درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

هدف این پژوهش بررسی تاثیر یادگیری تلفیقی و استفاده از نرم افزارهای چند رسانه ای بر توانایی به خاطر سپاری کلمات بوسیله ی دانشجویان انگلیسی برای اهداف خاص می باشد. به همین منظور 120 زبان آموز رشته ی پزشکی به دو گروه آزمایشی و کنترل تقسیم شدند. کلمه ها به کمک نرم افزارهای چند رسانه ای به گروه آزمایشی تدریس شد در حالی که آموزش کلمات برای گروه کنترل با روش های سنتی صورت پذیرفت. جمع آوری اطلاعات بوسیله ی پس آزمون و نظارت بر کلاس ها انجام شد. نتیجه ی بررسی ها نشان دهنده ی اختلاف زیاد بین یادگیری کلمات جدید توسط این دو گروه بوده است. به علاوه، یادگیری از طریق تکنولوژی سبب مشارکت بیشتر زبان آموزان در فعالیت های کلاسی شد. با توجه به نتایج این تحقیق، پیشنهاداتی جهت چگونگی استفاده ی موثرتر از این نرم افزارها در کلاس های زبان انگلیسی برای اهداف خاص در ایران بیان شده است.

Teacher questions are claimed to be constitutive of classroom interaction because of their crucial role both in the construction of knowledge and the organization of classroom proceedings (Dalton Puffer, 2007). Most of previous research on teachers’ questions mainly focused on identifying and discovering different question types believed to be helpful in creating the opportunities for learners’ interactions. Drawing on conversation analysis through adopting socio-cultural perspective, this study, however, aims to examine how EFL teachers manage understanding-check questions in their talk-in-interaction. For this purpose, six EFL teachers’ discursive classroom practices were observed, video-recorded, and transcribed line-by-line in its entirety. Through the microanalysis of the transcribed data, our findings suggest that EFL teachers vary in their management of understanding-check questions and the teachers’ understanding-check questions tend to serve different functions in the different micro-contexts identified. Three major sequential environments emerged to feature understanding-check questions in this study: Activity-boundary environment, post-instruction environment and within-activity environment. The findings of the study indicate that understanding-check questions at activity boundary environment are designed to accomplish dual functions, however those launched in post-instruction and within-activity environments maintain a singular focus on ensuring absolute understanding of the just-given explanation or instruction.

This study aimed to explore the relationships between foreign language learners’ self-identity changes, motivation types, and Foreign Language proficiency associated with learning English in private language schools in Iranian context. Based on a stratified sampling, 204 English as a foreign language learners from three language schools in Tehran were selected to participate in the study. The instruments were a 30-item Likert-scale questionnaire on motivation types in seven categories: intrinsic interest, immediate achievement, learning situation, going aboard, social responsibility, individual development, and information medium; a 24-item Likert-scale questionnaire on self-identity changes in six categories: self-confidence change, additive change, subtractive change, productive change, split change, and zero change. Results revealed that self-confidence change was the prominent change common among foreign language learners. Canonical correlation analysis revealed that motivation types and self-identity changes were related through three pairs of canonical variables: intrinsic orientations related with personal identity changes, instrumental orientations related with cultural changes, and instrumental orientations related learners’ self-confidence change. Theoretical and pedagogical implications for foreign language learning and teaching are also discussed.

Although Gardner and his associates’ work was most influential in the field of L2 motivation, from the early 1990s onwards, their work has been criticized for several reasons. Some researchers claimed that integrative and instrumental orientations were no longer able to convey the complexity of the L2 motivation construct. To examine this complexity, the present study attempted to investigate the discursive construction of four (two males and two females) Iranian EFL learners’ motivation at Shiraz University, Iran. Employing van Leeuwen’s (2008) legitimation construction framework, the study revealed that depending on their future selves, each participant employed certain discursive strategies unique to him/her to (de)legitimize his/her future self. Therefore, what was observed was the use of strategies which were idiosyncratic to that particular person, in that particular context, for a specific purpose, and for that particular moment. Additionally, given the unique political conditions of Iran in the world, it was found that integrative and instrumental orientations can be best replaced by ideal and ought-to selves in this context. The study has some implications. Motivation researchers need to broaden the unit of analysis beyond the individual learner to the interaction between the individual and the multitude of factors in diverse social settings.

This study examined the Iranian EFL learners’ multicultural developmental trend in light of Investment Hypothesis as they furthered their academic studies from BA toward postgraduate levels. In so doing 117 BA, 92 MA, and 35 Ph.D. EFL students at AllamehTabataba’i University, Tarbiat Modarres, and Islamic Azad Universities, Tehran, Iran, were randomly selected to provide answers to Multicultural Personality Traits Questionnaire (MPQ) that measures individuals’ Multicultural Personality Traits (MPTs: Cultural Empathy, Open-Mindedness, Social Initiative, Emotional Stability, and Flexibility). Ph.D. students’ MPTs mean was found to be 277.77; MA students’ MPTs mean score was 272.20; and BA students’ MPTs mean score was 267.96. The ANOVA conducted revealed that EFL Iranian students’ MPTs improved as they furthered their academic career from BA to MA and from MA to Ph.D. levels. The study concluded that advancement in EFL students’ academic career resulted in a concomitant development in their MPTs and among the five MPTs, cultural empathy and social initiative were found to have been significantly improved at Ph.D. level. Among the MPTs, Social initiative provides the highest contribution to social interactions and its significant development at Ph.D. level is confirmatory of the discursive-constructionists’ approach to L2 learning.

هدف از این پژوهش بررسی چگونگی استفاده از راهبردهای ارتباطی توسط معلمان زبان انگلیسی در میان کنش­های کلامی می­باشد. اگرچه درباره راهبردهای ارتباطی تحقیقات فراوانی صورت پذیرفته است، اما در خصوص رابطه بین این راهبردها و فضای سیال کلاس و نیز چگونگی بکارگیری راهبردهای ارتباطی در میان کنش­های کلامی معلمان تحقیقات چندانی صورت نپذیرفته است. با توجه به این نکات، میان کنش­های کلامی سه کلاس از هر یک از پنج معلم شرکت کننده در این تحقیق ضبط و مورد بررسی قرار گرفت. بررسی داده­ها با استفاده از رویکرد کیفی نشان داد که راهبردهای ارتباطی در تعاملات بین معلمان و زبان آموزان حضور فراوان توام با کاربردهای متفاوت داشته و در نتیجه این مفهوم فقط محدود به گفتار زبان آموزان نمی­شود. بعلاوه، نتایج این تحقیق نشان می­دهد که توجه و پرورش این مهارت، در برقراری ارتباط موثر از اهمیت فراوانی برخوردار است.

مطالعه حاضر با استناد به فلسفه ی انکارپذیری پوپر سعی بر آن داشته تا به طور تجربی بررسی کند که آیا عواملی مانند جنسیت، آشنایی با موضوع متن، علاقه به موضوع یا محتوای متن، حدس زدن جواب سوالات، و عوامل مربوط به بافت اجتماعی می توانند بر پایه ی قوی از فلسفه ی انکارپذیری استوار باشند. در این مطالعه عملکرد آزمون درک مطلب 203 دانشجوی زبان ایرانی شامل 110 زن و 93 مرد به وسیله ی مدل آماری رگراسیون لوجستیک و نظریه پاسخ-سوال (IRT) مورد بررسی قرار گرفت. نتایج نشان داد که برای عوامل آشنایی با متن و جنسیت تنها مدل رگراسیون توانست عملکرد افتراقی را نشان دهد که این نتایج تاثیر جنسیت را تایید می کرد ولی نتایج مربوط به آشنایی با متن کاملا متناقض بود. نتایج حاصل از دو مدل رگراسیون و IRT در خصوص درآمد و حدس زدن جواب سوالات در تضاد با یکدیگر قرار داشتند ولی نتایج مربوط به تحصیلات والدین و محل سکونت با هم همراستا بوده و تاثیری معنادار بر عملکرد افتراقی سوالات آزمون درک مطلب داشتند.

One of the major criticisms leveled at task-based language teaching (TBLT), despite its countless merits, is developing fluency at the cost of accuracy. The post-task stage affords a number of options to counteract this downside through task repetition and task recycling. These two options are considered to positively affect learners' oral performance in terms of fluency, accuracy, and complexity (CAF). The purpose of the present study is to compare the relative effect of task repetition and task recycling on Iranian EFL (English as a foreign language) learners’ oral performance in terms of CAF. To this end, eight intermediate EFL learners, randomly selected from 30 students in two classes of 15, took part in this study. The participants in both task repetition and task recycling groups were assigned to perform a total of eight tasks. Four of these tasks were identical in both groups. Each session included one task plus its second performance, namely repetition for the first group and recycling for the second. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test was used to statistically analyze the recorded data of learners' performances on all eight occasions in terms of CAF. The results revealed a significant effect of task repetition on all three measures of performance while task recycling did not prove to have a significant effect except for fluency. On the level of between-group differences, task repetition was found to be dominant outweighing task recycling in all three measures of oral performance. Task repetition is hence advised to be incorporated in teaching English, particularly in EFL contexts as a viable tool to hone learners’ oral performance on CAF.