درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Comment peut-on intégrer les collocations dans l’enseignement-apprentissage du lexique de la langue française en Iran ? Telle est la problématique qu’on se propose de traiter dans cet article, en mettant en perspective la place des collocations dans des productions écrites et orales d’un groupe d’étudiants en langue et littérature françaises. Cette recherche est fondée sur l’analyse d’un corpus composé des productions des étudiants participants, de l’observation de leurs cours et des discours de ces étudiants sur les collocations, recueillis lors des entretiens semi-directifs. Les résultats montrent que les collocations sont actuellement très peu utilisées par les apprenants du FLE en Iran. Les collocations les plus utilisées dans les productions des étudiants sont du type V + N (Verbe +Nom avec article). Les résultats retenus de l’analyse qualitative des réponses des étudiants aux questions de l’entretien montrent que leur statut dans les programmes de l’enseignement du français et dans les contenus des cours dans les filières du français en Iran est loin d’être clair. Nous avons également essayé de donner quelques pistes d’après les résultats obtenus, permettant d’améliorer l’enseignement du lexique en FLE, et en particulier celui de collocations.

Although there is an increasing amount of research examining the efficacy of Witten Corrective Feedback (WCF) in enhancing the grammatical accuracy of EFL learners, only a few studies have explored the perspectives of EFL teachers regarding Formulaic-oriented Witten Corrective Feedback (FWCF) in EFL settings. Using a mixed-method approach, this interpretive exploratory study sought to understand the attitudes of Iranian EFL teachers toward FWCF. The analyses were based on quantitative data from a 13-item anonymous bespoke online survey, qualitative data from semi-structured interviews, and an open-ended question at the end of the survey. EFL teachers (n =137) responded to the online survey, and 7 participants participated in semi-structured interviews. The findings indicated that female teachers' favorable opinions about the effectiveness of WCF for improving EFL learners' writing performance resulted from their belief that the learners' capacity to use more formal and courteous language in their writing assignments was positively impacted by using these formulaic sequences. Moreover, the findings demonstrated that EFL teachers preferred direct WCF methods over indirect tactics. The most essential component that affected teachers' practices in the classroom was training designed to change their perspective of the valuelessness of WCF. The teachers' lack of satisfactory understanding of formulaic sequences stemmed from their lack of information. In addition, teachers' hesitancy to use them in the lower proficiency levels emanated from their misconceptions of their uselessness in the language learners' writing tasks.

Drawing on the team-teaching model of multiple instruction, this study aimed to investigate the impact of team-teaching on the English language achievement of Iranian high school students. The study employed a sequential explanatory mixed-method design, consisting of two phases for data collection and analysis. In the quantitative phase, 40 male and 40 female students aged 16-18 were conveniently sampled from tenth-grade high schools in Lahijan, Iran. They were divided into two experimental and two control groups. The experimental groups received instruction using the team-teaching model, while the control groups received traditional instruction. Data analysis was conducted using one-way ANOVA, which revealed a statistically significant improvement in the performance of the experimental groups compared to the control groups. Due to gender differences, the results showed no significant disparities in the outcomes achieved by male and female students. In the qualitative phase, the same participants from the experimental groups were asked to provide open-ended responses regarding the advantages and disadvantages of the team-teaching method, using a questionnaire developed by Jones and Harris (2012). The responses were carefully examined using open coding techniques, and common themes were identified through systematic comparison of the codes. The findings indicated that team-teaching offered a wide range of benefits. Considering gender differences, it was evident that male participants perceived the benefits of the team-teaching model to outweigh the drawbacks more than their female counterparts. These findings have pedagogical implications for Iranian teachers and theoreticians in the field of English language instruction.

The current study attempted to investigate the effect of a newly tailored curriculum on students’ general English achievement across gender as compared to the standard curriculum at Iranian tertiary education. The participants were 120 non-native undergraduate students of Pre-requisite General English course majoring in different disciplines at Ayandegan Institute of Higher Education in Tonekabon city. They were assigned into four groups including female control and experimental as well as male control and experimental. The experimental groups received teaching through the tailored curriculum and the control groups through the standard one. All the groups were given pretest and posttest on general English achievement. In order to analyze the data, a Kolmogrove-Smirnov test and an Independent Samples T-test were utilized. The findings of the study indicated female participant’s outperformance compared to the male ones, after being treated with tailored curriculum (TC) and standard curriculum (SC). However, the male participants experienced higher degree of progress after receiving TC as compared to SC, while such progress was not seen for the female.

The current study examined the effect of scaffolding through presenting examples and pictures on EFL learners’ vocabulary learning and retention.For this purpose, six research niquestions were posed and a quasi- experimental design was applied with two groups of learners who were selected as experimental groups. This research was carried out with a sample of 60 English students from Iran Zaban Institution. The data were collected using three instruments. Primarily, a standard test of Nelson which had 50 items was used to assess general proficiency of the learners for the purpose of their homogeneity. Then, in order to investigate the learner’s lexical knowledge before executing the scaffolding strategies used by examples and pictures, the researcher prepared a vocabulary test used as pretest. At the end of the treatment the students’ lexical knowledge was assessed by a posttest. Also a vocabulary test was used in order to measure their vocabulary retention after two weeks. The results indicated that employing examples helps vocabulary learning as well as retention. In addition, it was shown that using pictures helps both vocabulary learning and retention, and employing examples and pictures have almost the same effect on vocabulary learning. Finally, the results are discussed and compared with the previous ones, implications are explained, and some suggestions and recommendations are provided.

Teachers’ self-regulation (SR), which improves teaching practices, has not received due attention from EFL researchers. This mixed-methods study aimed to examine the SR strategies and teaching effectiveness of English language teachers in Iranian universities and institutes located in three Iranian cities. The first sample of this study comprised 172 EFL teachers (128 males and 44 females) from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Their ages ranged from 23 to 55 years old. The majority of them majored in the different branches of English—English literature (5 BAs, 30 MAs, 10 PhDs), English teaching (10 BAs, 50 MAs,16 PhDs), and English translation (7 BAs, 28 MAs, 16 PhDs). On the other hand, the second sample comprised 153 EFL learners, who were the students of the participating teachers (49 males and 104 females). The age range varied from 14 to 35, and they came from different socioeconomic backgrounds. A study was conducted Teachers completed a Teacher Self-Regulation Scale (TSRS) questionnaire to declare the types and frequency of SR strategies they used while the participating students completed the Characteristic of Successful Iranian EFL Teachers (CSIET) questionnaire, which included ten questionnaire items. According to the quantitative data analysis, SR strategies and teaching effectiveness were negatively correlated. Moreover, 20 EFL teachers were interviewed to determine their awareness of their teaching effectiveness. The study indicates that teachers were not familiar with SR strategies, which can negatively impact their teaching effectiveness. The findings of the study may have insights for teacher educators, administrators, and university teachers, highlighting the role of SR in EFL teaching effectiveness.

In Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation, the way the Anthropocenic set of circumstances is narrated could not be easily explained away through giving precedence to either materialist or structuralist narratologists. In this sense, neither the materiality of the environment nor the arbitrary categories and models of structuralists such as Greimas could determine the ultimate narratological scheme with which one could make sense out of such set of circumstances. Only through modifying the extant narratological categories and models and exposing their arbitrariness via indicating their incapability to contain the formidable materiality of the environment, one could reach a workable semiotic framework for devising a narrative out of the anthropocenic set of circumstances. Reaching this framework would be the present study’s research objective. As its findings, the study recognizes that such a framework would not give the agency of devising narration to either non-human/environmental or human entities in the anthropocene, and at the same time will be the result of the uneasy, yet workable, coupling of these entities. This framework would also acknowledge the uncontainable nature of the environment in the anthropocene, and turn both human and non-human entities into mere actants that have no particular motivation. The study uses the modified narratological models of Algirdas Greimas and Amitav Gosh proposed by critics like Hanes Bergthaller, Marco Caracciolo and Jean Paul Petitimbert to reach this semiotic framework.  

The proficient use of parallel structures in essay writing plays a vital role in enhancing language proficiency among English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. Exploring effective instructional strategies, such as input flooding, can contribute significantly to improved writing outcomes. This study investigates the impact of input flooding techniques on the utilization of parallel structures in essay writing among EFL learners, comparing two instructional settings: flipped online and flipped face-to-face. A total of 73 participants were randomly assigned to three groups: the flipped online group (n=24), the flipped face-to-face group (n=22), and a control group (n=27). In the flipped online approach, the participants were exposed to input flooding through pre-recorded videos and received online feedback on their essays, allowing for extensive exposure to parallel structures. In the flipped face-to-face approach, the participants received the same instructional materials emphasizing relevant structures and engaged in activities to promote the use of parallel structures. The control group followed their regular instructional method without any specific intervention. Following the treatment sessions, all participants underwent a post-test essay assessment to evaluate their proficiency in utilizing parallel structures. The results indicate that the flipped online group demonstrated the highest level of proficiency, highlighting the effectiveness of input flooding techniques in promoting the use of parallel structures in essay writing. Nevertheless, the flipped face-to-face group also exhibited improvement compared to the control group, suggesting the potential benefits of incorporating input flooding in the face-to-face approach. The study indicates that employing input flooding techniques, particularly in a flipped online instructional environment, can significantly improve EFL learners' proficiency in using parallel structures in essay writing. Moreover, the implications extend beyond the classroom, offering valuable insights for educators and policymakers to refine instructional strategies and shape language learning policies effectively.

What we know about the vision of an ideal Young Learners of English (YLE) classroom environment is only limited to a number of small-scale qualitative studies that have explored the development of teachers’ vision throughout their careers. This gap prompted the researchers of this study to pursue the development of a psychometrically valid measure of the factors involved in teachers’ vision of an ideal YLE classroom environment. To this end, an item pool was developed based on an extensive literature review, expert opinion, and interviews with 60 YLE teachers. Next, the first version of the questionnaire was administered to 366 YLE teachers from different cities of Iran. Confirmatory factor analyses through structural equation modeling procedures were applied to the data obtained to test the validity of the hypothetical model. Rounds of statistical analyses and the follow-up remodeling led to a final measurement model of a questionnaire with 23 items tapping into five factors of learner characteristics, attitudes toward the course, teacher characteristics, classroom environment, and organizational impact. The results of this study empirically support the multidimensionality of YLE teachers’ vision of an ideal classroom environment and yield a relatively concrete measure of the construct.

In recent years, dynamic assessment and positive psychology have attracted the attention of many researchers. This phenomenological study explores Iranian intermediate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' perception of academic buoyancy, reflective thinking, and academic resilience in response to dynamic assessment. Data were gathered through narrative inquiry, observation, and focus group discussion involving 18 intermediate EFL learners at a language institute in South Iran. Member checking, peer debriefing, and audit trail were used to ensure the credibility and dependability of the instruments. Thematic analysis of the qualitative data revealed that dynamic assessment positively influenced learners' academic buoyancy by providing tailored scaffolding and support, fostering resilience in the face of academic challenges, and enhancing reflective thinking abilities. These findings suggest that integrating dynamic assessment techniques into language teaching practices contributes to students' adaptive coping mechanisms and ability to navigate academic setbacks, enhancing their academic success and overall well-being. The study underscores the importance of incorporating dynamic assessment approaches to cultivate resilient and empowered learners within EFL settings. This study contributes to understanding dynamic assessment's role in fostering academic resilience and reflective thinking in language learning contexts. The implications of the study are discussed.

This article aims at contrasting the conceptualization of space in Persian and English. Using three semantic primes of 'space', namely 'below', 'side' and 'touch' proposed in Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM), as one of the cognitive semantics approaches to study language, this cross-linguistic design intends to uncover the similarities and differences of conceptualizations in the two languages. The data came from the Hamshahri corpus of Persian-written data and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA).The data were compared to see whether or not the NSM theory is viable to explain the spatial conceptualization. The results indicated that the semantic primes have more than one exponent in Persian and English, with their particular function and conceptual range. Besides, the prime of 'touch' has not spatial correspondence in Persian language. This means that the NSM approach does not provide enough analytical toolkits to satisfactorily explain the similarities and differences in cross-cultural cognitive semantic comparisons and cannot exhaustively explain the conceptualization of ‘space’. Nonetheless, this approach provides us with some insight into the cognitive properties in the minds of the speakers.

Our planet faces major environmental issues that must be addressed through ecological initiatives, education, and awareness raising. In language education, ecolinguistics has grown substantially during the last decade and has taken a cognitive step toward fostering and improving people’s ecological awareness; however, there was no mention of pedagogical practices of ecolinguistics rooted in theories of second language teaching and learning. Thus, the present study sought to apply a framework of English teaching based on the Activity Theory to raise EFL learners’ ecological critical language awareness. The researchers of the current quasi-experimental study employed a non-equivalent pretest and posttest control-group design to assess the effectiveness of using an AT-based framework in EFL classes to foster learners’ critical language awareness of ecological issues. An experimental group (n=45) and a control group (n=45) with intermediate-level members selected through convenience sampling took part in the study. The experimental group was taught with the AT-based framework, while the control group was not. The result of the independent samples t-test indicated that the ECLA of the experimental group had risen significantly compared to the control group. Also, the results of a series of paired samples t-tests comparing the pretest and posttest of the experimental group’s score on each domain of the ECLA showed that the learners’ awareness of all six domains had significantly improved. The study suggests that implementing the AT-based framework to teach ecolinguistics in language classes can be a promising way to raise learners’ ECLA.