درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

مطالعه حاضر به بررسی نمود تخصص در تدریس معلمان انگلیسی در محیطهای رسمی آموزشی ایران پرداخته است. به طور خاص این تحقیق با این هدف شکل گرفت که نشان دهد چطور معلمان زبان انگلیسی در دبیرستانها و اساتید زبان عمومی در یک دانشگاه دولتی ایران خصوصیات تخصص در تدریس را آشکار میسازند. این تحقیق همچنین به مقایسه خصوصیات تخصص در تدریس معلمان و اساتید تازه کار و باتجربه در دبیرستان و دانشگاه پرداخته است. به این منظور طی یک تحقیق کیفی، 10 معلم دبیرستان و 10 استاد دانشگاه به صورت هدفمند برای مشاهده و مصاحبه انتخاب شدند. هر گروه شامل 5 معلم تازه کار و 5 معلم با تجربه بود. بعد از 3-2 جلسه مشاهده کلاس درس معلمان (به عنوان منبع اصلی داده ها) و یک جلسه مصاحبه با همه شرکت کنندگان، همه موارد و نمونه های تخصص در تدریس معلمان استخراج شد. این نمونه ها بعدا به صورت 6 نوع تخصص در تدریس طبقه بندی شدند: تخصص در مدیریت، تخصص در ایجاد انگیزه و ارائه راهنمایی و بازخورد، تخصص آموزشی، تخصص در شناخت مفاهیم، تخصص در ایجاد ارتباط بین موضوعات مختلف درسی و تخصص در مدیریت چالش ها. سپس جدولی طراحی شد که شامل همه انواع تخصص در تدریس و نمونه ها و مثالهای هر کدام بود (که از گزارشات مشاهدات و هم چنین از ادبیات موضوع استخراج شده بود). داده ها برای هر کدام از معلمان دوباره به صورت دقیق مورد بررسی قرار گرفت و مواردی که در تدریس عملی آنها وجود داشت در جدول علامت گذاری گردید. قدم بعدی مطالعه دقیق الگوهای تخصص در تدریس برای هر گروه از معلمان بود. تحلیل داده های جمع آوری شده نشان داد که تخصص در تدریس به صورت تقریبا مشابهی در تدریس عملی معلمان 4 گروه نمود پیدا کرده بود. سه گروه یعنی معلمان با تجربه دبیرستان و اساتید تازه کار و با تجربه دانشگاه موفقیت 100 درصدی را در حداقل یکی از انواع تخصص در تدریس نشان دادند که مربوط به ایجاد ارتباط در بین موضوعات درسی بود. این نوع تخصص تدریس برای معلمان تازه کار دبیرستان تنها 60 درصد بود. اساتید با تجربه دانشگاه تنها گروهی بودند که در دو نوع از تخصص یعنی تخصص در شناخت مفاهیم و ایجاد ارتباط بین موضوعات درسی به موفقیت کامل (100 درصدی) رسیدند. و معلمان تازه کار دبیرستان تنها گروهی بودند که در هیچ کدام از انواع تخصص در تدریس موفقیت کامل 100 درصدی را به دست نیاوردند.

Professional development and professional identity of English language teachers have usually been explored separately in the research agenda. However, there might be a nexus of relationships between professional identity and professional development in the context of English language teaching. This study, therefore, explored how professional identity might contribute to professional development of English language teachers. To this end, 60 English language teachers from inner, 60 from outer, and 60 from expanding circle of language use were sampled to fill in a questionnaire which was constructed and validated by the researchers. The study concluded that language teachers’ professional development could be theorized on a development of past-present-aspirational identity. It was also found that language teachers’ professional identity could be improved through development of interpersonal relations, system of knowledge and belief, and intrapersonal identity that would be considered as sub-identities of English language teachers’ professional identity.

This paper provides a fairly detailed corpus-based vocabulary profile of the Iranian EFL books used in public schools. To this end, the WordPerfect files of all the seven books were converted to text format to get rid of the formatting features and be compatible with the software used for analysis. The software tools used were the Compleat Lexical Tutor suite, version 6.2 (Cobb, 2011), AntConc (Anthony, 2012), and AntWord Profiler (Anthony, 2012). The output of the analysis included general counts of words in Iranian school books at different levels, the frequent function and content words, frequent n-grams, frequent metalinguistic words, the coverage of several well-known, corpus-based word lists in these books, the range of the words across the books, and the amount of vocabulary recycling. The paper discusses the vocabulary representativeness and recycling and the adequacy of exposure to English in these EFL books. Detailed word frequency tables as well as some practical implications of the quantitative results constitute important features of this article

The bulk of research within the interactionist framework seems to be consensually pointing to the beneficial effects of interaction in SLA. However, few studies have investigated the role of training in providing and perceiving interactional feedback, especially among young learners. This study probed the effects of training prior to engagement in interaction in case of young learners acquiring polar questions in an EFL context. Sixty learners aged 9-14 in three intact groups were exposed to instruction followed by peer interaction in case of the experimental groups while the control group simply received traditional teacher-fronted practice. Also, while one treatment group received prior training in interactional feedback strategies, the other group did not. The pre-test, immediate post-test, and delayed post-test were administered. The results of mixed between-within subjects ANOVA (SPANOVA) showed that engaging in interaction, regardless of any prior training, could significantly improve learners’ immediate mastery over the target form. However, in the long run, only the group trained in feedback strategies could maintain its superiority over the control group. The findings suggest that although engaging in peer interaction can be beneficial for young learners, sustained interlanguage development can result only if learners are trained in feedback strategies.

Task difficulty across different macro-genres continues to remain among less attended areas in second language development studies. This study examined the correlation between task difficulty across the descriptive, narrative, argumentative, and expository macro-genres. The three components of task difficulty (i.e., code complexity, cognitive complexity, and communicative stress) were also compared in the four macro-genres. The design included the administration of short reading texts with comparable length and readability indices based on the four macro-genres followed by task difficulty questionnaire. The macro-genre-based reading textsalong with the task difficulty questionnaire were administered to 50 EFL students in the University ofLorestan, Iran. Task difficulty questionnaire explored the learners’ perceptions of task difficulty in the code complexity, cognitive complexity, and communicative stress domains. The results revealed that there were no significant differences among the task difficulty components in the four macro-genre-based text types. The findings also showed that there was no significant correlation between task difficulty of each macro-genre with those of the other genres except thoseofthe narrative and expository genres.The findings hold implications for the use of macro-genres with different task difficulty indices in task-oriented programs, teacher training, and testing.

The present investigation sought to explore the relationship between learning styles and writing behaviors of EFL learners in a blended environment. It also aimed to identify the learning style types best predicting writing behaviors. Initially, the participants' preferred learning styles were identified through the Kolb’s learning style inventory (Kolb, 1984). Secondly, data were obtained through analyzing the Stat counter and Input log data to reveal the pausing, revising and switching behaviors of the participants who attended a writing course in which they developed their writing texts using an online module. The results indicated a negative and significant correlation between the accommodator learning style and the revision behavior. A statistically significant and positive relationship was also found between the converger learning style and the pausing behavior, and between the converger learning style and the revision behavior Furthermore, a positive and significant relationship between the accommodator learning style and the switching behavior was revealed. The accommodator learning style was found as the best predictor for the switching behavior and the converger learning style turned to predict the revision and pausing behavior at an optimal level. The findings suggest that internal factors, cognitive and learning styles, play a significant role in the learning behaviors of English writing learners. The results encourage writing educators to take into account students’ learning style and provide more flexible and rigorous learning environment in which all learners can take benefit.

This study compared the effects of two types of form-focused tasks on proceduralization and transfer of linguistics knowledge in case of English modals. All participants of the study attended pretests, posttests and delayed posttests. The procedural comprehension and production knowledge were measured through the groups’ performance on a timed dual task test that resembled the context of practice. The transfer of knowledge was measured by evaluating the performance of participants on a timed dual task test in a context dissimilar from or reverse to the practice context. Three intact classes of intermediate EFL learners were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The output group (n= 27) received explicit grammar instruction and a combination of three output practice, while the input group (n=25) received explicit instruction and a combination of three input practice. Identical texts were exposed to the control group (n=25) through listening and reading tasks. The texts were followed by some questions irrelevant to English modals. On the procedural knowledge posttests, the experimental groups outperformed the control group. The participants were able to transfer the knowledge to dissimilar contexts. The results may help language teachers design more effective activities for the learners considering the institutional constraints

During the last decades various researchers noticed that the traditional approaches to teaching had failed to teach learners to their utmost actual ability, therefore they put great efforts into developing post-modernist approaches and techniques such as critical thinking (CT) and cooperative learning (CL) for improving learning.The present study was an attempt to investigate the comparative effect of practicing CL and CT skills on EFL learners’ writing in a process-based approach to writing on EFL learners’ writing. Sixty Iranian female EFL learners at the intermediate level of English proficiency at Kish Language School were selected among a total number of 90 based on their performance on the Preliminary English Test (PET) and randomly assigned into two groups of CL and CT. Then the researchers administered an argumentative paragraph writing test to ensure the homogeneity of the two groups regarding argumentative writing before the treatment. Both groups were taught the same content through process-based approach throughout the 20-session treatment. Finally, the participants took a paragraph writing posttest including three writing prompts in argumentative genre. The mean scores of the two groups on the posttest were compared through an independent samples t-test. The results led to the rejection of the null hypothesis with the conclusion that CT instruction was significantly more effective than CL in improving EFL learners’ argumentative paragraph writing.

فراگیری لغات همواره یکی از دشوارترین قسمت های زبان آموزی برای همه ی فراگیران زبان انگلیسی خصوصا دانشجویان زبان تخصصی بوده است. این دانشجویان همواره گله مند هستند که تعداد لغات زبان انگلیسی بسیار زیاد بوده و به راحتی فراموش می شوند. جهت تسهیل یادگیری و یادآوری لغات و کمک به اینگونه دانشجویان، یادیارها که یک گروه از استراتژیهای ذهنی می- باشند معرفی گردیده اند. اما دانشجویان و دانش آموزان دارای تفاوت فردی می باشند و مدرسین می بایست از روش های متعددی استفاده نمایند تا کارایی کلاس افزایش یابد. به همین منظور در پژوهش حاضر روش چند یادیاری مورد استفاده و تحقیق قرار گرفت. دو گروه از دانشجویان در زبان تخصصی انتخاب گردیدند. در یکی از گروهها روش چند یادیاری استفاده شد، در حالیکه در گروه دیگر لغات آموزش داده شده و مرور شدند. نتایج نشان داد که گروهی که برای آنها شیوه چند یادیاری مورد استفاده قرار گرفت در یادگیری و یادآوری لغات موفق تر عمل کردند.