درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

The present work is a contribution to the debate around attitude towards English as a foreign language in Cameroon. By case-studying an under-searched area through a multi-component tool: the Attitude and Motivation Test Battery, it proposes a different reflection to the question. The test was administered to 211 Grade 11, 12, and 13 Francophone students from various urban and semi-urban schools in the city and its suburbs. It was based on the postulates that attitude is a dynamic characteristic that varies according to place and time on the one hand, and that it is far too complex to be examined from the prism of a single variable. The results revealed that of the six parameters that made up the three components of the tool, three were negative and three were positive, with the integrative orientation slightly outpacing the instrumental one. This underscores the need to envisage attitude as a multi-component variable, as well as the need to reckon with evolving social variables. In general, the results reveal that attitude towards EFL is not as desperate as usually thought. It can be intimated that recent socio-political initiatives aiming at reinforcing French-English bilingualism are gradually bearing fruits. Thus, socio-political ideologies appear to have significant effects on overall attitude towards EFL.

The present investigation aimed at studying the impacts of Iranian EFL learners’ gender, age, field and degree of study on their perceptions of mobile affordances. To this end, 159 Iranian EFL students studying at university were asked to fill Mobile Affordance Inventory (Rostami, 2021). To analyze the data, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, independent sample t-test, one way ANOVA, and Pearson’s correlation were run. The findings of the study indicated that no differences were found among EFL learners in using mobile learning affordances regarding their gender, degree, and field of study. Additionally, no significant relationship was found between the arcticians’ age and their mobile affordances. The results also showed that different affordances of mobile devices can provide new and important information for educators. They become more familiar with different mobile phones capabilities to use, and it makes their teaching more effective. Becoming familiar with affordances provides a situation for improving students’ learning as well as their self-control.

This study was done to investigate the relationship between technological pedagogical content knowledge and reflective teaching of Iranian ESP teachers in online classrooms. To meet the goals, 254 ESP teachers from different universities in Iran were selected to take part in the study. The technological pedagogical content knowledge and teachers’ reflective teaching questionnaires were used as the main instruments of the study. Pearson correlation and multiple regression were calculated to analyze the data gathered from the questionnaires. The findings showed that the relationship between Iranian ESP teachers' technological pedagogical content knowledge and their reflective teaching in online classrooms was significant and the components of TPCK significantly predicted the Iranian ESP teachers’ reflective teaching. The findings of the study assist ESP teachers to employ technological pedagogical content knowledge to enhance their reflective teaching in the teaching process.

This study aimed at examining the effects of the feedback types designed based on the regulatory focus theory (i.e., prevention vs. promotion) and reference of comparison (i.e., normative vs. self-referential) on achievement emotions and achievement goals. One hundred intermediate English language learners were assigned to four experimental groups, promotion, prevention, self-referential, normative, and one control group (N= 20 for each). The participants in the experimental groups received feedback based on their assignment for 16 sessions, and their achievement emotions and achievement goals were assessed before and after the intervention. ANCOVA analyses revealed that significant differences existed between the four experimental groups and the control group regarding achievement emotions and achievement goals. Self-referential feedback and promotion feedback increased positive emotions and led students to mastery-approach and mastery-avoidance goal adoption, while normative feedback and prevention feedback increased negative emotions. Furthermore, normative feedback positively affected performance-approach and performance-avoidance goals. Prevention-focused feedback had a positive effect on mastery-avoidance goals. The researchers recommended that teachers use feedback emphasizing learners’ growth and improvement as a means for progress check. 

The advent of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technology, represented by ChatGPT, has ushered in new possibilities in the realm of language learning and teaching. This pre-application pedagogic position study delves into the potential benefits and associated challenges of employing ChatGPT as a potent pedagogical instrument for the acquisition of legal vocabulary. The proposed pedagogy is based on the authors’ primary experiences with the use of ChatGPT for their personal and pedagogical purposes and an unsystematic application of the pedagogy in EAP classes for undergraduate students at a law school of a university in Bangladesh. Our pre-application proposed innovative ChatGPT-mediated approach to vocabulary instruction is theoretically grounded in constructivism in language teaching and (web) technology in constructivist language pedagogy. The proposed pedagogy utilizes online newspapers with legal terminology, creating an interactive learning environment that encourages active participation and covers pronunciation, meaning, and spelling. It leverages primary language word definitions, refines pronunciation, fosters bilingual comprehension, and enhances spelling proficiency, offering a comprehensive learning experience. However, the study also predicts that the implementation of ChatGPT-based language instruction may involve challenges related to educator proficiency, student participation, resource limitations, and technology requirements. This study not only underscores the value of ChatGPT in language education but also paves the way for future research and innovation in the field. 

This study examines the effect of the 4/3/2 technique on Iranian EFL learners' speaking fluency while also investigating the moderating role of working memory (WM). The study involved sixty EFL learners attending a language institute in Shiraz. The participants, aged 14 to 18, all shared Persian as their first language and had pre-intermediate proficiency in English. A pretest-posttest control group design was employed, with participants randomized into experimental and control groups. The 4/3/2 technique was implemented in the experimental group (EG), where learners performed a monologue task thrice, each under increasing time constraints. The control group (CG) received teacher-fronted sessions. Pre- and post-test measures of L2 oral fluency were collected using syllables per minute, with WM span assessed using a reading-span test. The results demonstrated a significant improvement in oral fluency in the EG compared to the CG. Furthermore, learners with higher WM demonstrated greater gains in fluency following the intervention. The findings suggest that the 4/3/2 technique holds promise for enhancing speaking fluency in EFL learners, with individual differences in WM span influencing the effectiveness of the intervention. These findings have implications for language teaching pedagogy and underscore the importance of considering cognitive factors in language learning interventions. The implications of this study extend to various stakeholders in language education, including language teachers, learners, materials developers, syllabus designers, policymakers, and teacher educators. By integrating these insights into language instruction and teacher training programs, educators and policymakers can work towards fostering more effective and engaging language learning experiences for learners

The aim of the present study is to investigate McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses which revolves around the relationship between John and nature with a focus on the horses. Different aspects of the novel including social, cultural, and spiritual ecology are studied. In ecocriticism, the otherness of nature is one of the main themes that signifies the gap between humanity and nature that eventually results in the destruction of the environment and nature. This study also shows how the main characters, John and Alejandra, are linked in the novel which turns the present study to an ecofeminist research. The novel mostly depicts the image of John wandering in nature and searching for his identity, to be punished. Therefore, the researcher scrutinizes the link between John, nature and Alejandra and tries to examine how the novel shows similar attitudes towards both women and nature in All the Pretty Horses.

English as a First Language (EFL) and English as an Additional Language (The results indicated that both EFL and EAL students used a diverse array of linguistic features to express their ideas in academic prose, with the prospective categories being the most commonly used.

As a dominant genre of academic writing, research papers can be considered as the locus of reproduction concerning asymmetrical power relations and dominance. Through a purposive sampling consisting of the analysis and evaluation of an argument, the purpose of this study was to divulge the power and ideology latent in the discussion section of the research articles to raise second language learners’ awareness of the epistemological foundations and methodological goals and values of the ideologies behind the texts as social structures. By using a practical reasoning framework as an evaluative tool to analyze a text presented in the discussion part of arguments published in research articles, the analysis revealed that the scientific viewpoints exhibit themselves as the premises of these arguments. These world views maintain the dominance of the papers on global academic and social discourses. Understanding the ideological purpose of the article genre is crucial for promoting democratic and equitable education. This assertion highlights the importance of recognizing this function.

With the global spread of English as the lingua franca for academic publishing, non-native researchers and university students are constantly facing linguistic barriers including insufficient vocabulary knowledge in writing for publication. This persistent need motivated the development of a good number of corpus-based word lists for frequently used academic and technical words in research articles across disciplines. Nevertheless, despite its importance in corpus-based study of language for word list development, replication research has received far less attention in this line of inquiry. The current study aimed to address this gap and replicated two published studies that investigated the use of academic vocabulary in applied linguistics research articles. To this end, research articles published from 2010 to 2020 in 20 well-known journals in the field were collected, and a corpus with around 48 million words was compiled and analyzed. The findings indicated that academic vocabulary accounted for 11.46% of the corpus, which is similar and close to the reported coverage of the AWL in replicated studies. However, regarding the frequently occurring academic and non-academic content words, the findings showed considerable variation with respect to the results reported earlier. In light of these findings, the study highlighted the importance of replication research to test the reliability of corpus-based vocabulary studies that developed field-specific academic word lists. Finally, the study developed an updated version for applied linguistics academic word list, that might be regarded as a resource and guide for the vocabulary learning component of the relevant EAP programs in the field.

Language teachers should be aware of the effect of various task types on L2 writing. The purpose of the present study was twofold: To investigate the effect of various task types, including graphic-writing task, decision-making task, and reasoning task, on L2 writing and to examine the relationship between working memory and L2 writing ability under three task conditions. To that end, 55 upper-intermediate male and female language learners from Dorsa Institute and Zabankadeh Meli in Hashtgerd participated in this study. Oxford Placement Test (OPT) test was used to homogenize the participants and Reading Span Test to test the working memory. Participants wrote an argumentative writing before and after the treatment. SPSS (version 25) was utilized to analyze the data. Results of data analysis showed statistically significant differences between graphic-writing task and the other two tasks while no significant differences were found between decision-making and reasoning tasks. Finding of the study showed the positive relationship between L2 writing and working memory. Implications of the study for the language learners are discussed.

The present study investigated the role of explicit instruction on the acquisition of English relative clauses by focusing on resumptive pronouns among Iranian learners of English at an intermediate level of proficiency. The study focused on two structurally different languages (Persian and English) regarding the use of resumptive pronouns.  A grammaticality Judgment Test (GJT) and a Sentence Combination Task (SCT) at three phases of pre-test, immediate, and delayed posttests, have been used; paired samples t-tests showed that exposure to input through teaching materials can improve the learners’ performance in specific types of relative structures, but not in all.  The findings propose that if language learners, especially in a foreign language context, are provided with enough input and still don’t acquire an uninterruptable feature (resumptive pronouns in this case), then it can be said that fossilization has occurred and the interpretability hypothesis (Tsimpli and Dimitrakopolou, 2007) will be confirmed. It also shows that explicit teaching can lead to future noticing in input and result in more stable acquisition.

The present study aims to study "Alienation" in “The Comfort of Strangers” a novel by Ian Mc-Ewan. It attempts to work out the negative and destructive aftermath of alienation in the protagonists of the novel. The research on the mentioned term is fulfilled as per the theories of Melvin Seaman. Ian Russell Mc-Ewan is one of the many examples, who depicted the mentioned element masterfully in his works, specifically in this novel. He goes beyond man’s expectations to show his readers the smashing consequences of human estrangement from the self and society in intelligence and function. Alienation is a venerable concept, with its roots going back to Roman law, where it was a legal term used to denote the act of transferring property. After World War II, when societal complexity started its increasingly accelerated rate of change, and the first signals of post-modernity were perceived by the intellectual elite, alienation slowly became part of the intellectual scene. Melvin Seaman (1918), a theorist which made a momentous modern and post-modern points of the view regarding "Alienation" after Marx and Hegel, was one of the first in the 1960s to develop an alienation scale to measure degrees and varieties of alienation