درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Writing is one of the four skills of language learning, especially, one of the skills of practical communication in a communicative approach. The purpose of this research is to evaluate and analyze writing activities of the writing sections of secondary high school English textbooks, grades 10th, 11th and 12th, so-called vision 1, 2, 3. The theoretical framework of this research, a descriptive-analytical and qualitative method, was based on Kern's (2007) and Harmer’s (2004) model and continuum of writing activities. The writing activities of these vision books were divided into three major categories of controlled, guided and free writing and fifteen more sub-categories. The exercises and activities of the writing section of these six-volume English textbooks, so-called vision 1,2,3 were counted on and the average and percentage of each category were calculated based on Kern’s (2002) and Harmer’s (2004) model and continuum of writing. The findings of this research indicate that the categories of controlled writing and copying, the first item of Kern’s continuum, are the dominant writing tasks in these books. Activities concerning the guided, and especially the free writing activities in these books are rarely seen or they have not been much carefully regarded. In the communicative approach, regarding the goods and the existing requirements, the teaching of writing is generally concerned with free writing tasks. Therefore, to enhance and promote practical communication skills as an aim of a communicative approach, free writing skills are inevitable. The findings of this research point out that English teachers can reinforce and enhance their students’ practical communication abilities in their classes by using freestyle exercises and hence, cover the shortcomings of the books.

In order to engage students in higher-level thinking, cognitive activation (CA) strategies have been advanced and utilized in mathematics. CA develops when learners are challenged, confronted with conflicts, asked to think and explain clearly on their learning, and realize connections between new and previous content. Extending the theme to English language teaching (ELT), this study investigated Iranian English language teachers’ knowledge and practice of cognitive activation writing strategies (CAWS). In so doing, a model was proposed based on a questionnaire that was developed and validated in the present study. Through this scale, knowledge and practice of CAWS by 213 English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers were explored. During a pilot phase, the reliability of the questionnaire was calculated to be .78 for the knowledge section and .81 for the practice section. Two items in each section were removed after conducting exploratory factor analysis. Ultimately, the confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the proposed model was fit for the data. Five components were confirmed as constituents of CAWS for the knowledge section, and four components were identified for the practice section. The findings revealed that Iranian EFL teachers were already familiar with the CAWS and purportedly practiced them in their writing classes. Using the scale in the process of writing instruction can provide ELT practitioners with a helpful platform for relating to CA strategies and empowers learners to accomplish tasks such as problem-solving in their writing assignments, similar to what is practiced in mathematics.

Although most EFL learners are equipped with a fair command of general English knowledge, they lack the sufficient proficiency required to communicate their thoughts and ideas fluently and accurately. This study was conducted to explore the impact of task-based language teaching (TBLT) on the development of EFL learners’ productive skills. The participants of this study were 25 undergraduate students majoring in English Language and Literature at a State University who had enrolled in a course entitled “Listening and Speaking (I).” The teaching method utilized for this course included three tasks (listening, writing, and speaking), and each task included three phases (pre-task, whilst-task, and post-task). For the purpose of data analysis, the researcher analyzed students’ four oral presentations and four writing assignments quantitatively and qualitatively. Furthermore, an attitude questionnaire was administered and a semi-structured interview was conducted to elicit the participants’ attitudes regarding (TBLT). The findings revealed that all the students could significantly improve their productive skills. Correspondingly, the results of the questionnaire and semi-structured interviews revealed participants’ positive attitudes regarding (TBLT). Students realized that developing their speaking and writing skills was a complex process, and through practicing, they could overcome their problems and enhance their fluency and accuracy.

The main objective of this qualitative-quantitative content analysis study was to compare IELTS Academic and TOEFL iBT four modules in terms of the cognition and knowledge dimensions of Revised Bloom’s taxonomy. To this end, two authentic tests including all major modules of speaking, listening, reading, and writing in each domain, namely iBT TOEFL and IELTS Academic exams were analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. These tests were randomly selected from the collection of authentic tests available in trustworthy resources. The contents of these tests were codified using a coding scheme developed by Razmjoo and Kazempourfard (2012). In this coding scheme, English alphabets and numbers were assigned to levels of cognition and knowledge, respectively. The results indicated that in general TOEFL iBT codes are more inclined toward the higher orders of thinking and knowledge and the codes are not noticeably divergent; while, the majority of the codes in the IELTS Academic test are skewed toward the lower codes of the BRT. This shows the higher stance of the TOEFL iBT test concerning the higher orders of thinking and knowledge in the BRT. A significant difference was also found between the TOEFL iBT and IELTS Academic tests concerning the highest and the lowest levels of BRT.

Today, the use of technology in teaching foreign language has become a matter of considerable interest to language teachers in all over the world. The current study tried to investigate the suitability of data-driven learning in flipped and blended classes vs the conventional ones on students’ grammar learning. To run this study, 48 homogenized students were selected and divided into three groups, including two experimental and one control group, 16 in each. Before the treatment, a grammar pre-test was administered. The two experimental groups received 12 sessions of data-driven instruction in the flipped and blended classes but the control group received grammar instruction based on the textbook. At the end, statistical analysis showed that the participants in both flipped and blended groups had better performance in the post-test. It also was concluded that the usage of data-driven learning had significant impact on both experimental groups. The results of this study can be beneficial for teachers, learners, syllabus designers, managers in learning environments, and policy makers to use data driven learning.

News headlines like other pieces of writings use rhetorical devices. They are regarded as the initial informative and persuasive part of news stories. The goal of the present study was to analyze COVID-19-related native and non-native news headlines chosen from two main online news websites in Iran and England in terms of number and degree of utilization of sub-types of rhetorical devices. To this end, the 6-week corpus including 489 headlines relevant to corona-virus news (282 headlines selected from the BBC and 207 from the Tehran Times) were analyzed. Shams (2013) and Picello (2018) taxonomies were used to analyze all news headlines. The findings showed that ten rhetorical devices were found in these headlines. Alliteration was used most frequently, following closely behind were metonymy, rhyme, rhetorical question, depersonalization, hyperbole, metaphor, pun, cliché, and euphemism. Both alliteration and metonymy were frequently used in the headlines of the news stories. However, just simile and allusion were found in the Tehran Times headlines, but not with high frequency. The findings can provide insights into the understanding of rhetoric-specific conventions in news headlines for ELT teachers and students. Also, English teachers can use news headlines as authentic teaching materials in their language classrooms.

This study examined the development of text complexity for the past 25 years of reading comprehension passages in the National Matriculation English Test (NMET) in China. Text complexity of 206 reading passages at lexical, syntactic, and discourse levels has been measured longitudinally and compared across the years. The natural language processing tools used in the study included TAALES, TAALED, TAASSC, and TAACO. To compare the differences across the years at various levels of text complexity, ANOVA and MANOVA tests were conducted. The results suggested that lexical level text complexity revealed the most evident changes throughout the years, lexical sophistication, density, and diversity levels of the most recent years of reading passages have increased remarkably compared to the early years. The syntactic level text complexity indicated a moderate elevation toward the recent years of reading passages. For the discourse level text complexity, regarding cohesion, insignificant fluctuation occurred throughout the years and the general trend was not necessarily increasing. Combined, the results indicated that text complexity of the reading comprehension passages in the NMET over the past 25 years had been steadily increasing by including more low frequency and academic vocabulary, diversifying vocabulary in the passages, and complicating sentence and grammatical structures. The results were further examined against the general curriculum standards and guidelines to analyze whether the changes were reflected in the policies. It showed that the exams required a much larger vocabulary size than the number indicated in the guidelines, suggestions for test designers and pedagogical practices were provided accordingly.