مطالب

With the current availability of state-of-the-art technology, particularly the Internet, people have expanded their channels of communication. This has similarly led to many people utilizing technology to learn second/foreign languages. Nevertheless, many current computer-assisted language learning (CALL) programs still appear to be lacking in interactivity and what is termed social presence, which is in turn an obstacle to the learners assuming active roles in their online experience of L2 learning. Consequently, the existing CALL programs do not seem to have updated themselves from the obsolete behavioristic and communicative genres to reach for the integrative one to yield optimum interactivity. The present study has attempted to cast light on the prospect of creating an online learning community that could optimize the patterns of interaction among the students and the teacher with the intention of creating online social presence. Using a qualitative research based on grounded theory, the researchers attempted to collect and analyze the data vis-à-vis the participants’ feedback on the research questions that were cyclically obtained from 42 English students of the first researcher’s weblog through 41 semi-structured interviews at the end of each virtual class on Skype and Discord over one year. The results suggested that content-based instruction (CBI) in which the students can opt for and create the content of the course through engaging in asynchronous activities and performing peer-assessment in the comment forms and discussion boards before practicing negotiation of meaning in each synchronous class could maximize the level of student-student interactivity and social presence among the L2 learners.

Initiation into contextualizing mindful second language teacher education (SLTE) has challenged teacher educators causing their retreat into mindless submission to ready-made standardized directives. To revive the starting perspective in curriculum development in light of the recent trend towards responsive SLTE, this practitioner research investigated how the context was incorporated into the initial program phase. We reported an intrinsic case self-study narrating the contextualization events unfolded in the first five sessions of an English language teacher education program in Karaj, Iran. Selected factors guided data mining in an interview, classroom interaction transcripts, reflective tasks, institutional documents, and the teacher educator’s journal entries and recollections. The data underwent meaning-oriented, temporally sequenced content analysis. We redrafted the resulting narrative after member checking, and critical reviews. Afterwards, we conducted a layered context-bound thematic analysis on the big story followed by further theme analysis of the existing and emerging facets of adaptive expertise. Engagement in this narrative inquiry developed awareness of her practices and professional agency, constraints and affordances within the context of SLTE program. The findings extend narrative knowledging to the wider professional community of SLTE.

Any language classroom is a distinctive learning context offering numerous affordances that might be perceived effectively, remain unnoticed, or even act as constraints. Therefore, exploring students' perception toward a particular method of instruction is crucial since it may produce a reliable piece of evidence for teachers to confirm or refute the effectiveness of the intended instructional activities. This study was an attempt to survey Iranian EFL learners' perception of the efficacy of activity theory-based reading comprehension. To this end, 60 students studying English translation at Islamic Azad University, Tehran Central Branch participated in the study and received the reading instruction based on the elements of activity theory, i.e., subjects, object, mediating artifacts, rules, community, and division of labor. After receiving the treatment, the students filled in two perception questionnaires and took part in a semi-structured focus group interview. The findings indicated that the students showed favorable perception toward activity theory, for which they perceived different affordances. Moreover, the results demonstrated that there was a significant difference between the students’ perception regarding the mediating elements of activity theory.  The study provides EFL teachers with new insights into the considerable benefits that activity theory might bring to reading classes.

اسلامی فلسفہ سیاست کا اصلی مفروض یہ ہے کہ میدان سیاست میں زندگی کو کس طریقہ سے منظم کیاجائے کہ سعادت اور فلاح تک رسائی حاصل کی جا سکے ۔ اس بنا پر اسلامی فلسفہ سیاست میں سعادت کا مفہوم بنیادی حیثیت کا مالک ہے ۔ اس علم میں مختلف مسلمان فلاسفه جیسا فارابی،خواجه نصیر الدین طوسی، ابن سینا،شهاب الدین سهروردی، قطب الدین شیرازی اور ملاصدرا نے اپنے آراء اور تجاویز پیش کی ہیں ۔ ان دونوں کے درمیان پائی جانے والی خاص قرابت کے باعث باہمی تاثیر و تاثر کا رابطہ، باعث هوئے هیں که ایک خاص مشترکات اور امتیازات حاصل کریں ۔