درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This study was an attempt to determine the effect of task-based approach vs. traditional approach on the narrative and expository writing of the Iranian EFL learners. There were two control groups as well as two experimental ones in the current study. In the two control groups namely G1 and G2 narrative and expository writing were taught respectively using the traditional approach. Whereas، in the two experimental groups، namely G3 and G4 narrative and expository writing were taught respectively on the basis of task-based approach. After the treatment، a narrative writing post-test was given to the two narrative groups (G1 and G3) and an expository writing post-test was given to the two expository groups (G2 and G4). Data analysis showed that experimental groups outperformed control groups. So it was concluded that task-based approach was more effective in teaching narrative and expository writing compared to the traditional approach. It was also found that although there was a difference between the narrative and expository experimental groups (G3 and G4) in favor of the narrative group، this difference was not statistically significant

This study was intended first to categorize the L2 learners in terms of their learning style preferences and second to investigate if their learning preferences are related to lexical inferencing. Moreover, strategies used for lexical inferencing and text related issues of text density and parts of speech were studied to determine their moderating effects and the best predictors of lexical inferencing. To this end, a posttest group design with 142 students studying engineering was adopted for the study. Perceptual style preferences questionnaire was administered to identify the students’ major learning styles, followed by strategy training for deriving the meaning of unknown words. Finally, lexical inferencing texts were given to the students to study and extract the meaning of unknown words and concurrently determine the type of strategy used for lexical inferencing. The results indicated that a great proportion of students belonged to the kinesthetic category of styles while the predominant treatments in the class were audio-visually structured. The analysis also revealed that tactile, kinesthetic, and group categories of style preferences are meaningfully related. Moreover, it was found that learning style preferences lead to statistically different lexical ineferncing. As for the strategies, the ‘syntactic knowledge analysis’ showed the highest correlation with ‘auditory learners’. Lexical density and parts of speech were also shown to moderate the effect of perceptual style preferences on lexical ability. On the whole, strategy and perceptual style preferences were found to be the two best predictors of successful lexical inferencing.

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.

In this research, different English translations of Sa‘di’s Bustan were studied. An anecdote was selected randomly with its three English translations to identify whether or not the translators have managed to convey the messages of the original poem. The three selected translations were examined according to two of the criteria that Larson (1984) has proposed (accuracy and naturalness) for testing a translation. By accuracy, the researcher intended to see whether, the translators have been successful in rendering the SL text accurately and precisely without radical changes, omission and addition; and by naturalness, it was meant whether the translations sound natural or they contain strange and foreign words. The results of the study show that Edwards has been successful in understanding the main idea of the original poem and conveying it into prose. Clarke’s translation is word-for-word and being literal, the natural criterion has been breached in some instances. Wickens’s has attempted to transfer the exact meaning of the original to the target text. Among the three translations studied, that of Wickens is considered to be the most accurate one.