درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

There has been increasing interest in utilizing corpora in linguistic research and pedagogy in recent years. Rhetorical organization of different sections of research articles may appear similar in various disciplines, but close examination may show subtle differences nonetheless. One of the features that has been at the center of attention especially in recent years is the idiomaticity of a discourse which can be examined from the perspective of multi-word units captured by the automatic retrieval of lexical bundles. This study takes a corpus-based approach for the identification of lexical bundles. A corpus of 801,894 words from 790 articles was collected. In order to fulfill the purposes of the present study, ABBYY FineReader 10 professional edition, Total Assistant, Antconc 3.2.3, and WordSmith Tools 5 were used to identify lexical bundles. Then these bundles were classified structurally and functionally based on the presented taxonomies in the literature. The results of the current study indicated that the writers of medical research articles mostly rely on text-oriented bundles in the discussion section of research articles to establish academic discourse.

In L2 development, the cognitive complexity of tasks plays a crucial role in task performance and language features produced. However, there have only been few studies addressing the impact of task complexity on EFL learners' attention to L2 system and form-focused self-repairs (FFS).This study explores the role of increasing cognitive task complexity in EFL learners' form-focused attention (FFA) to L2 system (i.e. grammar, lexis, and phonology) and FFS and the effect of increasing procedural task complexity on EFL learners' FFA to L2 system and FFS. The participants comprised one hundred EFL junior students of TEFL. The sample was chosen from the cohort of EFL students at Islamic Azad and state universities in Isfahan and Shahrekod. The participants performed under task conditions of−/+ casual reasoning and −/+ planning time. After each stage, each participant filled in a Likert-type scale to examine his/her attention to different aspects of L2 system .Finally, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used to compare the learners’ instances of of self-repairs at un-increased and increased task complexity occasions. Repeated-Measures ANOVA was used to examine the data. Results showed an overall effect of task complexity on EFL learners' attention to L2 system and FFA behavior across task types.

Foreign language learners tend to avoid phonological difficulties and simply transfer sounds whether from their L1 or any pre-existing L2. Phonological awareness (PA) gives students an active role in understanding their own potential in improving pronunciation through several methods. However, such methods are likely to be restricted to only passive learning methods, such as repetition, reading and lectures. In this study, 118 Japanese students of Spanish were tested in their articulation ability of the Spanish liquid [r] segment; the students were divided into two groups: the control group (GA), composed by 59 students, which did not undergo any special PA training, and the PA trained group (GB), composed as well by 59 students, which underwent only one PA intervention. The articulatory accuracy rate of GA for such segment after their first year of language acquisition was 27.16, while for GB it was 72.54 after the PA intervention. The improvement of GB after the PA intervention was highly significant in regard to the learners’ phonological accuracy (p < 0.001)

This paper reports on how top EFL students foster oral communication strategies (OCSs) throughout their 4-year English program at the university level. It is a cross-sectional study of 40 EFL learners enrolled in the Department of English, Faculty of Education, Taiz University, Yemen. Data were collected through a questionnaire based on Oxford’s Strategy inventory for language learning (SILL). The findings revealed that the respondents not only used listening and speaking strategies in Oxford’s inventory but also invented some other strategies to cope with their learning environment. It was also found that the more they advance in the EFL program, the more their strategic competence improves. The results confirm previous studies that high-achieving learners employ several OCSs which facilitate their success. These strategies are put forward to low-achieving learners so as to elevate their English learning.

The study explored the probable significant relationship among demotivating factors, gender, educational fields, and reading proficiency of Iranian EFL learners. The participants in this study were 96 Iranian high school students, learning English as a foreign language (EFL). They were high school female and male students between 16 to 18 years of age. There was the initial population of over 150 students. A stratified random sampling procedure was used to have three groups of 32 from the three educational fields. Each group comprised 16 females and 16 males. There was a Persian questionnaire, which surveyed participants’ judgment on each demotivating factor in the process of language learning. Another instrument used in this study was the reading section of Cambridge Test of English Proficiency. The ex post facto design was used in this study. The findings revealed a significant relationship between the participants’ reading proficiency and language learning demotivating factors. The findings also showed a significant relationship between the participants’ educational fields and the demotivating factors. No significant relationship was found between the participants’ gender and demotivating factors. The findings also revealed that the participants reduced self-confidence and lack of inadequate school facilities and teachers are the most salient demotivating factors. The findings of the study have some pedagogical implications to improve teacher-training programs and language teaching paradigms.

This study investigated the relationship among Iranian English teachers’ adversity quotient, personal growth initiative, and pedagogical success. The participants comprised 28 male and female English teachers and a total of 336 male and female EFL learners who attended the abovementioned teachers’ classes (12 for each teacher). Stoltz’ (1997) Adversity Response Profile (ARP) and Robitscheck’s (1998) Personal Growth Initiative Scale (PGIS) were administered among the 28 teachers while Moafian and Pishghadam’s (2009) Characteristics of Successful Iranian EFL Teachers Questionnaire (SIETQ) was administered among the 336 students. To look into the relationship and the predictability of the three aforesaid constructs, a Pearson product-moment correlation and subsequently multiple regression analysis were run following all statistical prerequisites necessary for running these parametric tests. The results demonstrated that there was a significant correlation among the teachers’ scores on the ARP and SIETQ, and their PGIS and SIETQ. Also, there was a significant difference in the predictability of the teachers’ SIETQ by their ARP and PGIS.

The present study aimed at exploring Iranian EFL teachers’ perception of professional development. To this end, 200 EFL teachers teaching at private language institutes in Iran were selected as the participants of the study. First, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 50 participants of the study based on which Professional Development Perception Questionnaire was developed and pilot-tested (i.e. subjected to exploratory factor analysis) with 82 similar EFL teachers. The questionnaire was then expert viewed and administered to all the 200 participants of the study and was subjected to another factor analysis to ensure its validity and reliability more comprehensively. The findings yielded a valid model or inventory for assessing EFL teachers’ perceptions of professional development.  The results also revealed that the participants perceived professional development enhanced their pedagogical knowledge, improved students’ learning outcomes, and helped them understand their own pedagogical weak points and strong points and those of their colleagues. Furthermore, the results of chi-square analyses indicated that high-experienced teachers had significantly more positive perceptions of professional development than their low-experienced counterparts. The results of the current study yielded a valid and reliable model for measuring English teachers’ perception of professional development which can be adopted safely by other similar studies. The findings might also contribute to policymakers and managers of language institutes to establish proper professional development activities for their teachers which might consequently lead to learners’ improvement in learning.

Despite the importance of author engagement in the literature review of academic articles, many writers fail to publish their academic articles due to being incompetent in using conventional engagement resources. In view of this problem, the present study aimed to study linguistic representation of engagement as a dimension of evaluation in academic articles published in international and Iranian local journals. To do so, the literature review section of eighty psychology and applied linguistics articles as representatives of humanities and mechanical engineering and medicine articles as representatives of hard science articles published between 2008 and 2017 in the international and Iranian local journals formed the corpus of the study and were analyzed on the basis of the engagement resources proposed by Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal Theory The findings indicated that monoglossic resources were used more frequently in articles published in local journals than those published in international ones. Regarding heteroglossic resources, intra-vocalizing resources (countering, denial, pronouncement, and entertainment) were found more frequently in articles published in international journals. However, extra-vocalizing resources (endorsement and attribution resources) used in local journals outnumbered those used in international ones. The findings can provide insights for teaching academic writing in EFL contexts.

This study investigated the effect of story-based technique, L₁ translation, and Whatsapp emoticon puzzle solving on EFL learners’ learning proverbs. From among 90 female intermediate level learners at two language institutes in Qom, Iran, 60 homogeneous students were chosen following the administration of a sample of Nelson proficiency test and a pre-test. The 60 participants were then assigned to three experimental groups, equal in number. The experimental group 1 was instructed using story-based technique; the experimental group 2 was taught through L₁ translation; and the experimental group 3 was exposed to Whatsapp emoticon puzzle solving. Subsequently, all three groups took part in a proverb post-test similar to the pre-test. The data were analyzed by ANOVA. The results showed that Whatsapp emoticon puzzle solving was significantly the most effective, and that the students’ level of learning proverbs was influenced by story-based technique more than L₁ translation technique. The findings of this study can contribute to technology- enhanced language teaching.

Grounded in sociocultural theory (SCT), this study explored whether the hypothesized difference in task-induced involvement could affect the actual realization of evaluation, one of the cognitive dimensions of the Involvement Load Hypothesis (ILH). A group of 24 Iranian EFL learners participated in the study. They were paired up to write a composition including ten unknown words in the first session and then completed a cloze task with another set of ten new words in the second one. Collaborative dialogues in both sessions were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and micro-genetically analyzed to trace how the value of hypothesized evaluation could affect the manifestation of evaluation during collaborative dialogues. In line with the tenets of ILH, the results of the micro-genetic analysis demonstrated that using target words in the composition task could induce a higher degree of evaluation than using them in the cloze task. In light of the findings, researchers are suggested to look at issues from different standpoints rather than restricting themselves to one single theoretical perspective.