مطالب

This paper reports a study which investigated if there was a match between students’ English vocabulary size and the vocabulary load of a locally produced textbook. The analysis of the passages of the pre-university English textbook currently in use in Iran’s education system using RANGE program indicated that in order to comprehend the texts, students need to know not only words from 2000 high frequency word list, but also words from academic and low frequency lists. On the other hand, results of the 2000 vocabulary level test administered to 464 Iranian pre-university students, male and female, showed that students did not possess sufficient vocabulary knowledge in order to comprehend the texts and that their vocabulary knowledge was limited far below 2000 words. Other analyses of the textbook, including exercises and word glosses provided more evidence for the inadequacy of the textbook. The paper concludes that the pre-university textbook is flawed in terms of the required principles and standards in materials development which results in students’ frustration and disappointment in learning English. The findings of the study are discussed, which should be of much interest to local and international ELT stakeholders, especially textbook writers.

While the number of computers in the classroom continues to increase and tremendous support for technology integration exists in government, business, and academia, a major discrepancy exists between the level of technology use that is expected from the educators and the actual use and integration of technology in the classroom. However, effective technology integration in early childhood education depends on an early childhood program’s overall program goals and objectives, and the program’s goals and objectives for each student. Also, it depends on how computers are incorporated into the early childhood curriculum (Haugland, 2000).

Among the fans of animated films young children are the most popular. This has led the dubbing industry to produce domesticated animations for the young audience of a different language and culture. In other words, in most cases dubbers attempt to adopt domestication procedures to make the language of animations easier and more tangible for children. The domestication strategies may bring both children and their parents great satisfaction. However, as a result of domestication, the dubbers may go too far and utilize a language which is not appropriate for children. Based on Venuti’s theory (1995) of domestication, the present study took a look at the merits and demerits of this procedure. It actually aimed at exploring different cases of inappropriate domestication in the two dubbed cartoons “The Incredibles” and “Barnyard”.

Political Cinema is defined as a "political event", a "biography", or "process". Such a definition is, however, not inclusive enough to cover the films which focus on the normative aspects of politics without necessarily narrating a special political issue. By reviewing Abbas Kiarostami’s films, this article attempts to revise the definition of political cinema and propose the notion of normative political cinema .

Of the various literary works, which have come to exist during the centuries and civilizations, few are capable of remaining in the universal history of literature and culture. Also among these few, only finger trip has become immortal on the people's mind and memory. One might conclude that having joint humanistic concerns is a cause for the immortality of any work of art or literature. The more a literary work deals with commons, questions, subjectivities and human pains, more people will find their own feelings and "their heart word" in it. Undoubtedly, "Saadi’s Golestan" can be considered one of such works. The present study reconsiders Saadi’s Golestan in terms of anxieties and concerns that contemporary human beings are encountered with. Since Saadi’s strategies and techniques are based on his humanitarian experiences, wisdom and high qualities of genius, intellect and attention to readers, in many situations, it appears to be a solution for the contemporary human problems, and this is the secret to the Golestan’s durability. The research, using descriptive–analytic method and through an inter-textual and induction approach, tries to explain Saadi's humanitarian views and his strategies and techniques to respond to the contemporary human pains and challenges. According to the outcomes of the research, a great part of Saadi's sayings in Golestan is based on his humanistic views and his solutions to the social and spiritual (existential) anxieties and crises. Therefore, his teachings, surpassing the place and time, often can be a healing to the contemporary human's sufferings and a solution for his ongoing challenges.

The concepts used in Iqbal Lahori's poetry indicate that the political, social, and cultural settings of the time had greatly influenced his ideas. Influenced by three sources, namely the philosophy based on spiritual perfection, a kind of pan-Islamic approach to propagate among Muslims, and a political view toward his own country, Iqbal deals with the modern socio-political crises plaguing Muslims and drawing upon guidelines received from Molavi-his master whose ideas can be a great source of inspiration to solve new problems of the Islamic world and the colonized nations-he addressed many of these problems. In Javid Nama, he believes that desperately romantic poets are the hearts of the nations and give the body the life-giving blood. Such poets create liveliness in their nations. Iqbal calls them "the Prophet's heirs", who carry the burden of guiding people. Jalal-e-din Mohammad Balkhi, is the symbol of a committed and passionate poet who is the source of life to his nation and transforms the universe through his burning voice. To Iqbal, he is the pioneer of the lovers, whom he is the guide. In Iqbal's view, Rumi master us a fellow-traveler whose company brings salvation and bliss. He advises the followers of the path of divine love to accompany him so that, through his blessings, they know themselves and do great things inspired by strong belief and reach their eventual goal.

In this paper, we will review the foreign exchange market and will try to extract an exchange market pressure and an intervention index for Iran by following the Weymark (1995) approach to evaluate the Central Bank of Iran’s exchange rate policy during 1368:Q1 to 1391:Q3. The estimation method employed, is the econometric technique known in the literature as the Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS).The exchange market pressure’s mean value of 0.062 provides evidence that depreciating pressure remained dominant over the entire sample period. Also, the mean value of the intervention index is 0.44, indicating that the foreign exchange reserve and exchange rate changes absorbed forty-four and fifty-six percent of the pressure, respectively. Otherwise the results of the paper show that on an average there was a downward pressure on Iran’s currency and the Central Bank of Iran pursued an active intervention policy. Specifically, as the intervention index shows, the Central Bank of Iran used both exchange rate and foreign exchange reserve interventions for restoring the foreign exchange market to equilibrium levels, a policy known as the managed float exchange rate regime.