درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The importance of input has been a broadly documented concept in the field of second or foreign language acquisition. However, kinds of input and ways of its presentation are among the controversial issues in L2 classroom research. Therefore, this study was designed to compare the effects of three kinds of input-based instruction on intake and acquisition of the English causative structures by Iranian EFL learners. A total of 105 university students in four intact classes were randomly assigned to four different conditions: processing instruction (PI), textual input enhancement (TE), consciousness-raising (C-R), and control (CO). A pretest/posttest (immediate and delayed) design was used, where participants’ ability to interpret and produce the target structure was assessed through administering a multiple choice interpretation test and a sentence-level production test. Moreover, a grammaticality judgment test was run to assess the amount of intake. Results revealed that learners in the PI group significantly outperformed learners in the other groups on both immediate/delayed production posttests. The findings also indicated that, C-R group could not retain the significant effect of instruction on delayed production posttest and TE tasks were not effective in improving the learners’ production of the target structure. Moreover, the PI group outperformed the other groups on grammaticality judgment test too. Based on these findings, we can conclude that PI which encompasses the most outstanding features of both focus on form and meaning instruction might be a more effective approach in helping EFL learners to acquire the target grammatical forms.

Although images are abundant and play significant aesthetic and pedagogical roles in today’s EFL course books, they are still one of the less explored areas of research. The present study is an attempt to examine the role and function of images in Iranian high school EFL course books; it also aims to cast a critical eye over their suitability and efficiency. To this end, Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (2006) model of visual grammar was adopted. The findings revealed that although the informative and/or illustrative functions of the images make them important resources in Iranian high school EFL course books, their full potential for language learning does not seem to be adequately exploited. This relates to flaws at the representational mode of meaning making, such as outdated portrayal of objects, gender stereotyping, and overdramatizing national identity as well as shortcomings at the interactive mode, such as poor modality due to grayscale printing and plain graphics with no contextualization or pictorial detail. These flaws make the images seem out of today’s world and hardly credible for high school students who are already adept at new technology. Since these shortcomings may sacrifice pedagogical objectives, the study calls for changes in both technical quality and underlying messages of images in the course books.

This study investigated the impact of using the technique of self-monitoring on non-academic EFL learners’ composition writing. Fifty female students studying English at Navid English Institute in Shiraz, Iran were chosen based on the results of a proficiency test. They were all 16-20 years old and were intermediate learners of English who were divided into two control and experimental groups and took a writing pre-test. The experimental group (EG) received a training program on the effective use of the technique of self-monitoring proposed by Charles (1990). That is, they learned to add annotations expressing doubts and queries on various parts of their five composition drafts. The students in CG wrote their drafts without annotations. At the end of the twenty-second session course, both groups took a writing posttest. The results indicated that the learners in EG performed significantly better and the global features of organization and content in their writing were enhanced. Surveying the students’ views on self-monitoring, through a questionnaire, revealed their interest in taking charge of their writing task. Findings point to the efficacy of the self-monitoring technique in promoting learners’ writing proficiency and autonomy in handling writing tasks.

هدف این تحقیق, تحلیل استعارى عقاید زبان آموزان در مورد شرایط کنونى و ایده آل تدریس و یادگیرى زبان انگلیسى در مدارس و مؤسسات زبان و تاثیر این شرایط در چگونگى یادگیرى آنهاست. به منظور بررسى کیفى از زبان آموزان مؤسسات و مدارس خواسته شده که نظرات خود درباره شرایط کنونى و ایده آل تدریس و یادگیرى زبان را در قالب استعاره با کامل کردن جملات ناتمام، بیان کنند. بررسى و تقسیم بندى استعاره هاى بدست آمده توسط دستورالعمل ارایه شده مارتینز (2001) نشانگر اجراى شیوه هاى تدریس و یادگیرى رفتارگرایی در مدارس بود، در حالیکه زبان آموزان آنها به شیوه هاى شناخت گرایی گرایش نشان دادند. نتایج همچنین حاکی از این عقیده زبان آموزان مؤسسات است که در حال حاضر در کلاسهاى آنها از شیوه هاى شناخت گرایی استفاده می شود در حالی که آنها به شیوه هاى نوین تدریس موقعیتى تمایل دارند. در مجموع نتیجه گیرى می شود که زبان آموزان مؤسسات از نقطه نظر استفاده از شیوه هاى تدریس و یادگیری یک گام فراتر از زبان آموزان مدارس هستند که تأیید این نکته مى تواند دلیلی بر موفقیت بیشتر آنها به شمار آید. در پایان، کاربرد این یافته ها در موقعیت انگلیسی به عنوان زبان خارجی در ایران مورد بررسى قرار گرفته است.

В контексте гуманизации и гуманитаризации образования большое внимание уделяется индивидуальным способностям человека. Обучающийся становится активным участником образовательного процесса. Изучение языков является одним из основных компонентов, помогающих ребенку развить свою индивидуальность, сформировать межкультурную коммуникативную компетенцию, способствующую успешному общению с представителями других культур на изучаемом языке, это путь к ценностям цивилизованного мира. В связи с этим в статье представлены положения гуманистической педагогики, рассматриваются основные этапы изучения иностранных языков в мировом пространстве и в российской школе.

The study of compliment speech act has been under investigation on many occasions in recent years. In this study, an attempt is made to explore appraisals performed by native English speakers and Iranian EFL learners to find out how these two groups diverge or converge from each other with regard to complimenting patterns and norms. The participants of the study were 60 advanced Iranian EFL learners who were speaking Persian as their first language and 60 native English speakers. Through a written Discourse Completion Task comprised of eight different scenarios, compliments were analyzed with regard to topics (performance, personality, possession, and skill), functions (explicit, implicit, and opt-out), gender differences and the common positive adjectives used by two groups of native and nonnative participants. The findings suggested that native English speakers praised individuals more implicitly in comparison with Iranian EFL learners and native speakers provided opt-outs more frequently than Iranian EFL learners did. The analysis of data by Chi-square showed that gender and macro functions are independent of each other among Iranian EFL learners’ compliments while for native speakers, gender played a significant role in the distribution of appraisals. Iranian EFL learners’ complimenting patterns converge more towards those of native English speakers. Moreover, both groups favored explicit compliments. However, Iranian EFL learners were more inclined to provide explicit compliments. It can be concluded that there were more similarities rather than differences between Iranian EFL learners and native English speakers regarding compliment speech act. The results of this study can benefit researchers, teachers, material developers, and EFL learners.

طراحی تکالیف با سطح پیچیدگی شناختی معقول همیشه ازدیدگاه برنامه ریزان درسی, معلمان , و محققین حائز اهمیت بوده است چرا که تغییر تکالیف (از لحاظ پیچیدگی) می تواند منجر به نتایج متفاوتی در زمینه تولیدات شفاهی گردد. این تحقیق تلاشی در جهت بررسی تاثیر تغییر درتکالیف بر اساس 3 مورد (نیاز به برهان, تعداد عناصر, و موقعیت ""اینجا و اکنون"" در مقابل"" آنجا و سپس"" ) از مدل resource-directing , مطرح شده توسط رابینسون, بر روی نقل داستان از روی تصایر است. این تحقیق شامل 30 زبان آموز ایرانی در رنج سنی 20 تا 34 سال بود. همه این افراد موظف به انجام هردو مدل تکلیف (پیچیده و ساده) برای نقل داستان از روی تصایر بودند. داده های صوتی ضبط و سپس تست پارامتریک MANOVA برروی آن انجام گردید. نتایج نشان داد که افزایش پیچیدگی شناختی در تکالیف منجر به افزایش صحت و پیچیدگی زبانی گردید. یافته های این تحقیق می تواند بینش عمیقی برای تدوین کنندگان مطالب درسی در خصوص تدارک تکالیف و زبان آموزان در راستای سنجش پیشرفت فراهم آورد.