Participatory approach

Purpose: In participatory approach to second language teaching and learning, students actively engage in their own learning process and collaborate with others (Cobb, 1994; Greeno, 1998) to achieve their goals. Also, collaborative learning has been shown to encourage the growth of student interdependence (Bruffee, 1999), responsibility (Totten, Sills, Digby, & Russ, 1991), interpersonal skills (Rymes, 1997), and cognitive and critical thinking skills (Johnson & Johnson, 1986). Methodology: Adopting a sociocultural perspective, the present study has attempted to explore the attitude of teachers and learners toward the effectiveness of the method. In so doing, 60 Iranian EFL learners from two intact classes participated in the study, in which the learners from the two classes were randomly assigned to one control group and one experimental group. For fourteen sessions, the researcher in the control group class followed her regular teaching practice through the conventional book-based method of conducting an English class. In the experimental group class, however, the researcher adopted the participatory approach tasks and activities, in which she applied various participatory approach-based techniques, activities, role play, and problem solving activities, group work and collaborative tasks in the classroom instruction. Findings: Results of the comparison of the effects of the experimental participatory group and the control conventional group revealed that although the students in both groups improved their scores on the IELTS posttest, there was no statistically significant difference between the experimental group’s overall performance and that of the control group. Conclusion: Results of the interview with the students and teachers also revealed that both the students and the teachers had positive attitudes towards implementing the participatory approach and they were willing to use at least some of the tasks and activities in their future courses.

The structure of socio-culture encouraged the following study to investigate the ways participation in collaborative learning tasks can have an effect on the overall English proficiency of EFL students’ academic achievement. The learners’ engagement in learning and collaboration with others for achieving their goals often happen in participatory approach to second language teaching and learning (Cobb, 1994; Greeno, 1998). In a same way, collaborative learning plays a good role in increasing learners’ interdependence (Bruffee, 1999), responsibility (Totten, Sills, Digby, & Russ, 1991), interpersonal skills (Rymes, 1997), and cognitive and critical thinking skills (Johnson & Johnson, 1986). Therefore, both the control and study group were randomly selected from 60 Iranian EFL learners of two intact classes. The first group which was the control group was exposed to regular teaching process through the conventional book-based method. While, in experimental group activities such as role play, problem solving, group work and collaborative tasks in the classroom instruction were mostly used. Accordingly, scores on the IELTS posttest in both groups improved but, the statistics of their overall performance showed that there is no significant difference. However, separate skills on the IELTS exam needed some analyses the result of which contended that the scores of experimental group on the speaking skill was significantly higher. Clearly, the scores on the vocabulary and grammar posttest in experimental group were significantly higher. In conclusion, higher mean scores indicate that EFL learners’ vocabulary and grammar learning will be facilitated through both participatory approach and collaborative activities. In fact, the more interactions among learners in classroom activities are used, improvement of speaking skills can be encouraged. As the results of the students’ and teachers’ interview revealed, both students and teachers’ attitudes towards participatory approach were positive and were also highly inclined to receive such tasks and activities in future

In recent years many transformations have occurred in Iranian society and women and girls still have a lot of worries about comes to urban public spaces. Also, due to some ambiguities in defining the domain of public space in traditional Islamic cities and gaps in the knowledge related to the Kurdish cities, the main problem of this paper is how we can define a participatory approach to improvement of women’s safety in the urban public spaces of Saqqez city. This paper will exامینe the women’s participation role in the urban spaces safety by Participatory Urban Appraisal (PUA) model in south and north Imam Avenue, Republic Street and Quds avenue of Saqqez city.Applied methodology is based on librarian, documents and field studies. Statistical society of current research was including 200 citizens, experts and urban officials. In order to, sampling method is simple random sampling. Morgan's sample size estimation table was used to determine size of samples. Finally, Data’s were analyzed through SPSS and Excel software’s. It is presented some solve ways in the framework of SWOT strategy. Results showed that the index of city street furniture in Republic street with providing more favorable conditions of women's satisfaction with 29% of the Quds street, south Imam Khomeini street with 18% and 12% were in north Imam Khomeini street. Other indicators also had a similar situation. Finally, presented some solve ways using SWOT model.