درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The current study attempted to investigate the effect of a newly tailored curriculum on students’ general English achievement across gender as compared to the standard curriculum at Iranian tertiary education. The participants were 120 non-native undergraduate students of Pre-requisite General English course majoring in different disciplines at Ayandegan Institute of Higher Education in Tonekabon city. They were assigned into four groups including female control and experimental as well as male control and experimental. The experimental groups received teaching through the tailored curriculum and the control groups through the standard one. All the groups were given pretest and posttest on general English achievement. In order to analyze the data, a Kolmogrove-Smirnov test and an Independent Samples T-test were utilized. The findings of the study indicated female participant’s outperformance compared to the male ones, after being treated with tailored curriculum (TC) and standard curriculum (SC). However, the male participants experienced higher degree of progress after receiving TC as compared to SC, while such progress was not seen for the female.

Although there is an increasing amount of research examining the efficacy of Witten Corrective Feedback (WCF) in enhancing the grammatical accuracy of EFL learners, only a few studies have explored the perspectives of EFL teachers regarding Formulaic-oriented Witten Corrective Feedback (FWCF) in EFL settings. Using a mixed-method approach, this interpretive exploratory study sought to understand the attitudes of Iranian EFL teachers toward FWCF. The analyses were based on quantitative data from a 13-item anonymous bespoke online survey, qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, and an open-ended question at the end of the survey. EFL teachers (n =137) responded to the online survey, and 7 participants participated in semi-structured interviews. The findings indicated that female teachers' favorable opinions about the effectiveness of WCF for improving EFL learners' writing performance resulted from their belief that the learners' capacity to use more formal and courteous language in their writing assignments was positively impacted by using these formulaic sequences. Moreover, the findings demonstrated that EFL teachers preferred direct WCF methods over indirect tactics. The most essential component that affected teachers' practices in the classroom was training designed to change their perspective of the valuelessness of WCF. The teachers' lack of satisfactory understanding of formulaic sequences stemmed from their lack of information. In addition, teachers' hesitancy to use them in the lower proficiency levels emanated from their misconceptions of their uselessness in the language learners' writing tasks.

Drawing on the team-teaching model of multiple instruction, this study aimed to investigate the impact of team-teaching on the English language achievement of Iranian high school students. The study employed a sequential explanatory mixed-method design, consisting of two phases for data collection and analysis. In the quantitative phase, 40 male and 40 female students aged 16-18 were conveniently sampled from tenth-grade high schools in Lahijan, Iran. They were divided into two experimental and two control groups. The experimental groups received instruction using the team-teaching model, while the control groups received traditional instruction. Data analysis was conducted using one-way ANOVA, which revealed a statistically significant improvement in the performance of the experimental groups compared to the control groups. Due to gender differences, the results showed no significant disparities in the outcomes achieved by male and female students. In the qualitative phase, the same participants from the experimental groups were asked to provide open-ended responses regarding the advantages and disadvantages of the team-teaching method, using a questionnaire developed by Jones and Harris (2012). The responses were carefully examined using open coding techniques, and common themes were identified through systematic comparison of the codes. The findings indicated that team-teaching offered a wide range of benefits. Considering gender differences, it was evident that male participants perceived the benefits of the team-teaching model to outweigh the drawbacks more than their female counterparts. These findings have pedagogical implications for Iranian teachers and theoreticians in the field of English language instruction.

The current study examined the effect of scaffolding through presenting examples and pictures on EFL learners’ vocabulary learning and retention.For this purpose, six research niquestions were posed and a quasi- experimental design was applied with two groups of learners who were selected as experimental groups. This research was carried out with a sample of 60 English students from Iran Zaban Institution. The data were collected using three instruments. Primarily, a standard test of Nelson which had 50 items was used to assess general proficiency of the learners for the purpose of their homogeneity. Then, in order to investigate the learner’s lexical knowledge before executing the scaffolding strategies used by examples and pictures, the researcher prepared a vocabulary test used as pretest. At the end of the treatment the students’ lexical knowledge was assessed by a posttest. Also a vocabulary test was used in order to measure their vocabulary retention after two weeks. The results indicated that employing examples helps vocabulary learning as well as retention. In addition, it was shown that using pictures helps both vocabulary learning and retention, and employing examples and pictures have almost the same effect on vocabulary learning. Finally, the results are discussed and compared with the previous ones, implications are explained, and some suggestions and recommendations are provided.

This investigation aimed to examine the impact of spaced and massed education on the reading comprehension and vocabulary gain of Iranian EFL students. The researcher selected 150 Iranian participants out of 300 based on their enactment in the Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT). The selected medium participants were unsystematically assigned into two empirical groupings (spacing and massed) and one control group. The participants' reading comprehension and vocabulary knowledge in English were estimated using a pre-test. Three groups were provided with instruction on reading skills by English texts and new words from American English File 3. The massed group received a 90-minute session for each text, whereas the spaced group received three 30-minute sessions; the first session lasted 30 minutes, followed by two more sessions, each lasting 30 minutes, scheduled two days apart. Behind the teaching, a reading and vocabulary post-test post-test were distributed to the three classes. The results of data analysis utilizing independent samples t-tests and one-way ANOVA showed a considerable distinction between the post-tests of the spaced and massed groups compared to the control group. The findings demonstrate that the spaced grouping, which followed the specific recommended steps in their community, outperformed the massed and control groups (p < .05). This has consequential implications for English instructors, learners, and curriculum developers.

This study focused on the relationship between VIA (Values in Action) character strengths and the general second language (L2) proficiency of Iranian upper-intermediate EFLlearners. The researchers aimed to investigate the reletionship between six VIA virtues (courage, justice, humanity, temperance, wisdom, and transcendence) and learners' general L2 proficiency. The study involved 300 Iranian EFL learners enrolled in five language institutes in Isfahan, Iran. The participants' proficiency level was assessed using an Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT). Language proficiency was evaluated through the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) and a questionnaire was used to measure VIA characteristics. The data were analyzed using Pearson correlation. The findings showed a significant positive relationship between various subcategories of VIA characteristics and general L2 proficiency. These subcategories included wisdom, creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, courage, perseverance, honesty, humanity, love, kindness, social intelligence, justice, fairness, leadership, temperance, forgiveness, humility, prudence, self-regulation, transcendence, appreciation, gratitude, hope, humor, spirituality, and L2 proficiency. These results have implications for educational practitioners, such as school counselors, instructors, educational policymakers, and researchers, as they highlight the importance of VIA character strengths in promoting language learning achievement.

Our planet faces major environmental issues that must be addressed through ecological initiatives, education, and awareness raising. In language education, ecolinguistics has grown substantially during the last decade and has taken a cognitive step toward fostering and improving people’s ecological awareness; however, there was no mention of pedagogical practices of ecolinguistics rooted in theories of second language teaching and learning. Thus, the present study sought to apply a framework of English teaching based on the Activity Theory to raise EFL learners’ ecological critical language awareness. The researchers of the current quasi-experimental study employed a non-equivalent pretest and posttest control-group design to assess the effectiveness of using an AT-based framework in EFL classes to foster learners’ critical language awareness of ecological issues. An experimental group (n=45) and a control group (n=45) with intermediate-level members selected through convenience sampling took part in the study. The experimental group was taught with the AT-based framework, while the control group was not. The result of the independent samples t-test indicated that the ECLA of the experimental group had risen significantly compared to the control group. Also, the results of a series of paired samples t-tests comparing the pretest and posttest of the experimental group’s score on each domain of the ECLA showed that the learners’ awareness of all six domains had significantly improved. The study suggests that implementing the AT-based framework to teach ecolinguistics in language classes can be a promising way to raise learners’ ECLA.

What we know about the vision of an ideal Young Learners of English (YLE) classroom environment is only limited to a number of small-scale qualitative studies that have explored the development of teachers’ vision throughout their careers. This gap prompted the researchers of this study to pursue the development of a psychometrically valid measure of the factors involved in teachers’ vision of an ideal YLE classroom environment. To this end, an item pool was developed based on an extensive literature review, expert opinion, and interviews with 60 YLE teachers. Next, the first version of the questionnaire was administered to 366 YLE teachers from different cities of Iran. Confirmatory factor analyses through structural equation modeling procedures were applied to the data obtained to test the validity of the hypothetical model. Rounds of statistical analyses and the follow-up remodeling led to a final measurement model of a questionnaire with 23 items tapping into five factors of learner characteristics, attitudes toward the course, teacher characteristics, classroom environment, and organizational impact. The results of this study empirically support the multidimensionality of YLE teachers’ vision of an ideal classroom environment and yield a relatively concrete measure of the construct.