مطالب

Turbulence and inconsistency of urban physical system in the physical structure of Iran contemporary cities is one of the instances of identity crisis; the weakness of the educational system in the faculties of architecture and urban planning, the promotion of foreign culture in the domestic press, the weakness of the infrastructures of native culture education, the interference of experts from other scientific fields in architecture and urban planning, the weakness of urban management strategies, high expense housing and the necessity to supply housing for the needy people have created a turbulent city with eclectic culture and it made the native culture less prominent than before. The present research introduced the concept of “urban architecture”. The main presupposition of research is that the architecture of monuments in the historical texture has sufficient capabilities in the quality of physical structure of city and architects concurrently paid attention to the architectural characteristics of monuments and urban space quality. The purpose of present research is that to investigate the effective architectural factors to improve the social life of urban spaces thus the research question is that “how to architect while constructing architectural structures to shape an urban space with social quality?”  The necessity of the study is the role of urban spaces to shape the social life and the significance of the study is the possibility to clarify a “bottom-up” design procedure to consider the concept of “urban architecture”, and also to institutionalize qualifications for urban spaces through architectures. The present qualitative research has been conducted with the logical argumentation and causal- interpretative strategies and through documentary- field study in the case study of Abyaneh village. Research findings, while paying attention to the qualitative components of urban spaces resulting from monuments architecture, have proposed strategies to realize the concept of “urban architecture” consistent with the components of social sustainability.

The use of podcasts in learning has been supported by distance education theories that deal with the role of interaction as well as communication in improving teaching and learning. New technologies such as podcasts can have influential learner support in distance education and address learner cognitive requirements by incorporating communication within study resources. The present study investigated the effects of learners’ autonomy on their vocabulary podcasting tasks, gain and retention in an E-learning context. Two separate one-way multivariate analysis of variance (one-way MANOVA) were run in order to answer the questions. The results revealed that autonomy levels significantly affected Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary gain and retention. The participants who had higher autonomy levels had higher levels of vocabulary gain as well as retention applying audio podcasts plus still pictures and audio podcasts plus animated pictures. As the effects of attitude and autonomy on language learning are unquestionable, the present study can help teachers and learners have better considerations of attitude and autonomy in an E-learning context.

This study was conducted to evaluate the cultural contents and cultural elements represented in Vision (I & II) and Pre-University English (I & II). This study also aimed at determining if there were significant differences between these series in terms of cultural content and cultural element representation. To this end, the two ELT coursebook series were selected and analyzed based on Cortazzi and Jin’s (1999) framework and the framework proposed by Adaskou, Britten, and Fahsi (1990). The results revealed that there were significant differences between these two series in terms of cultural contents and cultural elements. While the Vision series contained more L1 and Neutral-cultural contents, Pre-University series showed tendency to contain L2 and L1 cultural contents. With respect to the cultural elements, both series contained more esthetic and semantic cultural elements. This study has implications for EFL curriculum designing in Iran and can make Iranian EFL instructors familiar with the importance of culture as an indispensable part of language.