Activity Theory (AT)

Assessment of writing skill is generally believed to be judged by a rater subjectively and qualitatively or by using analytic scoring rubrics which can potentially result in somehow not very reliable assessment. It seems that an evaluation of writing based on a model can result in a valid and reliable writing assessment. To achieve such an objective, this study firstly aimed to develop an assessment model based on Activity Theory (AT), i. e., Activity Theory-Based Assessment Model (ATBAM), and then to employ it in the assessment of writing performances of Iranian language learners in a private language college. And finally, to achieve the concurrent validity of ATBAM, its results were compared with those of a traditional approach. Three groups of participants took part in this study: a group of upper intermediate English learners (N=29) who submitted one writing sample per week in four successive weeks, teachers (N=6) who provided learners with feedback and assigned holistic scores and course supervisors (N=2) who reassessed the writing samples on the basis of an analytic rubric of writing assessment. The results showed that using ATBAM in writing assessment results in an exploration of not only learners’ but also teachers’ engagement in the development of learners’ writing ability. The role of teachers’ feedback and teachers’ and learners’ social interaction in the development of learners’ writing ability could potentially provide comprehensive, fair, reliable, and valid scores in this model.

T his study attempts to examine the amounts, purposes, and reasons for using L1 by teachers as well as the amounts and purposes of its use by students in English as foreign language classrooms through investigating two pre-intermediate classes of an English language institute in Iran. Among students with an age range of 16-25 years, eight male and female students were in one class and 16 were in the other class (N = 24). Two native Persian teachers with master's degrees in Teaching English as a Foreign Language participated in this study: One was 40 years old with 14 years of experience and the other one was 32 years old with nine years of experience. Eight 90-minute sessions of each teacher’s class were audio-recorded. Following that, the two teachers were interviewed to report on the reasons for which they used their first language. The findings obtained from the classroom audio transcriptions were analyzed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches through the lens of Activity Theory. Moreover, the teachers’ interviews were thematically analyzed and the results of these analyses indicated that the teachers and their students resorted to the first language as an important cognitive and pedagogical tool on different occasions wherever needed during their teaching. The findings also revealed that teachers in this study maintained that using the students’ first language supports second/foreign language learning and teaching processes in the pre-intermediate levels.