درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

این مطالعه به بررسی تاثیر استفاده از دو نوع مواد اموزشی واقعی با موضوع اشنا ولی متفاوت از لحاظ ساختار بلاغی بر کیفیت شنیداری زبان آموزان سطح بالای ایرانی می پردازد. این مواد از لحاظ استدلال و منطق بیانی متفاوت هستند. براساس عملکرد زبان آموزان بر امتحان تعیین سطح فاولر و کو (1976) تعداد 60 نفر انتخاب شدند. پس از آن یک تست محقق – ساخت که دو نوع ساختار بلاغی توضیحی و مباحثه ای برای دو گروه اجرا شد. نتیجه نشان داد که شناخت موضوع به تنهایی تاثیر مهمی بر عملکرد زبان آموزان نداشته است هرچند عملکرد انها بر تست های توضیحی نسبت به مباحثه ای بهتر بود. به نظر می رسد که دانش کلی و مبهم به تنهایی کافی نیست و عملکرد ضعیف انها بیشتر مربوط به سختی ساختارهای بلاغی از لحاظ شناختی و زبانی بود. برداشت اصلی از ین موضوع می تواند این باشد که زبان آموزان سطح بالای ایرانی نیاز به شناختن این نوع ساختارها هم از لحاظ موضوعی و هم از لحاظ ساختار زبانی، اجتماعی و فرهنگی دارند. بعلاوه موضوع تعیین سطح زبانی مثلا به عنوان سطح بالا می بایست برای تک تک مهارت های زبانی در مقایسه با سطح کلی به گونه ای دیگر تعریف شود.

This study investigated the characteristics of effective secondary school Iranian EFL teachers from students’ and teachers’ perspectives. To this end, 376 junior secondary school students and 32 EFL teachers teaching at various Iranian secondary schools participated in the study. A validated open-ended questionnaire was distributed among the student and teacher participants and asked for their opinions on key characteristics of an effective EFL teacher. A semi-structured interview was also conducted with the teacher participants to investigate why they deemed the characteristics important. The results of the content analysis of the data obtained from the questionnaire and the interview indicated that students and teachers were approximately of the same opinion, both highlighting teachers’ professional qualities (e.g., knowledge of the subject matter, ability to impart knowledge properly, etc.), classroom management-related qualities (e.g., involving all students by assigning pair work/group work activities, assessing their learning progress regularly, etc.), and interpersonal relationships as being of crucial importance for effective EFL teaching. However, they differed in the degree to which they perceived these qualities to be important

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.

In response to the increasing interest in and need for a practical brief measure in language testing, this study explored the properties of an offline short-form test (OSF) versus a conventional lengthy test. From the total of 98 vocabulary items pooled from the Iranian National University Entrance Exams, 60 items were selected for the conventional test (CT). To build the OSF, we created an item bank by examining the item response theory (IRT) parameter estimates. Data for the IRT calibration included the responses of 774,258 examinees. Upon the results of the item calibration, 43 items with the highest discrimination power and minimal guessing values from different levels of ability were selected for the item bank. Then, using the responses of 253 EFL learners, we compared the measurement properties of the OSF scores with those of the CT scores in terms of the score precision, score comparability, and consistency of classification decisions. The results revealed that although the OSF generally did not achieve the same level of measurement precision as the CT, it still achieved a desired level of precision while lessening the negative effects of a lengthy test. The results also signified an excellent degree of correspondence between OSF and CT scores and classification results. In all, findings suggest that OSF can stand as a reasonable alternative for a longer test, especially when conditions dictate that a very short test be used.

Theoretically framed within Vygotskyan sociocultural theory of mind (SCT), Dynamic assessment (DA) is a new approach to classroom assessment offering mediation to help learners perform beyond their level of independent functioning. As a web-based qualitative inquiry into the nature of mediation in DA and its impacts on the participants’ private speech patterns, this study explored the role of private speech as a social and psychological tool to mediate learners' thinking and performance in online DA. The subjects of the study were two Iranian university students along with two English native speakers orally narrating a series of picture stories and having weekly DA mediation with the researcher via Skype. In the present study, the students' private speech markers’ typology emerged out of thematic analysis of oral narratives transcribed before and after DA mediation and it was presented as a criterion to evaluate the learners' progression towards self-regulation. The frequency of occurrence of the learners’ private speech markers was reported and interpreted based on the emergent typology to evaluate the possible changes in their use as the result of DA mediation. Meanwhile, the differences between native speaker participants and the learners’ use of private speech markers in oral narratives were highlighted and discussed. The results of the study indicated that mediation was effective in reducing the number of private speech markers in the learners' narratives after mediation which reflects their progression towards self-regulation in online DA. The findings of the study highlight the importance of private speech as a mediating tool in DA which reflects learners’ struggle to take control of direction of learning and move beyond their current capabilities.