درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Despite their widespread popularity and rapid growth, the Internet-mediated English educational materials for learners of English as a foreign/second language (FL/SL) have rarely been analyzed in terms of their potential hidden curriculum. Accordingly, the present study aims to address this need through conducting a CDA investigation into some lessons which are randomly selected from an English educational website called “Englishcentral.” Adapting, expanding, and adopting some elements of Van Leeuwen’s (2008) Social Actor Network, the researchers attempt to describe and explain the representation of “Iran” in Englishcentral. Investigating and thematizing the research data revealed that the keyword “Iran” was used in this website to refer to three groups of social actors, namely the Iranian government and officials, Iranian people, and Iranian people and/or government/officials. The way these social actors are associated and dissociated, activated and passivated, personalized and impersonalized creates remarkable findings which give support to the presence of particular hidden agenda in this program. In all, the results of this study reveal that the Iranian social actors are portrayed unfavorably in Englishcentral, which is an alleged English educational program.

Among the linguistic resources for creating grammatical metaphor, nominalization rewords processes and properties metaphorically as nouns within the experiential metafunction of language. Following Halliday's (1998a) classification of grammatical metaphor, the current study investigated nominalization exploited in an English applied linguistics textbook and its corresponding Persian translation. Selection of these textbooks was motivated by consulting 10 ELT professors. Analysis started by identifying nominalization instances and recurrent patterns of nominalization in the books through adopting a mixed approach. The frequency of nominal expressions was counted, and eventually chi-square was run to find out the probable significance of nominalization use in English and Persian academic text samples. The quantitative differences in using nominalization turned out to be significant, and results revealed variations in the ranking patterns of nominalization in both texts. Qualities as entities tended to recur more in English than in Persian. However, the noun to noun modifier was frequently exploited in the Persian translation. The similarities in the employment of nominalization patterns might reflect the awareness of both the author and the translator of the role of metadiscourse markers in scientific texts. The main reason for the differences lies in the matter that knowledge is realized in different languages. The findings of this study have implications for textbook writers, English for Academic Purposes students, and translators.

Due to the potent role of critical thinking in learners’ academic success and its connection with factors conducive to learning such as argumentation ability, the present study seeks to primarily probe the correlation between Iranian EFL learners’ critical thinking ability and their argumentative writing achievement, and investigate the predictability of the students’ argumentative writing achievement based on their scores on critical thinking scale. Furthermore, the effect of gender on Iranian EFL learners’ argumentative writing achievement was investigated. In so doing, 'Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal' (2002) as well as an argumentative writing assignment was employed, and the participants of the study included 178 EFL learners in three universities in Mashhad, Iran. Structure Equation Modeling (SEM) was utilized to analyze the data. The results substantiated the positive correlation between critical thinking ability and argumentative writing revealing that these two variables significantly and positively related to each other; among the predictors (subscales of the critical thinking) of argumentative writing, inference, assumptions, arguments were the stronger predictors. Finally, gender was not found to significantly affect Iranian EFL learners’ argumentative writing achievement. The conclusions and implications of this study are pointed out with reference to foreign language teaching context.

This study aims to compare the effects of four types of FFI on second language vocabulary learning. To do so, the study adopted a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design, including five groups, each receiving a distinct treatment. The participants were 80 fourth-grade male students ranging in age from 17 to 19. Before the treatment phase, the participants took a researcher-made test of vocabulary as a pretest which was meant to measure the participants’ prior knowledge about the target words. After the treatment phase, the participants took a researcher-made test of vocabulary as posttest to measure the students' achievement of the target words. Independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVA were run to analyze the scores from the pretest and the posttest. The results indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between proactive and reactive FonF in the comprehension mode in terms of promoting vocabulary learning. There was also no statistically significant difference between these two forms of FonF in the production mode in terms of promoting vocabulary learning. However, there was a statistically significant difference between the comprehension-based and production-based FonF in enhancing vocabulary learning. These results extend the positive effect of FFI to L2 vocabulary teaching/learning.

در فرایند آموزش زبان فرانسه، یکی از اساسی ترین مهارت هایی که می باید فراگرفته شود، مهارت خواندن است. توسعه و گسترش استراتژی های خواندن و فراگیری برقراری ارتباط نوشتاری از اهداف این مهم می باشد. آموزش مهارت خواندن در ایران در بیشتر مواقع به گونه ای است که در خدمت دیگر مهارت ها به کار گرفته می شود. بنابراین، زبان آموزان چنین مهارتی را به درستی فرا نمی گیرند. در این مقاله به ترسیم استراتژی های اثربخش در ارتقا مهارت خواندن زبان فرانسه به عنوان زبان خارجی می پردازیم. کسب مهارت خواندن از سوی زبان آموزان موجب استقلال آنها در دریافت مفاهیم متن می شود.

ارزیابی دانش دستوری یکی از موارد تقریبا مغفول در تحقیقات رشته ی آموزش زبان با سوالات بی پاسخ فراوانی می باشد (پورپورا، 2004). مروری بر سازه دستوردر ادییات تحقیق بیانگر آن است که مدل های دستور زبان به صورت مکفی به ابعاد این دانش نپرداخته اند. تحقیق حاضر با استفاده از پیشنهادات اخیر در مورد ماهیت توسعه دانش دستوری اقدام به تهیه ی چارچوبی شامل ابعاد پیچیدگی، گستره، و قوت برای یافتن بهترین پیش بین وضعیت دانش دستوری فراگیران زبان انگلیسی به عنوان زبان دوم کرده است. به این منظور، سند اولیه مشخصات آزمون دانش دستوری تهیه و توسط گروهی متشکل از هفت کارشناسی که در زمینه بررسی سند آزمون تربیت شده بودند مورد بازبینی قرار گرفت. سند مشخصات اصلاح و آزموی مبتنی بر آن به 158 فراگیر انگلیسی با سطوح مختلف توانش داده شد. سوالات با استفاده از نظریه کلاسیک آزمون و مدل راش تحلیل گردید. نتایج رگراسیون گام به گام حاکی از آن است که بهترین مدل پیش بین دانش دستوری فراگیران با توانایی پایین تر شامل گستره و قوت است در حالیکه برای فراگیران با توانایی بالاتر بهترین مدل پیش بین قوت و پیچیدگی است. این یافته دال بر آن است که سند مشخصات آزمون دانش دستوری می تواند شامل ترکیبی از صورتهای سوال مختلف برای اندازه گیری ابعاد مختلف این دانش باشد.

Few studies can be found which have directly addressed the issue of burn-out by considering the influence of teachers’ coping resources such as emotional intelligence and reflectivity especially in an EFL context. Therefore, in order to bridge this gap, the present study was conducted to investigate the relationship among teachers’ burnout, emotional intelligence, and reflectivity with a sample of 125 Iranian EFL teachers from several private language institutes in Kurdistan and Hamedan. Moreover, differences in the teachers’ burnout, emotional intelligence, and reflectivity scores were examined with respect to teachers’ teaching experiences. To answer the research questions, the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators Survey, Teacher Reflectivity Questionnaire, and Bar-On EQ-I Scale were used and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation, Multiple Regression and MANOVA analyses were utilized. The findings showed that emotional intelligence and reflectivity were reversely correlated with burnout, and they could both predict the level of burnout. The results of the study also revealed that there were significant differences between teachers’ level of emotional intelligence with respect to their teaching experience. However, no significant differences were found between teachers’ burnout and reflectivity with respect to their teaching experience. Implications of the study are discussed in details in the paper.

در این مقاله، مسئله تدوین کتاب درسی برای دوره مقدماتی آموزش زبان روسی در ایران بررسی می شود. نویسندگان سعی دارند نیازهای آموزشی نوین را که به هنگام انتخاب محتوای درسی برای این دوره حائز اهمیت هستند، تجزیه و تحلیل کنند و در این راستا به اصول فراگیری زبان روسی توسط ایرانیان تکیه می نمایند. بر اساس نتایج به دست آمده در نظر گرفتن ویژگی های ملی و حتی آداب و سنت ها در روند آموزش مقدماتی زبان خارجی تأثیر مثبت خواهد داشت و به ارتقای اثربخشی آموزش کمک خواهد کرد. در این مقاله همچنین برخی اصول انتخاب مواد درسی در آموزشِ مؤثرِ خط و املا و نیز روش استفاده از برنامه های کامپیوتری در آموزش زبان روسی به دانشجویان ایرانی مورد بررسی قرار می گیرد.

Testing pragmatic competence has always posed daunting challenges to researchers and practitioners. As a step to address the gap in pragmatic testing, this paper delineates the procedural stages of developing and validating a context-sensitive Multiple Choice Discourse Completion Test (MDCT). Following a unitary view of validity, tenable argument and empirical evidence was accumulated to support the construct validity of the test. While 136 advanced learners of English took the developed test, it exhibited reasonable internal consistency (α= .72). Furthermore, the results of correlational studies revealed acceptable association between the scores of this MDCT with both a written version of the same test and a previously validated test of pragmatics from the literature endorsing its concurrent validity. Also, the MDCT proved efficient in differentiating between native speakers and EFL learners as suggested by the results of an independent samples t-test. Finally, a pretest-posttest experimental study with 26 intermediate EFL learners was designed to check the sensitivity of the test towards developments in learners’ interlanguage after which a t-test analysis corroborated the construct validity of the test. This array of evidence denotes that the suggested MDCT can be reliably used in EFL contexts as a valid measure of pragmatic competence.

بررسی انتقال دانش منظورشناختی افراد از زبان مادری به زبان دوم یا زبان خارجی، همواره یکی از موضوعات مورد توجه محققین بوده است. با این وجود، در بین نتایج به دست آمده از مطالعات اندکی که قابلیت این انتقال را مورد بررسی قرار داده اند، اختلافاتی وجود دارد. مطالعه حاضر تلاشی بوده است در بررسی قابلیت انتقال فارسی به انگلیسی استراتژی های رد درخواست توسط زبان آموزان فارسی زبان. به طور مشخص، تأثیرات درجه سختی شرایطی که در آن درخواستی رد می شود و همچنین نوع درخواست رد شده بر قابلیت این انتقال بررسی شده است. برای این منظور پرسشنامه ای به کمک 60 زبان آموز فارسی زبان طراحی شده و در نهایت توسط 74 شرکت کننده اصلی در مطالعه تکمیل شد. نتایج به دست آمده حاکی از تأثیر دو جانبه درجه سختی شرایط و نوع درخواست رد شده بر قابلیت انتقال دانش منظورشناختی افراد است. این به این معنی است که آگاهی زبان آموزان از شرایطی که تحت تأثیر آنها درخواستی را رد می کنند، در تصمیم گیری نهایی آنها در اینکه کدام قسمت از دانش خود از زبان اول را به دیگر زبان ها انتقال دهند، تأثیرگذار است.

مقاله حاضر به بررسی ترجمه افعال روسی با پیشوند от- و معادل آن ها در زبان تاجیکی می پردازد. پیشوند от- در زبان روسی معاصر از جمله پیشوندهایی است که معانی متعددی دارد. مثال های مورد استفاده در این مقاله، مستخرج از فرهنگ روسی-تاجیکی و همچنین دو اثر لف تالستوی: آنّا کارنینا (ترجمه Рањим Њошим) و جنگ و صلح (ترجمه Њабиб Ањрорї)، می باشد. معادل های افعال روسی با پیشوند от- در زبان تاجیکی بیش از همه ساختارهای ساده و مرکب هستند. در ترجمه های بررسی شده، ساختارهای زیر مشاهده گردید: قید + فعل، قید فعلی مرکب گذشته + فعل، عدد+ فعل، عدد+ قید فعلی مرکب، عدد+ قید + فعل، عدد + اسم + فعل، قید فعلی گذشته + فعل، قید нагз+ فعل. پژوهش حاضر ثابت می کند بررسی افعال پیشونددار روسی یکی از مسائل روز و مهم زبان شناسی معاصر و بیان روش های ترجمه و انتقال آن ها به زبان تاجیکی به هنگام فراگیری زبان روسی در کلاس های تاجیک زبانان لازم و ضروری است.

Self-regulation is the ability to regulate one’s cognition, behavior, actions, and motivation strategically and autonomously in order to achieve self-set goals including the learning of academic skills and knowledge. Accordingly, self-regulated learning involves self-generated and systematic thoughts and behaviors with the aim of attaining learning goals. With that in mind, this study aimed to examine the effect of self-regulation instruction to the intermediate EFL readers on their ability to make within-text inferences while reading. Zimmerman’s model of self-regulation with its three cyclic phases of forethought, performance and self-reflection constituted the theoretical basis of this study. Two intact intermediate classes in an English language institute were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group was trained in self-regulatory processes which were directed at EFL reading comprehension for ten sessions, while the control group received the routine, traditional reading instruction involving pre-, while-, and post-reading tasks and activities. The results of parametric one-way between-group ANCOVA showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group on the post-test of EFL reading comprehension, particularly in term of within-text inferencing. This finding revealed that self-regulation instruction aimed at EFL reading comprehension significantly contributed to learners’ ability to make correct within-text inferences while reading in English as a foreign language.