درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The concept of teacher change is critical in second language teaching and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context due largely to the fact that, almost, whatever we do in teacher education looks for initiating change of one sort or another. A substantial body of research has been dedicated to investigate teacher change (TC) from various perspectives. However, having studied the related literature, we found no robust, valid and reliable measure for TC in EFL context. Accordingly, effort was made to develop and validate a reliable and valid measure that could assess TC in an EFL context. The review of the prior research resulted in the collection of 186 items affecting TC out of which a temporary data driven model of teacher change was developed. 324 Ph.D. and M.A. graduated EFL teachers took part in exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the initial measure. Finally, a 66-item scale consisting of three components and thirteen sub-components was developed.The results showed both factorial validity andinternal consistency reliability for the measure.The TCSsubscales also had strong validity evidence based on the associationsfound. This study has various applications for language teachers and practitioners in the field.

Although decades of research have well elaborated on teacher professional development, we still do not have a thorough picture about what teacher professional development could entail and what components it consists of. The present study aims to develop and validate a teacher professional development scale in an Iranian English foreign language context. An initial tentative model with 130 items was piloted and tested through exploratory and confirmatory data analyses on a sample of 400 EFL teachers. This level resulted in the removal of 28 items in our sample loaded, resulting in a final 102 teacher professional development inventory. The developed inventory measures the extent to which EFL teachers are professionally developed and makes teachers aware of multiple characteristics of professionally developed teachers. These competencies are essential components of teacher professional development, enabling the teachers to utilize them in everyday teaching and learning practices in the classroom settings which, as a result, leads to student achievement. As teachers fulfill important professional roles, they need valid instruments to assess their day-to-day functioning in the class. With the instrument developed and validated in the current research, we, in fact, allow language teachers to assess their extent of professional development in different pedagogical contexts.

نیمه دوم قرن بیستم را می توان عصر فردسازی نامید که در آن تفاوتها و ارزشهای شخصی شناخته شده و مورد احترام قرار می گیرند. هوش یکی از جنبه های مختلف تفاوت های شخصی است که آموزش و یادگیری زبان را تحت تاثیر قرار می دهد. بنابراین هدف از تحقیق حاضر بررسی ارتباط بین هوش چندگانه و توانائی خواندن و درک مطلب زبان آموزان ایرانی زبان انگلیسی می باشد. برای نیل به این هدف، 117 نفر دانشجوی سال آخر زبان انگلیسی به طور تصادفی انتخاب گردید. پس از توزیع دو نوع ابزار تحقیق (پرسشنامه میداس و بخش خواندن و درک مطلب تافل)، داده ها جمع آوری شده و تحلیل آماری انجام پذیرفت. نتایج نشان داد که تمامی انواع هوش چندگانه زبانآموزان ارتباط معنی داری با نمرات خواندن و درک مطلب داشته و هوش شفاهی-زبان شناختی معنی دارترین پیشگوئی کننده خواندن و درک مطلب زبان آموزان است؛ در حالی که هوشهای بصری-فضائی و میان فردی به ترتیب دومین و سومین پیشگوئی کننده هستند. علاوه بر این هوشهای درون فردی و حرکتی پیشگوئی کننده خواندن و درک مطلب زبان آموزان نمی باشند.

الگوی غالب در تعاملات کلاسی یک توالی سه بخشی تحت عنوان آی آر اف (IRF) (مبادرت معلم، پاسخ شاگرد و بازخورد معلم) می باشد (سینکلر و کلتهارد، 1975). گرچه این الگو دارای مزایای تعاملی خاصی است، ولی به دلایلی، به ویژه به واسطه ی ایجاد فرصت مشارکت محدود برای شاگردان (کاسپر، 2001)، مورد انتقاد قرار گرفته است. به همین سبب، کنش جایگزین معطوف به اعتلای مبادرت و عاملیت شاگرد در تعاملات کلاسی از طریق برون رفت از آی آر اف می باشد. اما وقتی ساختار تعامل معلم محور باشد، آی آر اف کانون تعامل گشته و برون رفت از آن دشوار خواهد بود. مطالعه ی حاضر به دنبال پاسخی برای دو پرسش تحقیقی می باشد: اول اینکه شاگردان برای مبادرت و یافتن عاملیت در تعاملات معلم محور به چه چیزی نیاز دارند؟ و دوم، معلمین چگونه می توانند به شاگردان در رسیدن به این هدف کمک کنند؟ گفتمان کاوی تعاملات کلاسی یک معلم در خلال مرور تکالیف نشان داد که چگونه به کارگیری زمان انتظار مبسوط به یکی از شاگردان فضای تعاملی لازم را برای مبادرت و طرح پرسش ایجاد کرد. علاوه بر این، استفاده مداوم معلم از زمان انتظار مبسوط پس از مبادرت شاگرد، فرصت را برای سایر شاگردان به منظور مشارکت و مذاکره در تعاملی شاگرد محور پدید آورد. گزیده هایی از تحلیل داده های این مطالعه، مدیریت و جهت دهی یادگیری توسط شاگردان را به تصویر می کشد.

در مقاله حاضر رابطه بین ریسک پذیری، انگیزه ی یادگیری، اضطراب صحبت کردن به زبان انگلیسی و اعتماد به نفس زبانی با درستی، روانی و پیچیدگی گفتاری زبان آموزان زبان انگلیسی مورد بررسی قرار گرفته است. همچنین تاثیر تکرار فعالیت برروی متغیرهای فوق و همچنین بر روی درستی، روانی و پیچیدگی گفتاری زبان آموزان مورد مطالعه قرار گرفته است. جهت انجام تحقیق، پرسشنامه ای که به این منظور طراحی شده به 142 نفر زبان آموزان زبان انگلیسی داده شد. سپس، آنها به طور تصادفی به دو گروه آزمایش و کنترل تقسیم شدند. شرکت کنندگان در گروه آزمایش فعالیت مربوطه را در پنج نوبت که هر کدام یک هفته باهم فاصله داشتند تکرار نمودند. شرکت کنندگان در گروه کنترل فعالیت مربوطه را فقط در دو نوبت به فاصله سه هفته از یک دیگر تکرار نمودند. پرسشنامه مربوطه مجددا در پایان تحقیق به کلیه شرکت کنندگان داده شد. نتایج نشان داد که ریسک پذیری، انگیزه یادگیری، اضطراب صحبت کردن به زبان انگلیسی و اعتماد به نفس زبانی بر روی درستی، روانی و پیچیدگی گفتاری زبان آموزان تاثیرگذار می باشد. علاوه بر این، تکرار فعالیت به آنها کمک می کند تا درستی و پیچیدگی گفتاری زبان انگلیسی خود را بهبود ببخشند.

The present study adopted a mixed-methods research design and explored the role of a set of cognitive (i.e., aptitude and working memory) and motivational (i.e., self-regulatory capacity and self-efficacy beliefs) individual difference variables in the writing quality and composing behavior of 78 Iranian undergraduate EFL learners. The necessary data were collected through a series of instruments and both quantitative (e.g., multiple regression and t-tests) and qualitative (e.g., narrative construction and qualitative comparative analysis) techniques were used to analyze the data. The results of these analyses indicated that the construct of foreign language aptitude had the highest level of correlation and contributory potential to account for the writing competence of the learners. The composing process of learners with different individual characteristics was also compared and it was found that learners with high self-regulation capacity orchestrated and managed their composing behavior in more effective ways compared to their less self-regulated counterparts. Moreover, the narratives and qualitative comparative analysis provided some insights about how various individual characteristics might affect the composing behavior of the individual learners. Finally, it was suggested that consideration of individual differences in writing can reveal more subtle information about the causes of strengths and weaknesses of different learners and may enable the teachers to design and implement more effective instructions targeting their learners’ individual needs

Iran's National curriculum standards represent the guiding blueprints which provide direction for instruction and assessment nationwide. Iran's official university curriculum standards were designed by Iran's Ministry of Sciences, Research and Technologyto provide a frame of reference and guidance for the instructional materials used and decisions made by university instructors. Using a widely accepted measure of describing cognitive processes, that is,Bloom's revised taxonomy of educational objectives, thispaper aims at comparatively investigatingIran's B.A. official curriculum standards of TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and ET (English translation). Thestandardspertaining to TEFL and ET fieldswerecontent analyzed in terms of Bloom's revised taxonomyby using a detailed checklist developedbased on the respective classification of cognitive objectives.The findings showed slight differences between both fields in terms of critical thinking skills and that lower-order cognitive skills were more prevalent than higher-order ones. Furthermore, the English translation standards pertained to critical cognitive skills in general and evaluation and creation in particular to a larger extent. Results of this study have implications for policy makers, curriculum designers, materials developers and instructors involved in language education.

Lexical inferencing is one of the most important strategies in vocabulary learning and it plays an important role in dealing with unknown words in a text. In this regard, the aim of this study was to determine the lexical inferencing strategies used by Iranian EFL learners when they encounter unknown words at both text and sentence levels. To this end, forty lower intermediate students were divided into two groups. For the first group, a text with 10 underlined words was given and for the second group, the same underlined words were given in separate sentences. The students were supposed to read the text and the sentences and to guess the meaning of the underlined words. Then some lexical inferencing strategies were given to them to determine which strategies they used in guessing the meaning of unknown words. The results showed that they used different strategies like using local context and word association in lexical inferencing and also they were more successful at the text level than the sentence one. The results also indicated that they were strategic learners using their own strategies including translation and cultural background knowledge to guess the meaning of the unknown words.