درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Underlying the recently developed notions of applied ELT and life syllabus is the idea that language classes should give precedence to learners’ life qualities, for instance emotional intelligence (EI), over and above their language skills. By so doing, ELT is ascribed an autonomous status and ELT classes can lavish their full potentials to the learners. With that in mind, this study aimed to design and validate a scale for appraising the current English language learning textbooks with respect to EI competencies. Having used several psychological models of EI, the authors developed a 44-item scale. The scale was then disseminated to in-service EFL teachers at non-profit language institutes in Iran. Rasch rating scale model was utilized to substantiate the construct validity of the scale. Three items, two representing impulse control and one pertaining to adaptability, misfitted the model, requiring to be pruned. The results also showed that the 6-point Likert scale functioned effectively. The scale is therefore a unidimensional and valid instrument with considerable implications for language teachers, syllabus designers, and materials developers.

Although explicit and implicit knowledge of language learners are essential to theoretical and pedagogical debates in second language acquisition (SLA), little research has addressed the effects of instructional interventions on the two knowledge types (R. Ellis, 2005).This study examined the relative effectiveness of explicit and implicit types of form-focused instruction (FFI) on the acquisition of four morphosyntactic features by four measures of explicit and implicit language knowledge. The measures included: oral elicited imitation, timed and untimed grammaticality judgment, and metalinguistic knowledge tests. A pretest and two posttests were conducted immediately and three weeks after the instructional interventions. Durable effects of FFI on low intermediate Iranian learners were found for the target language forms.In particular, explicit and implicit FFI positively facilitated the development of explicit and implicit knowledge of the target features, both immediately after the instructional interventions and, marginally decreasing, over time. Also, explicit FFI was more effective than implicit FFI as measured by both explicit and implicit knowledge tests. The findings may contribute to understanding of the efficacy of explicit and implicit FFI on L2 learners’ controlled (explicit) and spontaneous (implicit) use of morphosyntactic forms at relatively early stages of L2 acquisition.

The present study seeks to investigate the potentiality of the translation task as a testing method for measuring reading comprehension. To achieve this objective, two types of translation tests, open-ended and multiple-choice tests, and two types of reading comprehension tests, multiple-choice reading comprehension and open-ended cloze tests were developed in this study. The reliability of the tests was computed in order to estimate which translation test was more reliable and valid. Correlation coefficients were run in order to investigate whether translation tests worked as reliable and valid measures of reading comprehension, and to examine the relationship between proficiency in reading comprehension and proficiency in translation. The results indicate that the open-ended translation test is more reliable and valid than the multiple-choice one; translation has a high potentiality to work as a reliable and valid tool to assess reading comprehension; and there exists a high positive correlation between the participants’ proficiency in reading comprehension and their proficiency in translation. The findings of this study might have pedagogical implications for instructors. They may be justified to highlight the role of translation tests and benefit from them in their reading comprehension classes.

This study aims at evaluating the coursebooks taught at the intermediate level of adult and young adult departments of the Iran Language Institute in terms of multiple intelligence types introduced by Gardner (1983) to see to what extent such coursebooks represent the Multiple Intelligence Theory. To fulfill the objectives, a checklist developed by Botelho (2003) and localized by the researchers on the basis of this theory was used. The coursebooks were analyzed according to this checklist and the frequencies and percentages of occurrence of each type of intelligence were calculated. The results of the study showed that verbal/linguistic, logical/mathematical and visual/spatial types of intelligence were the most dominant intelligence types in the analyzed coursebooks. Naturalistic and bodily/kinesthetic types of intelligence were the least common types represented in the coursebooks. A comparison was also made between the coursebooks taught to adults and young adults at the Iran Language Institute and the results presented a significant difference between the percentage of occurrence of logical/mathematical, bodily/kinesthetic, visual/spatial, intrapersonal and musical types of intelligence between the two sets of coursebooks. On the other hand, the difference between the percentage of occurrence of verbal/linguistic, interpersonal and naturalistic types of intelligence was not significant.

ساختن آزمون رایانه ای پویا و بررسی موثر بودن آن در پیشبرد مهارت خواندن دانشجویان هدف اصلی این تحقیق می باشد. امکان پذیری و ویژگی های روان سنجی دو مقوله ای هستند که استفاده ازازمو ن های پویا را محدود ساخته اند. نسخه رایانه ای ارزشیابی پویا به عنوان راه حلی برای این چنین محدودیت هایی ارائه می گردد. آزمون رایانه ای پویای خواندن (CDRD) این توانایی را دارد که به دانشجویان در صورتی اشتباهی مرتکب شوند کمک ارائه نماید. در پایان آزمون نرم افزار گزارشی از عملکرد دانشجویان به ما می دهد که حاوی دو نوع نمره می باشد: 1- نمره غیر پویا که بر اساس اولین پاسخ آنها به هر سوال می باشد و 2- نمره پویا که بر اساس مقدار کمکی است که آنها دریافت کرده اند. 77 دانشجوی زبان انگلیسی که اکثراً در سطح کارشناسی ارشد زبان بوده اند در این تحقیق شرکت کرده اند. نتایج تحقیق نشان داد در حالی که این آزمون رایانه ای استانداردهای روان سنجی آزمون را رعایت می کند قادر است که به دو هدف ارزشیابی پویا یعنی پیش برد توانایی دانشجویان و دادن اطلاعاتی در مورد پتانسیل توانائیهایشان نائل گردد. توصیه می شود که معلمان ارزشیابی پویا را در کنار ارزشیابی سنتی استفاده کنند. در این صورت آنها می توانند شناخت کامل تری از توانایی های دانش آموزان خود داشته باشند وهمچنین می توانند آموزش موثرتری برای آنها فراهم نمایند.

Vocabulary is an important component of language proficiency which provides the basis for learners’ performance in other skills. But, since vocabulary learning seems to be so demanding, learners tend to forget newly-learnt words quite soon. In order to identify vocabulary learning conditions which can produce a more lasting effect, this study investigated the effect of three kinds of gloss conditions, that is traditional non-CALL marginal gloss, audio gloss, and extended audio gloss, on vocabulary gain of EFL learners. To this end, three experimental and one control groups, each comprising 15 participants, took part in the current study. In order to ensure that the participants were from the right proficiency level, KET (Key English Test) was used as the homogenizing tool. Participants in each group read two unseen passages under one of the three mentioned conditions for experimental groups, with no gloss offered for control group. They all completed one pre-test, one reading session, one post-test, and one delayed post-test of vocabulary. The data were analyzed using t-tests and one-way ANOVAs for both immediate and delayed post-tests. Statistical analyses of the results revealed that the audio gloss group, who were provided with the voice of a speaker to read the meaning of the target word, and extended audio gloss group, who had access to audio gloss as well as L2 English example, both significantly outperformed the other groups in terms of vocabulary acquisition in both the immediate retention and in the delayed retention of key words. Further results and implications are discussed in the paper.