درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This study was an attempt to explore the impacts of recast and prompt as two types of corrective feedback on the development of knowledge of past tense by Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners. This study followed quasi- experimental design including pre-test, treatment, an immediate post-test, and a delayed post-test procedure. Initially, the pretest data from learners' performance on the Oral Performance Test (OPT) and the Untimed Grammatical Judgment Test (UGJT) was collected. After administering the pretest, the researchers gave the treatment to two experimental groups. Recast corrective feedback was supplied to the first experimental group, prompt corrective feedback was provided to the second experimental group, and no specific corrective feedback was given to the control group. The immediate post-test was given immediately following the delayed post-test, which was performed three weeks later. The findings of the study showed that when it came to their explicit and implicit knowledge of past tense, students who received prompt or recast corrective feedback outperformed those who received no particular corrective feedback. The results also showed that in this area, students in the group receiving prompt corrective feedback still did significantly much better than those in the recast group. The findings of this study may be useful for all stakeholders in the field of education but particularly for language teachers and students. They would benefit language teachers, teacher trainers, and material developers interested in employing task-based approach with feedback in their pedagogical activities.

Literature review confirms that TBCOA and ST were effective in improving EFL learners’ writing skills. However, a new study is necessary to compare the rate of effectiveness of these activities and techniques on Iranian intermediate L2 learners' writing performance. Moreover, the impact of two types of TBCOA versus two types of ST on intermediate EFL learners' writing performance was compared. This research followed a quasi-experimental design. A sample of 80 intermediate-level EFL learners, selected through convenience sampling from a private language school, constituted the participants. The learners were divided into four groups. The homogeneity of the participants in terms of writing performance was checked through a quick placement test at the outset of the study. Furthermore, the effects of debating vs. dictogloss., teacher scaffolding vs. peer scaffolding, and overall TBCOA vs. overall ST were compared through ANCOVA, with the pretest scores treated as the covariate. Debating outperformed dictogloss, teacher scaffolding was more effective than peer, and the overall TBCOA group significantly performed better than the general ST group in writing performance. The learners' interview results concerning the role of TBCOA and ST in their writing production resulted in several common themes, which were categorized into 16 codes for debating, 11 codes for dictogloss, six common codes for teacher scaffolding and peer scaffolding. This study provides implications for EFL writing instruction.

The use of educational technology (Ed-Tech) and the Internet in acquiring foreign language skills has led to an increased interest in alternative teaching strategies such as flipped and blended learning. This study investigates the effects of flipped, blended, and traditional face-to-face teaching methods on the utilization of cohesive devices in paragraph writing among EFL learners. From a pool of 110 junior EFL students, 90 participants were selected. Afterwards, they were randomly divided into three groups: flipped, blended, or face-to-face. To evaluate their paragraph writing abilities, a pretest was conducted prior to the treatment. The first comparative group received instruction using the flipped teaching method, while the second group experienced a blended learning environment (combining face-to-face and online classes). The control group received traditional face-to-face instruction. Following the treatment sessions, all groups completed a posttest on paragraph writing. The findings indicated that both the flipped and blended groups demonstrated significantly better performance compared to the control group. These results provide valuable insights for EFL teachers, curriculum designers, and learners.

Despite a strong background in education and human resources, teachers’ Individual Development Planning (IDP), as a reflective tool for further learning, has remained untouched in the domain of ELT. Therefore, the current study is an attempt to investigate EFL teachers’ IDP in light of the grounded theory approach in an Iranian context. To do so, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 17 expert participants selected through purposive sampling in the field of IDP from all over Iran. Interviews were transcribed and labeled as open, axial, and selective codes. The results led to 9 main categories of EFL teachers’ IDP: identifying EFL teachers’ current status, identifying EFL teachers’ duties, tasks, and educational needs, school and teachers’ mutual agreement, setting goals, providing resources, planning for an IDP, implementing an IDP, self-evaluation, and reformative acts. Data also unveiled the causal, contextual, and intervening conditions in the way of developing and implementing an IDP. The findings of the study can have theoretical and practical implications for EFL teachers, school principals, and educational policymakers.

This mixed methods nationwide research aimed to examine the relationships between three variables; namely, self-efficacy (S-E), emotional intelligence (EI), autonomy (A), their sub-constructs and reading comprehension ability of Persian second language (PSL) students. Participants were 141 PSL students from 28 different countries studying at 12 universities across Iran. Data were collected through S-E, EI, A scales, and a reading comprehension test and were analyzed using Pearson correlation. The results revealed that there were significant links between the variables and their sub-constructs and reading comprehension ability. Also, structured interviews were administrated with 45 participants, the results of which confirmed those obtained from quantitative instruments. Moreover, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to access more in-depth perception of the variables and explore the strengths of the causal relationships. The three independent variables strongly predicted reading comprehension, with S-E being the strongest predictor. Also, three out of four sub-constructs of EI, and two out of three sub-constructs of A were powerful predictors of reading comprehension. In terms of the increasing number of PSL learners, the findings of the present study could be helpful for L2 (particularly PSL) teachers, learners, and academic policymakers.

The present study investigated the role of explicit instruction on the acquisition of English relative clauses by focusing on resumptive pronouns among Iranian learners of English at an intermediate level of proficiency. The study focused on two structurally different languages (Persian and English) regarding the use of resumptive pronouns.  A grammaticality Judgment Test (GJT) and a Sentence Combination Task (SCT) at three phases of pre-test, immediate, and delayed posttests, have been used; paired samples t-tests showed that exposure to input through teaching materials can improve the learners’ performance in specific types of relative structures, but not in all.  The findings propose that if language learners, especially in a foreign language context, are provided with enough input and still don’t acquire an uninterruptable feature (resumptive pronouns in this case), then it can be said that fossilization has occurred and the interpretability hypothesis (Tsimpli and Dimitrakopolou, 2007) will be confirmed. It also shows that explicit teaching can lead to future noticing in input and result in more stable acquisition.

Notwithstanding the growing number of research on many aspects of audiovisual translation, cross-cultural pragmatics has remained under-investigated in audiovisual translation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the translation of general extenders—such as and stuff (like that) and or something in Persian dubbing and non-professional subtitling. Positioned at the crossroads of the pragmatics of fiction and audiovisual translation, the analysis presented in this article draws upon past research on English and Persian general extenders, as well as the models for translating general extenders. In doing so, this study follows a corpus-based approach, using both qualitative and quantitative approaches to identify translation patterns of general extenders by dubbing translators and fansubbers in Iran. A corpus of twelve English films from different genres, along with their Persian dubbing and non-professional subtitling, was compiled for the investigation. Overall findings suggest that non-professional subtitlers followed a literal and sourced-oriented approach to translation, resulting in a more direct translation of general extenders. In contrast, the dubbing team (i.e., translator and dubbing director) tended to edit out these pragmatic issues in their translations; therefore, many general extenders were deleted in the translation. This was partly because the translation for dubbing has to be synchronized, resulting in some omissions and partly because the dubbing team paid less attention to these elements. Additionally, other strategies, such as substitution or explicitation were infrequently used in both dubbing and non-professional subtitling. The paper concludes by discussing limitations and offering opportunities for future research.

Much has been done on assessment literacy (AL) components and job demand-resources (JD-R). However, an interdisciplinary look at AL components as the predictors of JD-R and its possible consequences in the engagement and burnout of teachers’ assessment performance has been neglected. To fill this gap, the present study explored this issue in the context of Iran. To this end, through convenience sampling, 146 Iranian EFL teachers were selected to answer questionnaires on AL, JD-R, burnout and engagement. A series of multiple regression analyses were run to analyze the collected data. The results showed that some components of AL such as test construction, administering, rating, and interpreting test, psychometric properties of a test, using and interpreting statistics and authenticity were significant predictors of job demand. Moreover, the results revealed that alternative and digital-based assessment, recognizing test type, distinction and function, and authenticity were significant predictors of job resource. Furthermore, test construction, administering, rating, and interpreting test, psychometric properties of a test, and using and interpreting statistics could significantly predict teachers’ burnout. In addition, alternative and digital-based assessment, giving feedback in assessment, and ethical and cultural considerations in assessment turned out to significantly predict teachers’ engagement. These findings can have theoretical and practical implications for stakeholders.