درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This study presents a critical diagnosis of in-service teacher-training activities offered to English language teachers in Iran and aims to investigate whether those teachers were fulfil their expectations. Forty-one English-language teachers participated in this study. Data were collected from 41 secondary-school teachers of English as a foreign language, using a general evaluation questionnaire prepared by Uysal (2012). To analyze the data, the researcher used the frequency and a t-test to answer the study\'s questions. According to the results, Iranian EFL teachers believed that the contents of teacher training programs were far from the reality of the actual classroom situations. The results also revealed that the teachers were not satisfied with their in-service teacher-training activities, which did not fulfill their needs. In this study, the teachers also offered suggestions for the subsequent in-service programs to be held effectively. .

This paper studies bank loans over the business cycles in Iran to determine the role of Iranian banks in stabilizing credit. By estimating the long-run relations using dynamic OLS and fully modified OLS estimators, the findings show that real bank lending is positively related to real GDP in the long-run providing evidences of the pro-cyclicality of bank lending in Iran. Hence, Iranian banking system has not operated far away from the conventional banking system in that they have not the ability to stabilize credit over business cycles. The results of Toda-Yamamoto’s (1995) Granger non-causality test indicate a unidirectional causality running from real GDP to real bank lending. Moreover, the impulse response functions from estimating vector autoregressive models suggest positive and statistically significant response of real bank lending to shocks from real GDP reaffirming the pro-cyclicality of bank lending in Iran. JEL Classification: C22, E32, G21

Knowing how to think about the language learning process is conducive to effective learning especially in the case of grammar structures. Metacognition, a concept derived from cognitive psychology, can assist learners in this case. With regard to young adolescents at lower proficiency levels, there is a long-standing debate on whether to use L1 for teaching metacognitive strategies since learners might not be efficient enough in terms of understanding the concept of metacognition. Therefore, this small-scale experimental study focused on the effect of grammar instruction through the metacognitive intervention delivered in L1 on the EFL pre-intermediate learners' grammatical performance in English and investigated their attitudes towards grammar instruction delivered in L1. To fulfill these purposes, a homogenous group of 20 language learners was randomly divided into an experimental group ( n =10 ), which received grammar instruction through the metacognitive intervention delivered in L1, and a control group ( n =10 ), which received the instruction only in English without grammar instruction through the metacognitive intervention delivered in L1. The results of the independent samples t -test indicated that the experimental group did not outperform the control group in terms of all four English grammar points, namely present perfect, simple past tense, comparative and superlative adjectives, and past progressive . In addition, the findings obtained from the five-point Likert scale questionnaire which was distributed among the learners suggested that they had positive attitudes towards the use of L1 (Persian) in teaching English grammar. We argue that low working memory capacity, overreliance on translation, and less-cognitively activated L2 processes may account for the low performance of the experimental group learners in the grammar tests. The implication is that the L1 use in an L2 classroom can be helpful in teaching L2 grammar through the metacognitive intervention, but future studies need to examine how and to what extent L1 should be used to yield more effective results in the case of lower-proficiency learners in an EFL context.

The Abrahamic religions include the three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All of these religions consider Abraham as their ancestor, and they consider science to be the knowledge of the universe and humanity, which are divine revelations. The framework of science in the Abrahamic religions uses three basic concepts: 1) monotheism (as a fundamental principle, a single and all-encompassing Divine vision) 2) the universe (as a divine creation) 3) science (as an all-encompassing knowledge about the world as the sign of God). The purpose of writing this paper is to find the common principles governing science among Abrahamic religions, using a descriptive-analytical method based on library sources. The results of this research is an intellectual attempt to draw on the commonalities between various Abrahamic religions in the areas of constructive dialogue in the field of globalization, based on revelatory and spiritual teachings, to achieve the unification of the world, which is one of the divine promises and is rooted in the natural foundations of humanity.