درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Self-assessment, a form of alternative assessment focusing on learner-centered curricula, autonomy, and needs analysis, has gained prominence recently. Via individual and cooperative self-assessment, EFL learners notice and apply the established standards and criteria that would decide on the accuracy and fluency of their productions, particularly in challenging areas like writing that require detailed forms of assessment. Here, learners’ capacity to self-assess and peer-assess their writings could contribute to their developmental functions. The objective of this study was to explore a specific number of Iranian EFL learners’ perceptions of criteria-referenced self-and-peer assessment in writing through a mixed-method survey. Sixty EFL learners were asked to answer a questionnaire on self-and-peer assessment. Additionally, 15 learners were requested to answer semi-structured interview questions to express their perceptions toward criteria-referenced self-and-peer assessment. For the quantitative phase of the study, a self- and peer-assessment questionnaire developed by Cornelius and Kinghorn (2014) was utilized. The questionnaire's reliability was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha, and content validity was confirmed. For the qualitative phase of the study, the researcher developed and conducted a semi-structured interview with five open-ended questions with validated content. The data related to the quantitative and qualitative phases were analyzed through descriptive statistics including the frequency percentage and content analysis methods, respectively. Results revealed learners had positive perceptions towards criteria-referenced self-and peer assessment in language classes. The findings offer beneficial implications for EFL teachers, learners, test developers, and administrators.

One of the main difficulties facing English as a Foreign Language learners in general and translation students in particular is their lack of mastery of the complexities of grammar in the target language they are learning. This study was an attempt to investigate the influence of categories of auxiliaries (auxiliaires) and present perfect (présent parfait) on Iranian sophomore translator trainees’ ability to use them in English. A total of 60 Iranian male and female sophomore EFL language learners participated in the study. They were chosen out of 90 participants through a piloted version of the Nelson-Danny Test as the homogeneity test. The selected participants were divided into two groups: an experimental group and a control group, with 30 students in each class. In the present study, the participants were subjected to a pretest, treatment, and posttest. Independent samples t-tests were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that knowledge of French grammar, especially the présent parfait, significantly affected Iranian EFL learners' grammatical knowledge of the same notions in English. The findings could be employed by English teachers, EFL learners, and materials developers in the field of ELT in the Iranian context.

The study of request speech act has been considered by many researchers in various cultures and communities. In line with the goals of these studies, the cuurent article aims to extract and categorize the request speech act strategies used by Iranian teenager students (ITS) based on Cross Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP) coding scheme proposed by Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989) with regard to the relationship between the social dominance (power) of the addressees on the type and number of request strategies. The data were collected via Discourse Completion Test (DCT) and role-play filled and performed by 100 Birjandi high school students of Persian (50 girls and 50 boys). The results of the Chi-square test and also the two data collection methods employed showed that there was a significant relationship between the addressee’s social dominance and the type and number of request strategies used by ITS. In addition,“Alerters”, “preparatories” and “grounders” were the most employed strategies by the participants in both DCTs and role-plays. Besides, the lower social dominance of the speaker towards the addressee resulted in the application of complex strategies. So, it seems, with regard to politeness, Iranian cultural system to be hierarchical. Moreover, regarding the use of the request strategies by ITS, the findings didn’t show any difference between the two corpora, i.e., the data gathered via DCTs and role-plays.

Giving consideration to the importance and on-going challenge of vocabulary learning, there is an increasing demand for seeking out new approaches that correspond well with the needs of digital natives. With the rapid advance of technology, deploying innovative approaches such as gamified and flipped mobile- assisted language learning is gaining worldwide popularity. The current study was an attempt to scrutinize the effectiveness of integrating gamification with flipped approach on EFL learners' receptive vocabulary learning. With the aim of carrying out this research, 68 EFL high school students were randomly allocated into an experimental and control group. The required data were gathered by means of pre- and post- tests. Moreover, the obtained data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics including two paired, and one independent samples t-tests. Quantitative findings revealed that the experimental group participants outperformed their non-gamified coequals. Additionally, as post-test scores showed tremendous improvement, it was found that both aforesaid approaches were devastatingly effective in enhancing EFL learners' vocabulary development. The results of this study can be useful for EFL instructors and teachers for giving them insights on how to employ flipped approach for teaching receptive vocabulary.

Idioms and collocations are part of lexical phrases which are of high importance in lexicography. One of the criteria for distinguishing these two types of phrases from each other is the inflexibility of their constituent elements. Idioms, unlike collocations, are not flexible in terms of word order and are always used in a fixed and specific form. The purpose of the present article was to show firstly whether all Persian idioms are inflexible against syntactic changes or some are flexible; secondly, to indicate how a new lexical phrase is created as a result of converting an idiom into a collocation. To illustrate this phenomenon, a new and practical definition for idioms and collocations, based on syntactic criteria not merely semantic, was provided. According to Construction Grammar, idioms were analyzed based on four syntactic tests: ‘passivization’, ‘clefting’, ‘dislocation’, and ‘interrogation’. Two hundred idioms were collected from two of the most up-to-date and comprehensive sources, namely Farsi Amiyaneh Dictionary (Abolhassan Najafi, 2008) and the two-volume Dictionary of Kenayat-e Sokhan (Hassan Anvari, 2019). Some idioms were flexible to syntactic changes, and behaved similarly to collocations. The flexibility of idioms led to introducing a new definition of these phrases based on syntactic criteria. Thus, such phrases were considered a kind of collocation, not an idiom. The result showed that converting an idiom into a collocation always creates a lexical phrase or lexeme with a new meaning. Finally, a plan was introduced to represent such idioms practically in Persian dictionaries.

This study aimed at evaluating PISA-like reading test developed by teachers participating in the teacher training for teaching PISA-like reading. To serve the purpose, an experimental test was administered to 107 students aged 15-16 using a set of text and questions constructed according to the criteria of PISA Reading test Level 1. Item analysis was performed following the sampling using Rasch Measurement, deemed essential for determining the ideal index of test items relative to students’ ability in making correct response. The component of the calculation comprises reliability, separation, dan standard error. The Rasch model was constructed manually using Microsoft Excel to obtain the result of the calculation, and a Wright Map was also made manually to illustrate the result of the calculation. The results of the item analysis indicated that the test and the items the teachers constructed have met good criteria. The results revealed an even distribution of test item difficulty at the targeted level. The samples’ ability to make correct answers, however, was decentralized towards the test items of moderate level of difficulty. Only a limited number of students have showed good ability in their response to test items of higher difficulty.

With the incremental integration of technology in writing assessment, technology-generated feedback has found its way to take further steps toward replacing human correcting and rating. Yet, further investigation is deemed necessary regarding its potential use either as a supplement to or replacement for human feedback. This embedded mixed-method research aims to investigate three groups of Iranian intermediate IELTS applicants who received automated, teacher, and blended (automated + teacher) feedback modes on different aspects of writing when practicing for the writing skill of IELTS. Furthermore, a structured written interview was conducted to explore learners’ perception (attitude, clarity, preference) of the mode of feedback they received. Findings revealed that students who received teacher-only and blended feedback performed better in writing. Also, the blended feedback group outperformed the others regarding task response, the teacher feedback group in cohesion and coherence, and the automated feedback group in lexical resource. The analysis of the interviews revealed that learners had high opinion regarding the clarity of all feedback modes and learners’ attitude about feedback modes were positive. However, they highly preferred the blended one. The findings suggest new ideas that can facilitate learning and assessing writing and recommend that teachers provide comprehensive, accurate, and continuous feedback as a means of formative assessment.

This study investigated the impact of a teacher education course on pre-service teachers’ pedagogical beliefs. A sample of 84 Iranian EFL pre-service teachers who had just been accepted to Farhangian University were selected through convenience sampling. Using a sequential mixed-methods design, their pedagogical beliefs were measured through a researcher-made questionnaire before and after a training course on the philosophy of education for English language teachers. Moreover, the changes reported by the participants were traced through thematic analysis of their reflective journals. Finally, in a focus group interview, they commented on the contributing factors to the success of the course in changing their pedagogical beliefs. The results of quantitative data demonstrated the impact of the training course on changing the participants’ pedagogical beliefs. The analysis of qualitative data obtained from the reflective journals indicated that the changes that the participants professed were of two emerging themes of raising awareness of new assumptions and adopting new pedagogical beliefs. In addition, the analysis of the interview transcripts revealed that the participants attributed the course success to the implementation of appropriate teaching strategies, the course contents, and the teacher educator’s performance. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that EFL pre-service teachers’ pedagogical beliefs can be modified in training courses of teacher education programs if a safe and collaborative atmosphere is created for them to critically reflect on their prior pedagogical beliefs within innovative theoretical frameworks.  

Indirect complaints (ICs) most often serve as rapport-inspiring speech behavior, whose affiliation by the recipient of complaint preserves solidarity among peers. The purpose of the present paper was to investigate the themes and response strategies used by Iranian students as an act of IC in the university context. Drawing on a mixed methods research design, the result of a thorough thematic analysis of the collected conversational data revealed that the themes Iranian students tend to use as an IC are not independent of their gender. In addition, two new IC response strategies were identified, namely attribution and admonishment. Hence, in order to account for all of the strategies used by Iranian students to respond to ICs, the existing categorizations are to be expanded. It was also discovered that only through explicit or embedded commiseration there is more potential of longer interactions among participants of conversations. The present study sheds some light on the pragmatics of the Persian language.

L'apprentissage du lexique est un élément essentiel du processus d'apprentissage du français car le lexique est le mécanisme de la langue par lequel les connaissances sont transférées, et qui est familier avec eux pourrait mieux exprimer sa pensée, et ses textes auraient un sens plus complet. Au fil des ans, l'enseignement du lexique a été une question controversée parmi les enseignants de langues, et beaucoup d'entre eux n'ont pas été convaincus de la meilleure méthode. Cet article traite brièvement de l'importance du lexique dans l'apprentissage du français et, à cet égard, explique certaines des méthodes que les enseignants de français utilisent. De ce fait, à travers cette étude, il va mettre en relief les tendances conventionnelles dans le domaine de l'enseignement du lexique en utilisant différentes méthodes utilisées par les enseignants de français. De surcroît, les résultats indiquent qu'avant de présenter le sens ou la forme, les enseignants devraient prêter attention au type de lexique, ainsi qu'au niveau et aux caractéristiques des apprenants. On constate également que les enseignants pourraient fournir des stratégies d'apprentissage du lexique avec des opportunités de rencontrer le lexique à plusieurs reprises et dans plus d'un contexte.

Anti-racism novels, portraying racism in all areas of wealth and income, education, health care, civil rights, life in North America and apartheid in South Africa, can create awareness toward different kinds of oppression that people suffered during different periods. The purpose of this study is to present a thematic analysis of Persian translations of Morrison’s Beloved (1987) from English between 1978 and 2005/ 1357 and 1384 by Gulrukh Sa’īdnīyā, Sānāz Sihatī, and Shīrīndukht Daghīghīān applying the theory of the structure of feeling by Williams (1983). In order to do this study, sentimental scenes of Beloved, examining the destructive legacy of slavery, which were translated during the period under study were examined. Persian translations of these scenes were identified, and the representations of the feelings in the identified scenes were analyzed based on the theory of the structure of feeling by Williams (1983). Based on the findings, it can be concluded that the three translators seemed to be able to transfer the representations of the identified sentimental scenes, such as fury and resentment into Persian. Furthermore, the findings suggest that translation of anti-racism novels plays a significant role in transferring representation of feelings of oppressed people into other nations.

Diagnostic classification models (DCMs) have recently become very popular both for research purposes and for real testing endeavors for student assessment. A plethora of DCM models give researchers and practitioners a wide range of options for student diagnosis and classification. One intriguing option that some DCM models offer is the possibility of examining the nature of the interactions among the attributes underlying a skill. Attributes in second/foreign language (L2) may interact with each other in a compensatory/non-compensatory manner. Subskill/attribute relationship has been studied using diagnostic classification models. The present study provides a mini review of the DCM studies on the attribute relationships in L2 reading, listening, and writing. The criteria based on which interaction between the attributes have been inferred are reviewed. The results showed that the majority of DCM studies have investigated reading comprehension and more studies are required on the productive skills of writing and speaking. Furthermore, suggestions for future studies are provided.