regulated learning, perceived competence, metacognitive awareness, confidence, and intrinsic motivation were the significant results of the RRT instruction model, contributing to the learners' reading comprehension ability.

In any teacher education practicum program in the Philippines, teaching demonstration is the most challenging undertaking of the student teachers during the internship program. This phenomenological study design explored the teaching demonstration experiences of student teachers reflected in their teaching journals. Data were 22 teaching journals taken from the internship portfolios produced by the Bachelor of Secondary Education (BSEd)-English graduates from a state university in the Philippines. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. Eight generated themes from the teaching journals that could provide suggestions for future student teachers and other members of the discourse community concerning the teaching demonstration were drawn, which are 1. ‘The Look’ of a Student Teacher, 2. Teaching with Enthusiasm, 3. The Voice of a Student Teacher in the ESL Classroom, 4. Lesson Planning Advice, 5. Subject Matter Familiarity, 6. Instructional Materials Efficiency, 7. Tips for Classroom Management, and 8. Improving the Questioning Skill. A focus group interview with the participants, which was also analyzed using content analysis, with some of the BSEd-English graduates was also utilized to further discuss the findings. The paper concludes with pedagogical implications for the Teacher Education Institution (TEI) and the concerned members of the discourse community.

The demand for learning English as a foreign language has significantly heightened the need to recruit efficient teachers. Related literature confirms the lack of studies on teacher characteristics that can affect their job satisfaction. This study aimed to study the relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ professional development, job satisfaction, and reflective thinking. One-hundred and fifty-nine teachers from different universities, language institutes, and schools wer e requested to answer the professional development questionnaire, the Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire, and reflective thinking scale as the main data collection instruments. These questionnaires were given in three different ways: in person, email, and social networks. Structural Equation Modeling was used to examine the hypothesized model of associations. This model was confirmed following the application of the modification indices proposed by the software (Normal chi-square = 3.4; RMSEA =.03; RMR =.02; GFI =.94; AGFI =.91; NFI =.94; CFI =.94; IFI =.94). The findings showed that there were significant internal correlations between all the latent variables and their sub-scales. Furthermore, findings of multiple regression analysis revealed that professional development and reflective thinking positively predicted job satisfaction, with professional development exerting more predictive power compared to reflective thinking. Pedagogical implications of the results have been discussed.

EFL learners’ ability to use advanced and varied vocabulary is a crucial issue in writing performance. This study aimed to investigate the effect of writing task type on lexical diversity and sophistication. The relationship between lexical sophistication and lexical diversity in the narrative, argumentative, and descriptive task types written by upper-intermediate EFL learners was also explored. To this end, 70 EFL upper -intermediate learners, enrolled in advanced writing tasks, were selected as the participants. They undertook narrative, descriptive, and argumentative writing tasks in a counterbalanced way. Then, Vocabulary Diversity (Voc-D) and Measure of Textual Lexical Diversity (MTLD) were used to measure lexical diversity. Lexical sophistication was measured using CELEX log frequency and Beyond 2000 Words (K3+). The writings were pasted into Coh-Metrix measure MTLD, Voc-D, and CELEX. VocabProfiler was also used to measure K3+ of the writings. In lieu of the purposes of the study, the research design involved repeated measures and correlation. Using Multivariate Analysis of Variance and Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient, the findings revealed that lexical diversity varied significantly across the three writing tasks. The highest scores of MTLD and Voc-D belonged to the narrative, argumentative, and descriptive writing tasks, respectively. Moreover, EFL learners used more advanced words in argumentative task type according to the measurement of CELEX and K3+ level words. However, learners' lexical sophistication in narrative and descriptive writings did not emerge as significantly different when measured by K3+. The significant positive relationship between lexical sophistication and lexical diversity was evident in all three task types.

The most effective means of directing attention to an article in the academic community is to publish it in credential journals, however, writing in English can be challenging for novice writers especially non-native speakers (NNS) of English. Thus, despite the ample research in some fields, there is a great need for studies comparing the rhetorical features together with move structure of sections of Research Articles (RA) written by native scholars with non-native (NN) scholars’ RAs to provide NN writers with academic writing patterns beside procedures needed for publishing in the field of Business Management. To this end, Hyland’s (2000) five-move model was employed for identifying rhetorical moves along with a “bottom-up” approach for realizing linguistic signals in the Abstract, Introduction and Conclusion sections of thirty articles from international and national journals. The study revealed correspondence of most international articles to Hyland’s move model, a tendency for writing informative Abstracts was apparent with the presence of all the moves in Introduction and Conclusion sections. Analysis of linguistic aspects of articles illustrated a striking difference in the use of language features between native and NN scholars. The findings of this study have some implications for people involved in genre analysis as well as teaching academic writing and material design.

Metadiscourse involves the self-reflective linguistic expressions that refer to the evolving text, the writer, and the imagined readers of that text. This study utilized an interpersonal model of metadiscourse to examine the authors' use of metadiscourse in the Abstract sections of Applied Linguistics Research Articles (RAs). It investigated the distributions of interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers at a corpus of 110 RAs published by celebrity and non-celebrity authors to determine the ways academic writers deploy these resources at a hight-stake research genre to persuade readers in their discourse community. The findings revealed that frame markers with a relative frequency of 112 were the most frequent strategy category for the non-celebrity authors. Moreover, evidentials with a relative frequency of 3 were the least frequently used strategy for the celebrity authors. There were no significant differences in the use of interactive and interactional metadiscourse markers between celebrity and non-celebrity authors. These findings might have implications for the teaching of academic writing and scholarly publishing and for novice writers who aim to publish their studies in academic journals.