درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This action research examines the concept of Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in a second language acquisition context. The researcher investigated the contributors of WTC in a foreign language classroom setting. Therefore, a multiple assignments method and sequence was applied. Participants of this study were students who matriculated in a United States (U.S.) undergraduate program, studying German at a public Midwest University. Findings of this study suggest applying various speaking activities and providing the opportunity to practice assessment-like activities prior to the evaluation, which enhanced second language WTC. In addition, the present study found three major factors that contributed to second language WTC: student preparedness, student feelings, and speaking capacity influences. Findings of this study can be implemented into any language classroom. The teaching methods and sequence of activities can be integrated into language curriculum. This study provides insight on a successful language teaching model that prepares students to engage in any oral communication with more confidence and less hesitation.

The study intended to examine the effects of Telegram on Iranian EFL learners' vocabulary knowledge and the attitude of them towards vocabulary learning. To this end, a group of 100 Iranian advanced EFL learners participated in an experimental design project. The participants were selected after they took the Oxford Quick Placement Test and they were divided into experimental and control groups. The participants of both groups had a three-week vocabulary instruction. The treatment was similar for both groups except for exercises done after the class. The participants in the experimental group were asked to fill out an attitudinal questionnaire after the treatment. Then, a vocabulary test was administered among the participants of both groups. Results of the independent-samples t-test run on the collected data indicated that participants of the experimental group outperformed those of the control group. The findings of the attitudinal questionnaire showed that the participants had positive attitude toward using Telegram. The conclusion drawn is that those in the experimental group were free in using the online group to interact with each other. Within this framework, learners in the experimental group indicated that they enjoyed this instruction as it was fun to embark on new technological learning methods

AbstractIn this study, the researchers examined the sources of demotivation among adult language teachers in Najafabad language institutes. Two objectives were pursued in the process of implementing this research: 1) Determining the main sources of demotivation among adult teachers teaching in Najafabad language institutes 2) Uncovering the most significant demotivating factors among English adult teachers in Najafabad. Based on convenience sampling, seventy male and female teachers were chosen as the participants of this study. The questionnaire used in this study, Teacher Demotivation Questionnaire (TDQ), contained four parts: students’ attitudes in class (SAC), teaching materials and facilities (TMF), research and working condition (RWC) and human relations (HR). Fifty copies of the questionnaire were distributed among the teachers. One-sample t-test was utilized to examine the statistical significance of the analyses. Comparing the findings, the most demotivating factors in SAC, TMF, RWC and HR were "Students are not interest in studying", "low teacher evaluation from students", "low pay" and "little appreciation from the administration", respectively. Among four subsections of the questionnaire, "students’ attitude" and "research and working conditions" were more influential and regarded as more effective demotivating factors.

The article deals with enemy images in east and west and their historical invention. Connecting the reader to current controversies about “Muslim bans”, the article guides the reader through the nexus of power and knowledge with a particular emphasis on the discourse of Orientalism and Occidentalism.This type of discourse is retroactive, not only because of its ideological content;, it is in fact and quite directly retroactive. Above everything else, the idea that there are essential, unbridgeable differences between cultures and by extension human beings is simply false. This urge to identify us in strict opposition to others has to be resisted, firstly because it is a false polarisation and secondly because it negates the prospect of dialogue and sustainable peace. 

Small states are generally assumed to be on the receiving end of power in the international arena rather than a source of it. But from the late 1990s up until mid-2013, when Sheikh Hamad Al-Thani ruled the country, Qatar became endowed with a form of power. This form of power did not conform to traditional conceptions of “soft,” “hard,” or “smart” power but was a composite form of power that could be best described as “subtle power”. Qatari foreign policy at the time was comprised of four primary components. These included hedging, military security and protection, branding and hyperactive diplomacy, and international investments. Combined, these four foreign policy components bestowed Qatar with a level of power and influence that was far beyond its status as a small state and a newcomer to regional and global politics. This type of power was neither rooted in the attraction of norms (soft power) nor in military ability (hard power). It instead consisted of a form of often behind-the-scenes agenda setting that could be best described as subtle power

This study aimed at examining the main and interaction effects of increased intentional reasoning demands, planning time, and also language learning aptitude on syntactic complexity, accuracy, lexical complexity, and fluency (CALF) of 226 EFL learners’ performance on letter writing tasks. The participants were first randomly assigned to three experimental groups to be given a task with differing degrees of reasoning demand (low, medium, and high) to each group. Then, within each reasoning group, we reassigned an equal number of high- and low- aptitude learners to Planning and No-planning groups by random stratified sampling. The results revealed that (a) increasing task complexity with regard to the amount of intentional reasoning demands resulted in greater lexical and syntactic complexity and less fluency while no significant effect was observed on accuracy; (b) increasing task complexity through planning time led to significantly lower syntactic complexity and fluency; (c) reasoning demands and planning time had a significant interaction effect on accuracy; and (d) the interaction effect of language aptitude was significant with neither planning nor reasoning factor, but a three-way interaction effect was found on accuracy. The findings are discussed in relation to cognitive task complexity (CTC) models which were the main impetus for this study.

According to Teacher Education Curriculum Development Document (TECDD) of Farhangiyan University, teacher professional competencies include Content Knowledge (CK), Pedagogical Knowledge (PK), Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) and General Knowledge (GK). Of these competencies, CK and PCK are specific to teachers of each major while PK and GK are common among all majors. This study was an attempt to explore the components that constitute high school EFL teachers’ CK and PCK through review of the related literature and investigation of high school EFL teachers (N=40) and teacher educators’ (N=20) perspectives. Based on the content analysis of these two sources which resulted in strong agreement, 20 items of CK and 17 items of PCK were identified. To validate the items and explore their underlying factors, data were collected from 445 high school EFL teachers and teacher educators using a questionnaire. Factor analysis with Varimax rotation was carried out on CK and PCK items separately. Regarding CK items, factor analysis gave way to the emergence of three factors, namely knowledge of the principles of language teaching methodology, knowledge of linguistics, and language proficiency. Regarding PCK items, factor analysis also gave way to three factors, namely knowledge of teaching and assessing the components of the curriculum, knowledge of developing, planning and managing language teaching, and knowledge of developing and evaluating instructional materials. The results of this study can be used in the design of high school EFL teacher education program.