درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

To investigate the effects of etymological elaboration, contextual pragmatic clues, and lexical knowledge on L2 idioms comprehension and production, 60 male intermediate level EFL students in three groups were selected. Each group was randomly assigned to one treatment condition. Group one participants were presented with the etymological explanation of idioms. In group two, the same idioms were presented in short, familiar contexts, and in the third group, the participants focused on the exact meaning of the constituent parts of each idiom. At the end of the experimental period, comprehension and production posttests of idioms were administered. Two one–way ANOVA procedures were used to analyze data. Results showed that the participants of the etymological elaboration group performed significantly better than the participants of the lexical knowledge group on idiom production. The differences between the means in all other comparisons were not statistically significant. These findings may have implications for teachers, learners, and syllabus designers.

Concerns over the phony nature of textbooks and artificiality of their contents in reflecting authentic language have been raised by a number of researchers. It has been argued that many language teaching programs result in the failure of learners of English to successfully communicate in the target language. The problem with these programs is that there is no general agreement about the success of these materials in developing the pragmatic competence necessary for interlocutors’ mutually intelligible communication[D1] . Hence, this study explored communicated requests for nonverbal/verbal goods and services (RNGS/RVGS) in the dialogues of 5 textbooks and 8 English movies. The utterances of the textbooks and movies were evaluated on six criteria deriving from research on speech act theory, politeness, and conversation analysis. These included whether the textbooks discussed second pair parts, the forms of requests, the context of request occurrence, the nature of the devices through which the requests are mitigated, and multi-turn request forms. The results of the analysis revealed that, except for re-requests and dispreferred responses of RNGS,textbooks’ strategies including forms, face, contexts of RVGS, and strategies of RNGSwere not realized through adequate examples compared to their variants in movies.Most importantly,except for bald on record, internal mitigators of RVGS, external mitigators, and direct and indirect forms of RNGS, the other request strategies in the textbooks showed less variety than those of their counterparts in the movies. Internally mitigated RVGS were the onlystrategies variouslyexploited in the textbooks.The findings revealed that textbook designers should improve their instructional materials by incorporatingmore accurate samples of communicated requests in their future textbooks.

The current study aimed at investigating the academic learning needs of Iranian undergraduate students of English Language and Literature from the perspective of 320 stakeholders including undergraduate students (n=252), graduates (n=51), English literature instructors (n=7), and language instructors (n=10). To this aim, atriangulation of the most important data collection instruments of needs analysis (i.e., questionnaires, class observations, and semistructured interviews) was adopted for data collection at eight different Iranian state universities. The results of data analysis revealed that the above-mentioned students are not adequately equipped with learning and communication strategies during their academic and preacademic studies. The results of the current study may promise implications for the provision of some extracurricular EFL courses at the tertiary and senior high school levels in order to enhance students’ sociocultural and strategic competence based on the shared decision-making process among different stakeholders in the course design community

مفید بودن تدریس تلفظ در تدریس زبان همیشه یک موضوع بحث برانگیز بوده است. اگرچه تحقیقات گذشته نشان می دهد که معلمان نمی توانند تفاوت عمده ای در بهبود تلفظ دانش آموزان خود به وجود آورند، مطالعات جدید نشان می دهد که تلفظ زبان خارجی می تواند با بکار گیری عوامل مشخصی مانند استفاده از عناصرعروضی تا سطح زبان مادری پیشرفت کند. با تاکید بر ارتباطات معنادار و فهم این که تولید سخن تحت تاثیر درک سخن می باشد، نیاز به ادغام فعالیت های عروضی و ارتباطی برای ایجاد موقعیت هایی که در آن تلفظ دانش آموزان از طریق شنیدن وسخن گفتن پیشرفت کند، احساس می شود. این مطالعه به بررسی این عوامل می پردازد.

Dynamic assessment (DA) which is rooted in Vygotsky’s (1978) sociocultural theory involves the integration of instruction and assessment in a dialectical way to achieve two main purposes: enhancing learners' development and understanding about their learning potential. However, the feasibility and appropriateness of mediation are two main concerns of DA. The former is concerned with the application of DA for a large number of students, while the latter is concerned with providing test takers with appropriate hints. The purpose of the current study was three-fold: to examine the difference between dynamic and nondynamic tests, to understand about test takers' potential for learning, and to find out how mediation works for high and low ability students. To achieve these aims, computer software was developed. The software is capable of both providing the test takers with graduated hints for each item automatically, and adapting the overall difficulty level of the test to the test takers' proficiency level. To test the efficiency of the software in employing dynamic assessment, 83 Iranian university students participated in the study. The results of the study indicated that the computerized dynamic test made significant contribution both to enhancing students' grammar ability and to obtaining information about their potential for learning. Based on the findings of the study, it can be concluded that the use of dynamic assessment can simultaneously lead to the development of the test takers' ability and provide a more comprehensive picture of learning potential. Accordingly, teachers are recommended to use dynamic assessment to make more informed decisions about their students.

Though privileges ascribed to various facets of language learning strategy training have long been espoused with regard to varied language skills and components, the role some individual variables such as emotional intelligence might play in this respect seems to have received very scant attention. The researchers in the current study embarked on a probe into the impact of metacognitive strategy training on Iranian EFL learners' argumentative writing performance, in the light of individuals' emotional intelligence and gender differences. To this end, a total of 69 advanced EFL institute learners were selected as the participants of the research. The experimental group members were, then, treated through the application of O'Malley and Chamot's (1990) CALLA (Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach) for metacognitive writing strategy training. Moreover, Bar-On's (1997a, 1997b) Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) was administered to learners to gain insight into their emotional intelligence status. The final analysis of data via running t-test and three-way ANOVA revealed significant differences between the performance of control and experimental groups. Additionally, while gender differences were found to produce significant writing performance differences, disparities in learners' emotional intelligence level didn't significantly affect the degree of gains resulting from metacognitive strategy training.

Reading comprehension (RC) and critical thinking (CT) are the two basic cognitive skills that should be developed through involving language learners in a carefully planned instruction. Multiple intelligences (MI) instruction may assist learners in developing RC and CT in L2 education. This study probed the effect of MI-based reading instruction on the Iranian EFL learners’ RC and CT skills. In so doing, it compared the effectiveness of an MI-based reading instruction with a traditional one. To this end, 4 intact classes from several English language institutes, comprising 56 Iranian intermediate-level EFL learners, were selected and randomly assigned to MI-based (experimental) and traditional (control) groups. A multiple- choice RC test, a reading summary test, and the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal test were used as the instrumentations to collect data on the participants’ RC and CT. Analysis of covariance revealed a significant effect for the MI-based reading instruction. Furthermore, the RC scores increased more significantly in the MI-based group in comparison to the traditional one. However, the CT scores did not significantly improve in both groups. There was also no statistically significant difference in the CT scores between the two groups after the treatments. Iranian EFL educators are, then, encouraged to develop MI-based lessons and activities for diverse students and take explicit instruction for the enhancement of CT skills in EFL reading courses

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.

مطالعه حاضر به پردازش بندهای موصولی مبهم توسط فارسی زبانان فراگیر انگلیسی به عنوان زبان دوم که دارای درجات متفاوتی از ظرفیت حافظه فعال و تسلط به زبان انگلیسی هستند می پردازد. بندهای موصولی مورد مطالعه از آن جهت مبهم هستند که میتوانند به یکی از دو عبارت اسمی ماقبل خود اشاره کنند. هدف اصلی مقاله بررسی تاثیر معنا بر نحوه رفع ابهام این گونه جملات می باشد. بدین ترتیب رابطه معنایی بین فاعل/فعل عبارت اصلی و یکی از دو عبارت اسمی که قبل از بند موصولی آمده اند ایجاد شد. طبق پیش بینی مدل انتشار فعال سازی، احتمال این که عبارت اسمی که به واسطه ارتباط معنایی با فاعل/فعل در ذهن فعال شده به عنوان مرجع بند موصولی انتخاب شود بیشتر خواهد بود. نتایج دو آزمایش صورت گرفته نشان داد که ارتباط معنایی نقشی در رفع ابهام بندهای موصولی ندارد. بلکه فارسی زبانان فراگیر انگلیسی تحت تاثیر اطلاعات نحوی جمله میباشد. همچنین نتایج نشان داد که ظرفیت حافظه فعال افراد به میزان معناداری با نحوه ابهام زدایی از این گونه جملات ارتباط معکوس دارد.

The present study is an attempt to explore any significant relationships between learners’ preferences for error correction, demotivation, and language proficiency (LP). One hundred Iranian EFL students, including both males and females, studying at the departments of foreign languages of Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman and Tehran University took part in this study. In order to obtain the required data, two questionnaires and a proficiency test were utilized: the learners’ preferences for error correction questionnaire (Fukuda, 2004) to measure learners’ preferences for error correction, the demotivation questionnaire (Sakai & Kikuchi, 2009) to measure demotivation, and Michigan Test (1997) to measure the learners’ language proficiency level. The findings of this study revealed that first, there was a significant negative relationship between the learners’ preferences for error correction and demotivation (- 0.79): the more satisfied learners are with the error corrections they receive, the less demotivated they will be; second, there was a significant positive relationship between learners’ preferences for error correction and LP (0.69): the higher the learners’ satisfaction with error corrections they receive, the higher their level of LP; third, there was a significant negative relationship between demotivation and LP (- 0.59): the more demotivated learners are, the less their scores of LP will be.

This article reports on the findings of a study that investigated the impact of manipulating task performance conditions on listening task performance by learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). The study was designed to explore the effects of changing complexity dimensions on listening task performance and to achieve two aims: to see how listening comprehension task performance was affected and to investigate possible overlaps between EFL learners’ perceptions of task difficulty and hypothesized task complexity. A purposive sample of 54 first-year EFL learners randomly assigned to two parallel conversation classes in an English department of a major public university participated in the study and performed listening tasks in a language lab. The instruments used for data collection were seven tasks taken from a TOEFL Test Preparation Kit, each followed by listening comprehension questions and an item on the participants’ personal perception of the difficulty of the task. During counter-balanced administrations, the tasks were manipulated for one of the four dimensions of task difficulty (adequacy, immediacy, perspective, and prior knowledge). The resulting data included the participants’ perception of difficulty as well as their performance scores under less complex and more complex conditions. One-sample T-test and correlation analyses of the data revealed that for all of the four complexity dimensions, the hypothesized less complex task condition led to better learner performance. The correlation between learner-assigned difficulty score for the task at hand and theoretical task complexity level was significant only for the immediacy dimension (r=-0.67, p<.05). The results offer support for task complexity frameworks, raise doubts about learners’ perceptions of tasks, and imply possibilities for task manipulation in language learning contexts.