درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Vocabulary learning is a crucial part of acquiring a language. According to Webb (2014), learning vocabulary is essential for language proficiency, but learning words regardless of their relationship with other words is not enough. Accordingly, this study aimed to investigate the effect of teacher’s voice vs. written messages via WhatsApp on Iranian EFL learners’ learning and retention of lexical collocations. In order to conduct this study, 100 female English language learners were asked to take part in the OPT test and sixty participants whose score ranged one standard deviation above and below the mean were selected and divided into three groups, as one control and two experimental. Then the pretest was administered before any treatment. One of the experimental groups was treated via the teacher’s voice and the next one via written messages through WhatsApp for ten sessions. The participants then took part in the posttest. In order to test the participants’ retention of collocations, they were asked to take part in the two-week delayed posttest, too. The analyses of obtained data showed that the teacher’s voice via WhatsApp had a statistically significant effect on both EFL learners’ learning and retention of lexical collocations. However, the teacher’s written messages via WhatsApp just had a statistically significant effect on EFL learners’ learning of lexical collocations, and it did not have a statistically significant effect on retention of lexical collocations. This is study is significant for all EFL/ESL learners, teachers, and English language institutes.

The study investigated the impacts of motivational scaffolding as one of the most effective instructional procedures on self-efficacy and learning achievement of field-dependent and field-independent English language learners. This study attempted to use both qualitative and quantitative data to get more reliable results. As qualitative part, 15 teachers in a semi-structured interview, and as quantitative part, two groups of learners participated as experimental and control groups. Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire was used to determine students' self-efficacy. The Group Embedded Figures Test was administered to categorize them into groups of field-dependent and field-independent. To determine proficiency level, a pre-test and a post-test were used. As treatment, eight sessions of Bandura’s training were administered to improve self-efficacy. Analysis of the qualitative data was conducted using content analysis, and as quantitative analysis, two-way Multivariate Analysis of Variance was conducted. The results showed that learners’ interacting within motivational scaffolding improved their self-efficacy and their learning achievement, and there is no significant difference between learners in the dimensions of field-dependent, field-independent. The findings have implications for teachers and learners in educational settings to detect some factors affecting the English language learners’ language performance and their psychological status.

Despite many studies on teacher autonomy (TA) and its connection with learner autonomy (LA), scant attention has been devoted to TA on its own and how it might contribute to teachers themselves. Against this backdrop, the current study set out to investigate novice English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ autonomy development in terms of their self-directed professional development (PD) and capacity for their self-directed PD, the two subcomponents of the multidimensional framework of TA. To this end, two novice EFL teachers’ audio diaries on the aforementioned subcomponents were collected for 10 months. Moreover, to complement the probable gaps in the diary phase, the teachers were interviewed in five terms. The thematic analysis of  the  collected diaries  and  diary-based  semi-structured interviews revealed that novice EFL teachers’ main activities for self-directed PD embraced peer observation, peer coaching, reading books, making use of technology, reflection, action research, and attending workshops. Additionally, the findings indicated that novice EFL teachers were equipped with both capacity and willingness to self-direct their PD. The constructive factors enabling  them  to  develop  such  capacity  included  experience,  reading  books,  and  external support. The findings bear implications for teacher educators to underline the value of PD strategies for teachers. Teachers should also be aware of the PD strategies they could employ for their self-direction. The findings suggest some implication for institute managers too.

Written corrective feedback (WCF) refers to the feedback given by writing instructors and tutors on novice writers’ performances. Although extensive importance has been attached to the implications of WCF for improving writing skill in L2 writing studies, there is a paucity of research into research on whether student writers benefit differently from elaborated and evaluative feedback. Having this in mind, the aim of this research was to examine the effect of teacher’s text-specific and rubber-stamped comments on Iranian EFL learners’ writing ability at intermediate level. Quick Placement Test was employed to select 40 pre-intermediate EFL learners as the participants of this research. Then, they were randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups. Prior to the treatment, the participants of both groups were given a pretest to disclose their initial writing ability. After administering the rubber-stamped comments to the experimental group and text specific to the control group, a posttest was administered to seek the effect of two types of instruments. An independent samples t-test was used to see if the treatment was effective. Paired samples t-test was also employed to determine the amount of progression between pretest and posttest of the experimental group. The results of the study revealed that rubber-stamped comments improved the learners’ writing ability. Implicationally, instructors can use rubber-stamped comments to help learners improve their writing ability.

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.

Much of what educators address is the overt curriculum; however, there is a hidden curriculum that affects education in a very profound manner. In view of that, the purpose of the present study is to determine the relationship of EFL teachers’ perspectives on hidden curriculum components in the Iranian institutional context with their students’ self-efficacy and national identity. More specifically, the present study surveyed the probable existence of any significant correlation between EFL teachers’ perspectives on the EFL hidden curriculum components, their students’ attitudes towards their own national identity, and self-efficacy. For this purpose, a model was suggested and tested using partial least squares variance-based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), to examine EFL teachers’ perspectives on the EFL hidden curriculum components contributing to their students’ national identity and self-efficacy. A total of 164 institutional EFL teachers in Iran completed the EFL hidden curriculum questionnaire. Besides, 987 students (about eighty percent of their learners) were asked to fill in national identity and self-efficacy questionnaires. Based on this model, all the correlations between the latent variables were significant except for three latent variables including the relationships among EFL teachers’ perspectives on the EFL hidden curriculum components (social atmosphere, organizational structure, and interaction between teachers and learners) and their learners’ self-efficacy. In addition, the results depicted all the relationships between latent variables was positive relations; while, the relationship between EFL learners’ national identity and self-efficacy was proved to be negative.

Classroom management constraints and how English teachers cope with or remove them effectively have significantly impacted both EFL teachers and teacher educators. However, the coping strategies employed by teachers with high and low levels of expertise have not been thoroughly explored yet. To this end, first 22 teachers in one language institute in Tehran were interviewed and their main coping strategies were extracted through qualitative analysis of the interviews. Then, the extracted strategies were worded into items carefully. The questionnaire of EFL teachers’ coping strategies was validated for the purpose of the study. The findings revealed that the participants used twenty-three coping strategies under two sub-constructs: problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies, based on exploratory factor analysis. One hundred EFL teachers with high and low levels of expertise (fifty in the high and fifty in the low group) responded to the items in the coping strategy questionnaire. The results revealed that highly expert teachers used the extracted coping strategies more frequently. Furthermore, the researchers confirmed that teachers need in-service training courses on coping strategies to manage their classes effectively. The results have some implications for stakeholders, namely English language teachers, teacher educators, language institutes, education departments, and EFL curriculum developers.