درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The present study explored the effects of interactionist Dynamic Assessment (DA) and age on the writing accuracy of IELTS candidates. This research investigated the existence of an interactional effect between the age of learners and the type of treatment they received. First, 140 IELTS candidates were split into two age groups, adult and young. Each group was divided into two equal smaller groups, randomly assigned to two types of DA. All four groups took a writing pre-test. After a nine-session treatment of interactionist DA in study groups and interventionist DA in control groups, all groups took a writing post-test. The data collected during the post-test were analyzed by two-way ANOVA and compared with the pre-test data. The findings showed that implementation of interactionist DA significantly improved the learners’ writing accuracy while the learners’ age had no significant effect on their writing accuracy. With respect to the study findings, EFL teachers could use interactionist DA to enhance the accuracy of learners' writing skills by providing more opportunities for the learners to interact.

Processability Theory (PT) is a theory of second language acquisition (SLA) developed to explain developmental sequences in SLA as well as some other phenomena. Within the framework of Processability Theory (PT) and through analyzing the written performance of Iranian EFL learners, the present research focused on the acquisition of the morpho-syntactic structures of “do- s- v (o)” across five proficiency levels, from elementary to advance and compared it with the stage-like development model of morpho-syntactic structures proposed by Pienemann (2005a). The study followed a mixed method design and the data were collected from 350 participants in five different proficiency levels from elementary, pre-intermediate, intermediate, upper-intermediate and advanced; furthermore, 45 pre-intermediate to advanced students were interviewed. The participants were asked to provide samples of their written performance on different tasks such as introduction task, habitual action task, and story retelling task, picture description task, composition, and communication task; furthermore, they were interviewed on the same topics. The data in this research were analyzed both qualitatively to identify and classify the type and order of the morpho-syntactic structures in the written and oral data, and quantitatively through inferential statistics. The results of Kruskal-Wallis test revealed that “do-subject- verb was concordant with Pienemann’s (2005a) model. This finding implies that PT is valid for Iranian EFL learners, considerably. The findings of this research can be of benefit for language teachers, learners, and syllabus designers.

The effects of task-based language teaching (TBLT) on reading comprehension of EAP students has not received due attention in the literature. Using a mixed-methods approach, the research examines whether TBLT improves reading comprehension more effectively compared to traditional English for academic purposes methodologies. In this study, a sample of 100 intermediate-level Iranian university students was selected through convenience sampling and randomly divided into four groups of 25 participants each (comprising two control groups and two experimental groups). The experimental groups, one in psychology and one in accounting, were instructed using TBLT, while the control groups, also in psychology and accounting, followed traditional EAP instruction as dictated by the curriculum and course instructor. Initially, all groups completed a piloted, researcher-developed reading comprehension pretest. In the experimental groups, the syllabus was co-constructed through negotiation, reflecting the students' needs and rights. In contrast, the control groups were taught using textbooks predetermined by the curriculum. Upon the completion of the treatment sessions, all participants took a posttest. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that TBLT significantly enhanced the reading comprehension skills of Iranian university students compared to traditional EAP methods. Additionally, the study found that the field of study did not influence the effectiveness of the instructional method (TBLT or EAP). These findings provide valuable insights for English for specific purposes (ESP) teachers and material developers, emphasizing the potential benefits of incorporating TBLT into EAP instruction.

Dominating people’s lives, Social Media (SM) has gained a special place in every individual’s life in terms of becoming a tool to communicate with peers, families, and friends. Providing innovative functionalities, like forming groups, liking, reacting, and motivating, to modernize digital schooling, has made SM pervasive among students and teachers. The present paper tries to conceptually review and discuss the applicability of positive psychology in EFL education along with social-media-based language learning. Recently, in favor of distance learning, the world has witnessed a dramatic change in education, particularly in L2 learning, happening through social media (SM). However, there is a lack of a systematic study on the application of positive psychology in social media-based language learning, Therefore, it can be helpful to consider the effects of social media on L2 learning from a positive psychology perspective. As a first step in the field, the study aims to clarify how learners’ positiveness can bring about success and flourishment in social media-based L2 learning. Afterward, potential pedagogical implications and limitations are explained. With the hope of expanding the literature on PP in social-media-based Language learning, suggestions for future studies are proposed.  

This study was an attempt to see whether the instruction of pragmatic markers in virtual vs. face-to-face classroom settings had any effect on Iraqi EFL learners’ speaking ability. It also attempted to examine the intervening effects of some factors including age (teenagers in the language institute vs. adults in the university), gender, social class, and the learners’ English language proficiency levels.  To achieve these purposes, a group of 224 Iraqi EFL learners at a university and a private language institute in Kufa, Iraq passing conversation courses were selected and randomly divided into four groups. The two experimental groups (both in university and language institute settings) received instruction on pragmatic markers in online vs. face-to-face conversation classrooms while the two control groups (in university and language institute settings) did not receive instruction on pragmatic markers in online vs. face-to-face conversation classrooms. An English language speaking test was given to the learners to assess their oral performance before and after the treatment. The test was randomly selected from IELTS speaking tests. For the teenagers in the language institute, a simplified speaking task was designed based on IELTS criteria for assessing speaking performance. The results indicated that generally those who received pragmatic instruction outperformed those who did not receive such kind of instruction and the participants in face-to-face classrooms outperformed their virtual counterparts in terms of speaking ability. The study also examined the intervening effects of some social and personal factors including age, gender, social class and level of language proficiency. Based on the findings of this study, the male participants and the students from higher proficiency levels outperformed females and their lower proficiency counterparts in terms of speaking ability. However, they did not show any differences with regard to age and social class. This study offers important implications for EFL teachers, learners and material designers, with regard to the promising effect of face-to-face instruction of different pragmatic features of language through speech acts on learners’ speaking skill. 

Different linguistic constructions, including comparative, superlative, similative, and equative constructions, are employed to convey the concept of comparison. Equative and similative constructions exhibit the highest semantic and structural resemblance out of all the specified constructions. In such constructions, two entities -referred to as the comparee and the standard- are compared based on a specific characteristic or quality. In equative constructions the comparison is based on a gradable property, where one of the referents has the property to a higher degree, while similative constructions compare the similarity in manner. This study explored the equative constructions in the Laki language by primarily relying on classification put forth by Haspelmath (2017). The data for the present study consists of 123 equative sentences taken from spoken interviews with twelve individuals residing in Noorabad city. The findings indicate that speakers mainly use seven strategies to convey the concept of equality in Laki. Furthermore, the data show that in numerous equative constructions in Laki, there is a preference for omitting the standard marker while retaining the degree marker

Writing skill is a challenging and frequently-used activity in academic circles. This study investigated the effects of reflective writing on EFL learners’ writing performance. The participants were 61 Iranian EFL learners from two intact university classes randomly assigned to the non-reflective (n=31) and reflective (n=30) groups. Over sixteen sessions of instructions over eight weeks, the non-reflective group was taught using the traditional writing method; however, the reflective group was exposed to reflective writing instruction under Kolb’s Model. The data were collected through reflective writing compositions and the content analysis of think-aloud protocols. The quantitative data analysis revealed that the reflective group significantly outperformed the non-reflective group in writing compositions. The thematic analysis of think-aloud protocols substantiated the quantitative data findings, indicating that all participants went through the cognitive psychological processes of ‘planning, drafting, pausing and thinking, reading and reproducing, reviewing, editing and revising’ as they were engaged in reflective writing via Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle. The results offer significant implications for language instructors, curriculum planners, and course designers.