مطالب

Research on teacher cognition concerning listening instruction has not been sufficiently touched upon. The present case study aimed to investigate Iranian EFL teachers' stated practices, their perceptions of how effective those practices are, and their actual classroom practices of two casual process-oriented listening instructional approaches namely, strategy-based instruction (SBI) and metacognitive instruction (MCI). To this end, a mixed methods design was utilized. Five experienced EFL teachers were required to be observed and to fill a self-report questionnaire. The findings from the questionnaire revealed teachers' relative but insufficient use of the two process-oriented approaches. Regarding the effectiveness of the process-oriented approaches, the majority of the techniques were perceived by the teachers as effective. Also, the result of the observation showed that process-oriented approaches were conspicuously absent in the teachers' actual classroom practices. Finally, pedagogical implications for EFL teachers, teacher educators, and material developers concerning how best to teach listening are discussed.

Critical cultural awareness as a component of intercultural competence (Byram, 1997, 2012) has received the extensive attention of scholars in the fields of language teaching, cultural studies, ethnic studies, gender studies, communication studies, etc. in the recent decades. However, no instrument has ever been developed to assess this construct among Iranian EFL teachers. To fill this gap, in the first phase of the present study a theoretical framework for critical cultural awareness and its components was developed through reviewing the literature and conducting interviews with ELT experts. In the second phase, a questionnaire was developed and piloted with 370 participants who were available and willing to participate in the study. More specifically, the 37 items of the newly-developed ‘CCA' scale were subjected to principal component analysis which revealed the presence of three components. These phases led to the development of a questionnaire with three components and 37 items: (1) ‘CCA in ELT Programs' including 20 items, (2) ‘CCA in ELT Textbooks and Materials' including 13 items, and (3) ‘CCA in General Terms' including four items. The findings of this study may shed some light on this fuzzy subject and help researchers assess Iranian EFL teachers' critical cultural awareness.

While some researchers have questioned the efficacy of corrective feedback (CF), other researchers believe that CF can be effective if implemented through new technology types, including e-portfolio (EP). However, whether EP can be used as a medium of providing CF for language learners at different levels of language proficiency is still unknown. The purpose of the present study, therefore, was twofold: (a) to examine the writing performance of EFL learners across three levels of language proficiency receiving direct corrective feedback (DCF) via EP, and (b) to investigate which language proficiency group benefits more from DCF provided via EP. For the purposes of the present study, sixty (60) Iranian EFL learners who were divided into three levels of language proficiency at Sharif language center in Tehran, Iran participated in this study. The results of data analysis showed statistically significant differences for two components of writing—content, and mechanics—between beginning and intermediate, and beginning and advanced language learners. The results also showed that the higher the language proficiency level of language learners, the more they benefit from the provision of DCF through EP. These findings suggest that EP may be a viable option to supply Iranian EFL learners across levels of language proficiency with DCF. The article concludes with a call for testing the threshold-level hypothesis that may exist for language learners to use EP.

Many studies have examined the effect of different approaches to teaching grammar including explicit and implicit instruction. However, research in this area is limited in a number of respects. One such limitation pertains to the issue of construct validity of the measures, i.e. the knowledge developed through implicit instruction has been measured through instruments which favor the recipients of explicit instruction. The present study expands on the previous studies by exploring the effectiveness of explicit and implicit instructions through administering a timed GJT and an untimed GJT. Data were collected from three different groups: (a) the explicit group was presented with rules of verb complementation, (b) the implicit group received visually enhanced texts, and (c) the control group received no instruction of the target feature. The results of the mixed between-within subjects ANOVA test revealed that the learners in explicit group outperformed the learners in implicit and control groups in post-tests and delayed post-tests even in the case of the implicit measure. Furthermore, the results indicated the more durable effects of explicit instruction compared with implicit instruction. Taken together, the study provided evidence for the efficiency of explicit teaching compared to implicit teaching in the context of L2 development.

This study aimed to compare the underlying measures of male and female high- school students’ social capital in terms of regional variations and gender and investigate the relationship between those measures and the students' foreign language (FL) achievement. To this end, a number of 904 third-grader high school students (278 male and 626 female) from two educational districts (privileged district (PD) and less-privileged district (LD)) participated in the study. They filled out the Student Social Capital Questionnaire and took an English language achievement test. The results showed that the students in the PD outperformed their counterparts in the LD. Furthermore, group statistics and t-test results suggested variations among the groups of students in terms of such factors as mothers’ involvement, institutional trust, intergenerational closure, and parents’ educational aspiration. Pearson product-moment correlation indicated that there was a significant negative correlation between male and female students' participation in social networks and religious activities on the one hand, and their foreign language achievement on the other hand. However, there was a significant positive correlation between intergenerational closure and parents’ educational aspiration and female students' English scores on the S-test. The findings have implications for families and school members to provide students with hopeful and positive aspirations and intimate family environments and learning environments, which can enhance their FL achievement.

In this study, the effect of management entrenchments on the speed of cash holding adjustment in Iran has been investigated. After designing the management entrenchment evaluation indicators, the transaction information was collected from the Stock Exchange in the five-year period of 2011-2015. The statistical sample consists of 155 companies selected by systematic deletion method. In this research, linear regression and correlation have been used to investigate the hypotheses of the research. Also Eviews software was used to analyse the data and test the hypotheses of the research. What can be summarized in the overall conclusion of the research hypothesis test is that the indicators of management entrenchments including deviation from target cash, deviation from target cash in companies with high financial leverage, deviation from target cash in companies with high free cash flows, deviation from target cash interacting the company size and deviation from target cash interacting the firm performance have a significant effect on the speed of cash holdings adjustment

Management is trying to maximize your rewards and that means in terms of net profit, return on investment (performance) or other accounting measures and also by trying to Making positive changes in the prices of corporate securities to be done. In other words, the maximum managers Their interests are trying to improve corporate performance and the improvement of the capital Investors will be aware of the attention and increased trade and thus share in research Willing to "review the independent non-executive directors' fees from the perspective of agency theory" discussed Is. The sample is composed of 92 companies selected by systematic elimination Is. The company had a total of 460 years. To analyze the data analysis and hypothesis testing This software has been used 7 EVIEWS according to regression analysis, the following results were obtained: Between independent non-executive director's fees and visible efforts there is a significant positive relationship manager. Between independent non-executive directors' fees and the number of board meetings there is a significant positive relationship.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between stock futures fall risk with non-transparent financial reporting at three levels of size, efficiency and return on equity, in the period 2010 to 2014 was in Tehran Stock Exchange. The population of the study are all companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. Data collected and calculated by using Excel software Eviews 7 been analysed and the conclusion was That the risk of future falls in the stock of non-transparent financial reporting for companies with low return on equity With high efficiency, equity, and efficiency in the large companies, there is a significant relationship

In this research, we evaluated performance analysis and ranking of insurance companies listed on the capital market of Iran using data envelopment analysis. In respect of the target the research is applied. The type of research design relying on historical data, is event following and inductive method is inference. The study is consisted of a key question and three sub-questions. This research studies the insurance companies listed on the capital market over a three-year period (2013-2015). Finally, according to the study, data was collected from 9 companies. To document the results of the statistical analysis and providing solutions, using SPSS software, Excel and GE MS we attempted to analyse the questions. At the end, the ranking resulted to the conclusion that the most efficient insurance companies of capital markets, are as follows: Alborz, Dana, Sina, Moalem, Asia, Pasargad, Parsian and Saman.