مطالب

This study focused on the pedagogical application of priming in an EFL context. Structural priming refers to the speakers’ tendency to produce the structure they encountered in recent discourse in subsequent production compared to an alternative form. Given the limited number of studies in the literature with a focus on the application of priming in L2 teaching and the problems that L2 learners face during speech production, the present study aimed at investigating whether the implication of priming leads to a more frequent oral and written production of the relative clause (RC) structure compared to adjectival modification of nouns (AN) in long- and short-terms as an instance of implicit learning. Participants consisted of 60 EFL female L2 learners, aged between 18-25 years old. Two experimental and 1 control groups were defined and 20 participants were allocated to each group. By applying a pretest, a treatment, an immediate posttest, a delayed posttest design, a picture description task, and a grammaticality judgment test (GJT), the data were gathered. Results of the descriptive and inferential analyses revealed that the implication of priming led to an improvement in the rate of the RC construction when the participants were involved in the written production of the L2, as compared to oral modality. Results are discussed based on structural complexity and procedures involved in L2 production. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are considered, too.

In the educational setting of Iran, language assessment literacy (LAL) is still an underexplored issue. This paper investigated the development of LAL among EFL students taking language assessment course at state universities in Iran. The three components of LAL (i.e., knowledge, skills, and principles) were the focus of the inquiry. To collect the required data, a questionnaire, encompassing 83 Likert items and a set of open-ended questions, was developed, and responses from 92 course instructors were collected. Teaching and assessment practices of two course instructors were also observed throughout an educational semester. SPSS (26) was used to analyze the data. Findings revealed that these courses mainly focused on knowledge and skills, overlooking the principles of assessment. Adherence to traditional assessment approaches, use of inappropriate teaching materials, and lack of practical works in assessment also characterized the investigated courses. The paper concludes with suggestions to better design language assessment courses to increase the assessment literacy of English graduates who will probably enter the teaching contexts after graduation.

This article will explain how and why does Dickens use home as a symbol in his novels. The concept of home is a constant preoccupation in Dickens’s novels. The ideal house is an implicit criticism of the general condition within the total system. The home becomes a microcosm of an ideal society, with love and charity replacing the commerce and capitalism of the outside world. Home is a haven, a sanctuary, and an answer to the ills of the world. It is a protected place not only from dishonest values of the system but from alienating effects of the division of labor. The appropriate method that speaks clearly to this paper’s question is Kenneth Burke’s Cluster analysis. Burke defines cluster analysis as a critical approach to help a critic find rhetors’ worldviews through an examination of the rhetoric that forms their terministic screens. The task of a critic using this method is to notice what subjects cluster about other subjects. This paper argues that through Dickens’s novels, readers come to comprehend the virtues of love and the pleasures of home in an imperfect world. In his lexicon, the patriot is the thankful partaker in history who fights persistently to defend the beauty of his home.

This study investigated the comparative effects of audio-visually prompted collaborative dialogue on the listening comprehension development of symmetrical, asymmetrical, and asymmetrical teacher-fronted EFL learner groups. Besides, it explored the attitude of the participants of the groups concerning the effectiveness of collaborative dialogue for their listening comprehension improvement. The participants of the study were 120 Iranian female EFL learners who were conveniently chosen from several English language institutes and put into three experimental and one control groups, each with 30 learners. In the first experimental group, coequal learners engaged in collaborative dialogue. In the second experimental group, the expert peer(s) and less knowledgeable peers applied collaborative dialogue, and in the third experimental group, in addition to the peers, the teacher was involved in collaborative dialogue with the group members. As for the control group, the collaborative dialogue was abandoned and the participants worked individually. Quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that collaborative dialogue in asymmetrical teacher-fronted, asymmetrical peer and symmetrical peer groups were respectively the most effective procedures for listening comprehension development of the EFL learners. Also, it was found that the participants of the asymmetrical teacher fronted group had a more positive attitude towards the efficacy of audio-visually prompted collaborative dialogue compared with asymmetrical and symmetrical peer groups. The findings underscore the cognitive and affective efficiency of a more knowledgeable source, either a teacher or a peer, in asymmetrical dyadic interactions for the less knowledgeable partners' ZPD sensitive development.   

Designing appropriate materials and activities to enhance vocabulary learning is one of the primary goals of language courses. Among the claims about efficient pedagogical tasks is the Involvement Load Hypothesis (Laufer & Hulstijn, 2001) according to which vocabulary development is contingent on the amount of cognitive process a task involves. Building on the previous research on this hypothesis, this study seeks to explore the extent to which three post-listening tasks of different involvement loads along with single-versus dual-mode glosses affect receptive and productive vocabulary learning of advanced English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. The participants (n = 204) listened to an expository text while twenty lexical items were presented through text-only or text-plus-picture glosses. Subsequently, they were assigned to one of the task type groups (sentence writing, gap-fill, and paragraph writing). Paribakht and Wesche’s (1997) Vocabulary Knowledge Scale was employed as the pre and post-tests. The results pointed to the efficacy of dual-mode over single-mode glosses concerning both receptive and productive vocabulary learning. The sentence writing task produced the highest scores in the vocabulary tests, whereas the gap-fill and paragraph writing tasks did not significantly differ. Hence, the results only partially confirmed the Involvement Load Hypothesis. The current study corroborates other studies verifying the modality effect on vocabulary learning and suggests that task type is a significant factor in EFL vocabulary learning.

Lately, a double skin façade (DSF) has been increasingly popular as an aesthetic and shading device. A façade with a secondary skin is employed in buildings to let natural light flow into the building without glare and heat. The purpose of this study is to examine the performance of secondary skin in buildings and to investigate the level of natural lighting in buildings that meets visual comfort standards according to the function of space in buildings. The object of this research is the Henricus Constant building of Soegijapranata Catholic University Semarang Indonesia. The research method used is descriptive quantitative. The authors assessed the level of natural lighting in the building by analyzing the results of field measurement data with luxmeter measuring devices and model simulations regarding natural shadows and lighting levels with Sketchup software and dialux. The results of this study suggest that secondary skins in the Henricus Constant building manage to create shade in the building’s interior, but the natural lighting level is only 30 lux, less than the standard lighting level of the classroom at 250 lux. Without the secondary skin, the average light intensity is 310 lux; thus, it causes glare and becomes visually uncomfortable.

   The histories of architectural design and town planning are replete with references to creating a better quality of human life. One of the approaches to enhancing human existence is Vāstu Vidyā , the knowledge of design and building from the ancient Vedic tradition. More recently, Vāstu Vidyā has been repurposed to include not only architectural practice and construction but also considered in light of the consciousness of the designer and builder and the need for a more ‘enlightened’ approach to design. Such a consideration is called Maharishi Vedic Architecture (MVA). Some of the features of MVA include a concern for orientation of the building to cardinal east, the position and proportion of rooms within the dwelling, and considerations of slope and relation to the early morning sun. Such features are said to enhance the creativity, health, and happiness of occupants.  The purpose of the present study is to explore the experiences of individuals who reside in homes designed according to the principles of MVA. Triangulated quantitative and qualitative results from an international mixed-methods survey of 158 individuals in 14 countries indicate this approach to architectural design contributes to individual and family quality of life, specifically as it has been operationalized to mean changes in well-being, health, personal development, and success. On a quality-of-life scale, the study found a statistically significant difference between those living in MVA for more than three years compared to those living in MVA for less than three years ( F = 1.89, p = .02), however no difference was observed between experiences for people living in different locations.