مطالب

Nowadays, the generated and shared content on tourist perceptions in social media is considered a fresh and far-reaching way to introduce the concept of the destination image. Destination decision-makers attempt to use this content to provide a deep understanding of tourism supply and demand. Marketers have to be particular about it when defining a proper destination image. In this regard, many researchers have emphasized the importance of using social media to tap into tourists’ perceptions of destination because it not only helps to deepen the administrators’ understanding of the demands of this type of tourism and to propose new approaches to determine the customers’ preferences in destination marketing but also directs new products and services to satisfy the tourists to a greater extent. Depending on the type of tourism, the contexts and criteria for this kind of virtual investigation are different. For example, in cultural destinations, tourists’ perceptions of tangible and intangible cultural heritage and services and products offered in virtual contexts are regarded as a tool to assess the tourists’ perceptions of that destination. The present study assumes that a holistic approach toward the analysis of tourist perception in the virtual sphere could be a well-qualified alternative to determine tourists’ wants in cultural destinations. Content analysis, which is a practical method in analyzing visual and textual data and  therefore is quite pertinent to the analysis of tourist perceptions, was adopted as the data analysis instrument in this study. To collect the data, two frequently-visited and widely-used websites with easy access to tourists’ comments, namely TripAdvisor and Flickr , were selected so that tourists’ experiences and perceptions could be gathered more authentically and conveniently. The findings demonstrated that the analysis of perceived authenticity of cultural destinations in Iran could provide the content required to create a destination image for purposeful marketing in Iran. Perceived Authenticity was categorized into three main themes: emotional, sensational, and rational.

In Mysticism, traveling and journeys are considered the essentials for self-knowledge, evolution, and theology. This research with a descriptive-analytical method tries to analyze the life, writings, and the legacy of Rumi - as one of the most prominent and influential mystics of history - in order to shed light on the concept, the roots, and the results of the journey from his point of view. In Rumi’s mysticism, the journey can be evaluated from a physical or spiritual aspect, and this term is usually accompanied by the concepts of separation and distance in his poetry. Rumi sometimes considers the journey as the reason behind this separation, while he sometimes considers it as its solution. The concepts of ‘whirling’ and ‘returning to one’s origins’ are among the other themes intermingled with the journey in his mysticism. These concepts can still be observed after hundreds of years in the ‘Sama Dance’ rituals in Konya. In general, Rumi considers movement, journey, and transformation as the basis for evolution and the transcendence of the human soul.

This study aimed to examine the interactive effect of multimedia and formative assessment on promoting Iranian intermediate EFL learners’ pragmatic fluency. To this aim, 80 male high school students in grade eleventh from Andimeshk, Khuzestan, Iran were selected. Then, the selected participants were divided into four equal groups of 20 and a pre-test of pragmatic fluency was administered to them. After that, the control group was taught via traditional method. The first experimental group was exposed to presenting the instructional materials b using multimedia with summative assessment, the second experimental group was exposed to multimedia using formative assessment and the third experimental group received the treatment through conventional approach with formative assessment. At the end of the treatment, the participants were given a teacher-made post-test of pragmatic fluency. The analysis of the results showed that the experimental groups outperformed the control group on the post-test. The results suggest that teachers should be aware of their suitable methods for teaching their learners and they should teach their students based on methods and strategies to enhance their learning and motivation. 

This study aimed at comparing the impact of teacher-selected vs. student-selected discussion groups on speaking fluency of extrovert vs. introvert Iranian EFL learners. In order to do the study, 80 homogenous students were selected from among 140 intermediate female English language learners through the Oxford Placement Test. Then they were divided into introvert and extrovert learners based on the results of the extrovert and introvert questionnaire, and they were totally divided into four groups, namely extrovert student-selected, introvert student-selected, extrovert teacher-selected, and introvert teacher-selected. The participants in all groups took part in the speaking pretest. To do the discussion activities during the treatment process, the participants in the student-selected groups choose their groupmates themselves, while in the teacher-selected groups, the group members were chosen by the teacher. Finally, the participants took part in the posttest of speaking, and the obtained data were analyzed. The results of the analyses showed that selecting discussion groups by both students and teacher affected speaking fluency of extrovert and introvert learners. The results also confirmed that extrovert learners, in both student-selected groups and teacher-selected groups, outweighed the introvert learners regarding their speaking fluency. Teachers are, therefore, recommended to use both teacher-selected and student-selected discussion groups in their classes. They are also recommended to encourage introvert students to take part more actively in class discussions to obtain better results in improving their speaking.