درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This experimental study attempts to see whether incorporating supplemental podcasts into the blended module of second language (L2) vocabulary teaching and learning leads to better learning outcomes in comparison with other common teaching and learning methods as self-study and conventional. To that end, undergraduate students from Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences were summoned up via an announcement to take part in the study. Volunteers were homogenized via Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) and were then randomly divided into three groups to learn English vocabulary items via three different scenarios during 32 sessions. The collected data from the participants’ answers to the attitude questionnaire and interview as well as the data from assessing their performance throughout the course were analyzed both descriptively and inferentially. The analysis of the data revealed that the podcast-mediated blended L2 learning scenario appeared as the most successful scenario in L2 vocabulary learning. Consequently, it could be concluded that providing miscellaneous practicing opportunities for students would facilitate learning process and contribute to learning improvement.

This paper elaborates on Persian and English orthographic shared aspects to study the effects of L1 Persian on learning English as a foreign language. While there are some examples of letter and sound mismatches in the orthographic system of both languages, those of English are more complex than Persian. In order to see the effect of the mismatch between orthography and transcription, 40 Persian EFL learners were divided into two proficiency groups i.e., advanced and elementary, and their performance was examined on comprehension and production tasks. The learners’ production skills were checked via a list of 76 pseudo words requiring the learners to read them while their voices were recorded. After one week time interval, a comprehension test consisted of 34 items was administered, requiring the learners to listen and choose among the orthographic forms presented to them. It was hypothesized that being educated in L1 Persian comprising semi-opaque orthography system, the learners would tackle the English opaque graphemes better on the mismatches. However, it was observed that both elementary and advanced groups had difficulty learning English orthography system, showing almost no positive effect from L1. Only in rare cases more proficient learners performed better due to more schooling education in English.

The field of ELT is constantly witnessing the introduction of new instructional approaches: one such perhaps recent initiative is critical discourse analysis (CDA). Accordingly, the present study was an attempt to investigate the impact of CDA instruction on Iranian EFL learners’ descriptive and argumentative writing ability. To fulfill the aforementioned purpose, a sample TOEFL was primarily piloted among a group of 30 upper intermediate EFL learners by the researchers; with the acceptable reliability and item analysis indices achieved, then the researchers administered the test among another group of 90 upper intermediate learners. Ultimately, those 60 learners whose scores fell one standard deviation above and below the mean were chosen as the participants of the study and were randomly assigned to a control and an experimental group with 30 participants in each. Both of these groups underwent the same amount of teaching time during 20 sessions which included a treatment of CDA instruction based on Jank’s (2005) set of 14 features for the experimental group. A posttest was administered at the end of the instruction to both groups and their mean scores on the test were compared through a multivariate analysis of variance. The result (F = 14.41 and p = 0.000 < 0.05) led to the rejection of the two null hypotheses raised in this study, thereby demonstrating that the learners in the experimental group benefited significantly more than those in the control group in terms of improving their descriptive and argumentative writing ability. Hence, the major pedagogical implication of this study is that CDA instruction can be effectively used to assist EFL learners improve their argumentative and descriptive writing ability.

در مطالعات توجه به ساختار و شکل زبان، میزان جذب به عنوان نشانگر تاثیر فعالیتهای تمرکز بر روی ساختارهای زبان و تسهیل فراگیری آن در درازمدت عنوان شده است. با این حال، تمام مطالعات صورت گرفته در این زمینه بر اساس مشاهدات ضبط شده از کلاسهای ارتباط-محور بوده است. پژوهش حاضر تلاش نوینی برای اندازه گیری میزان جذب با استفاده از برگه های ثبت میزان جذب بر اساس 18 ساعت تعامل ارتباط-محور و معنی-محور بین یک مدرس و زبان آموزان ایشان می باشد. در این راستا، بر اساس داده های ضبط شده تمام موارد توجه پیشگیرانه به ساختار و شکل زبان نشات گرفته از طرف مدرس و یا زبان آموزان و میزان جذب آنها از طرف زبان آموزان شناسایی و دسته بندی شدند. سپس، این یافته ها با میزان جذب ثبت شده توسط زبان آموزان در برگه های جذب مورد مقایسه قرار گرفت. نتایج این تحلیلها نشان داد که میزان جذب در برگه ها نسبت به مقدار آن در مشاهدات شفاهی در مورد ساختارهای زبانی که از طرف معلم مورد تاکید قرار گرفته بود بسیار بیشتر بوده است. اما این موضوع در مورد ساختارهایی که از طرف زبان آموزان به صورت پیشگیرانه مورد توجه قرار گرفته بودند مورد تایید قرار نگرفت. نتایج این پژوهش کمک شایانی به روشن نمودن بیشتر برداشت محققین و مدرسان زبان انگلیسی در مورد ماهیت و میزان واقعی جذب می نماید و زمینه های جدیدی را برای کاوش بیشتر میزان جذب معرفی می نماید.