درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

Although Gardner and his associates’ work was most influential in the field of L2 motivation, from the early 1990s onwards, their work has been criticized for several reasons. Some researchers claimed that integrative and instrumental orientations were no longer able to convey the complexity of the L2 motivation construct. To examine this complexity, the present study attempted to investigate the discursive construction of four (two males and two females) Iranian EFL learners’ motivation at Shiraz University, Iran. Employing van Leeuwen’s (2008) legitimation construction framework, the study revealed that depending on their future selves, each participant employed certain discursive strategies unique to him/her to (de)legitimize his/her future self. Therefore, what was observed was the use of strategies which were idiosyncratic to that particular person, in that particular context, for a specific purpose, and for that particular moment. Additionally, given the unique political conditions of Iran in the world, it was found that integrative and instrumental orientations can be best replaced by ideal and ought-to selves in this context. The study has some implications. Motivation researchers need to broaden the unit of analysis beyond the individual learner to the interaction between the individual and the multitude of factors in diverse social settings.

Veryfew attempts have been made in the past to develop instruments to measure pragmatic knowledge of second language (L2) learners. The absence of such instruments in the literature of English language teaching (ELT) underscores the need for the researchers to develop new tests that are specifically designed to assess this crucial but less explored aspect of language learners’ (LLs) knowledge. In line with this objective, the present study was conducted to develop and validate four tests of pragmatic knowledge that measured LLs’ knowledge of speech acts. The following steps were taken in this study to develop the written discourse completion tests (WDCTs) and the multiple-choice discourse completion tests (MCDCTs) that respectively measured the test takers’ ability to produce and comprehend request speech act. During the “prototype step” the researchers identified the content and the number of items for each designated test battery. At the “test construction step” the sociolinguistic variables of power (P), social distance (D), and absolute rank of imposition (R) were inserted into the content of the test items. Finally, at the “validation step” the reliability of the tests was examined. The finding of the study showed that the constructed test batteries were sufficiently reliable and valid for measuring pragmatic knowledge of L2 learners.

نظر به نقش کلیدی یادگیری واژگان در زبان آموزی دوم، این تحقیق به بررسی تاثیر هدف خواندن بر یادگیری و ماندگاری ضمنی واژگان می پردازد. بدین منظور 75 زبان آموز (سطح مبتدی) به سه گروه 1. خواندن آزاد و بدون هدف خاص (گروه کنترل)، 2. خواندن به منظور درک مفاهیم و مطالب (گروه آزمایشی اول)، و 3. خواندن با هدف خلاصه برداری کردن از مطالب ضروری و عمده (گروه آزمایشی دوم) تقسیم شدند. لغات مشکل متن انتخاب شده برجسته و معانی فارسی آنها نیز در حاشیه متن گنجانده شد. به منظور سنجش میزان یادگیری و ماندگاری لغات جدید شرکت کنندگان در این تحقیق دو بار مورد ارزیابی قرار گرفتند (بلافاصله بعد از خواندن متن و با فاصله زمانی دو هفته). نتایج هر دو آزمون حاکی از وجود تفاوت معنادار درمیزان واژگان فرا گرفته بین دو گروه آزمایشی در مقایسه با گروه کنترل بود، ولی بین عملکرد دو گروه خواندن به منظور درک مطلب و خلاصه نویسی تفاوت معنا داری مشاهده نشد. با این وجود، افکت سایز 21/0 برای آزمون اولیه و 68/0 برای آزمون تاخیری بیانگر این موضوع بود که قسمت عمده ای از تفاوت عملکرد سه گروه ناشی از تاثیر هدف خواندن بر یادگیری و ماندگاری ضمنی لغات می باشد. نتایج حاصله از تحقیق همچنین حاکی از آن بود که گروه خلاصه نویسی توانایی بیشتری در خلق جملات واستفاده از کلمات جدید درون جملات ذکر شده داشتند، در حالیکه دو گروه دیگر بیشتر به شناسایی و ذکر معنی لغات بسنده کرده بودند. به علاوه، در بسیاری از اشتباهات مرتکب شده توسط زبان آموزان اثر مستقیمی از تاثیر زبان اول (زبان فارسی) دیده نشد.

از دیدگاه معرفت شناسی، با توجه به ظهور نظریه سیستم های پیچیده و دینامیک و این حقیقت که فراگیری زبان در یک اکوسیستم دارای اجزای مرتبط و درهم تنیده صورت می گیرد، مفهوم و فرایند تحقیق در فراگیری زبان دوم نیازمند بازنگری اساسی است. تحقیق حاضر به بررسی ویژگی ها و مشخصات بنیادین نظریه سیستم های پیچیده و کاربرد آن در تحقیقات فراگیری زبان دوم می پردازد. با توجه به مشخصات نظریه مزبور، استدلال می کنیم که روش های متداول و مسلط تحقیق در فراگیری زبان بسیار ساده انگارانه هستند و قادر به بررسی ماهیت واقعی فراگیری زبان نیستند. ما بر این عقیده ایم که دیدگاه نیوتنی نسبت به تحقیق در فراگیری زبان برای مطالعه بیچیدگی های تحقیق در فراگیری زبان کافی نیست. با در نظر گرفتن فرضیه سیستم های پیچیده، تحقیق به عنوان سیستمی پیچیده، دینامیک، غیرخطی، باز و تطبیقی جهت یافتن راه حل های احتمالی سوالات باز تعریف می شود.

The efficacy of genre-based approach to teaching writing has been regarded as an influential practice in L2 writing pedagogy (Hyland, 2007). However, there is still gap between actual structures found in reading materials recommended as textbooks and discourse patterns recommended for L2 writing in EFL contexts, the gap which would highlight the problems of genre and rhetorical patterns for teaching. The current study, therefore, is an attempt to explore the level of consistency between the rhetorical patterns found in reading textbooks and discourse pattern recommended for writing. For this purpose, a number of 22 essays selected from textbooks were analyzed to identify (1) the overall rhetorical structures, and (2) the location of main idea and opinion of writers. The results show that while some texts did not follow the three-part structure of introduction-body-conclusion, main idea was presented in the introductory parts of essays, illustrating a deductive rhetorical pattern recommended for English writing. Further research was suggested as well.

Many textbooks include semantically related words and sometimes teachers add synonyms, antonyms, etc. to the words in order to present new vocabulary items without questioning the possible effects. This study sought to investigate the effect of teaching vocabulary through synonym, semantically unrelated, and hyponym sets based on Higa’s (1963) proposed continuum. A total of 120 Iranian intermediate EFL adults were selected and classified into two high and low language proficient learners based on their PET (2003) scores. They learned the vocabulary items based on the three above-mentioned methods. Learners’ vocabulary achievement was measured using Paribakht and Wesche’s (1993) Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS) in order to assess both the quantitative (number of learnt vocabulary [NLV]) and the qualitative knowledge of vocabulary (depth of learnt vocabulary [DLV]) by administering the same test twice with a two-week interval for obtaining ST and LT results. To address research questions, two independent two-way ANOVAs and two mixed design two-way ANOVAs were conducted. The results revealed that the learners from synonym sets group gained better ST vocabulary achievement quantitatively and language proficiency level proved not to play any significant role in the learners’ vocabulary accomplishment based on belonging to any given group. It was also revealed that quantitatively hyponym, semantically unrelated, and synonym set groups were respectively the most effective methods of clustering that lead to less forgetting in LT which supports Higa’s proposition.

Test method facet is one of the factors which can have an influence on the test takers’ performance. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of two different response types, multiple-choice cloze and multiple-choice test, on the pre-intermediate and intermediate test takers’ reading comprehension performance. To this end, 40 pre-intermediate and intermediate learners participated in the study. To counterbalance the practice effect, the participants of the study at both pre-intermediate and intermediate levels were randomly assigned into two groups. For each level, there were two types of tests and two test administrations. Within each level, the two groups took these two tests in a different order. For all participants of the study there were two scores based on multiple- choice cloze and multiple-choice tests. Two Paired sample t tests were separately run to compare the pre-intermediate and intermediate test takers’ performance on multiple-choice cloze and multiple-choice tests. Two independent samples t tests were run to compare the pre-intermediate and intermediate test takers on these two tests. There was no significant difference between the pre-intermediate test takers’ performance on these two types of tests. There was a significant difference between intermediate test takers’ performance on the tests. There was no significant difference between the pre-intermediate and intermediate test takers’ performance on the multiple-choice cloze tests. The intermediate test takers outperformed the pre-intermediate test takers only on the multiple-choice tests. Based on these results it can be concluded that test methods can have an influence on the test takers’ performance, especially at higher proficiency levels and learners may need to have reached a certain level of proficiency to be able to understand the text.