Discourse Analysis
Faeze Soleimanifard; Biook Behnam; Saeideh Ahangari
Abstract
Teaching and learning languages via the Internet is becoming increasingly common all over the world and therefore, the experts growingly debate around the positive or negative effects of online education. The present study aimed to critically investigate into science and technology lessons of the VOA ...
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Teaching and learning languages via the Internet is becoming increasingly common all over the world and therefore, the experts growingly debate around the positive or negative effects of online education. The present study aimed to critically investigate into science and technology lessons of the VOA English Learning Website in a two-year interval, which claims to teach new words and phrases through the authentic VOA world news. Applying van Dijk’s (1998) Ideological Square Model of CDA, the researchers attempted to critically analyze the representation of the key term the United States within the collected VOA news story transcripts in order to observe whether the Website was trying to manipulate the learners’ minds through in-group favoritism and out-group derogation. The findings revealed that the VOA online lessons promoted certain American political, economic, cultural, social, and ideological values through particular discursive structures that tend to describe in-group members in a positive or at least neutral manner. Thus, as McPhail’s (2006) Electronic Colonialism Theory assumes such free online lessons on the VOA Website, which is a core country multimedia giant, struggle to convert and capture the attitudes, desires, beliefs, faiths, lifestyles, and consumer behavior of the other countries. Therefore, it is highly recommended that English teachers and learners try to inspect the content, reflect on the purposes, and evaluate the merits of similar online authentic materials before and while applying them to facilitate the language learning process.
Shiva Keivanpanah; Nafiseh Khakbaz
Abstract
While a growing body of research has attempted to analyze how voice is deployed in argumentative writing, much work remains to be done in instructing voice elements. Therefore, the present study examined the effect of instruction based on Martin and White’s (2005) Engagement framework and Hyland’s ...
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While a growing body of research has attempted to analyze how voice is deployed in argumentative writing, much work remains to be done in instructing voice elements. Therefore, the present study examined the effect of instruction based on Martin and White’s (2005) Engagement framework and Hyland’s (2008) interactional model on voice construction. To this end, a control group (20) and two treatment groups (40) were selected. The treatment groups received sessions of teaching voice elements, each based on a different model. The gain score analysis and the SPANOVA were employed to analyze the change in the use of voice elements between the treatment groups and the control group after the treatment. The results indicated that EFL learners could benefit from instruction in both treatment groups. However, learners who were aware of voice based on the Engagement framework could construct more considerable defensive voice in making an argument challenging. Findings from this study could provide implications for teaching by broadening instructors’ knowledge of voice to cultivate learners’ awareness of voice and help them to employ it effectively in IELTS writing task 2. Keywords: Argumentative writing, IELTS writing task 2, voice, instructing voice
Applied Linguistics
Farzaneh Dehghan
Abstract
This study aims at exploring the developmental process from a novice writer to an expert academic contributor from a discursive viewpoint. Using a cross-sectional research design, the researcher was in contact with five graduate students (from M.A. to PhD) via semi-structured interviews and online communication. ...
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This study aims at exploring the developmental process from a novice writer to an expert academic contributor from a discursive viewpoint. Using a cross-sectional research design, the researcher was in contact with five graduate students (from M.A. to PhD) via semi-structured interviews and online communication. Based on the ideas of intertextuality and community of practice, the results obtained through text analysis showed two categories of intertextual references relevant for constructing genre knowledge, namely text-oriented practices (based on the discursive authority of texts) and expert-oriented practices (based on the discursive authority of experts). Moreover, novice writers were highly dependent on both text-oriented and expert-oriented practices but they favoured the former in their writing practices. Furthermore, since professional identity is an important aspect of genre knowledge, two identities of outsider and contributor were identified regarding this discourse community and its audience. The study concludes with implications for improving the discursive practices of the local academic community for developing professional identity of its novices.
Applied Linguistics
Amir Zand-Moghadam; Morteza Taheri; Maryam Bolouri
Abstract
The teachers' competencies in the process of internationalization of higher education (IHE) are of vital importance (Brandenburg & Federkeil, 2007; van der Werf, 2012). The extent of IHE in a university is in a close relationship with the teachers' competencies (Harari, 1981). However, the required ...
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The teachers' competencies in the process of internationalization of higher education (IHE) are of vital importance (Brandenburg & Federkeil, 2007; van der Werf, 2012). The extent of IHE in a university is in a close relationship with the teachers' competencies (Harari, 1981). However, the required competencies of teachers in IHE are not a well-studied topic. Similarly, the "dearth of literature on EAP professional development" (Blaj-Ward, 2014, p. 113) has complicated exploring the EAP teachers' competencies. The absence of a competency model addressing the needs of EAP teachers to effectively engage in the education fitting the IHE objectives and policies gave impetus to this study. In line with this objective, an instrument measuring EAP teachers' competencies was designed and validated. The following steps were taken to develop the instrument: the theme extraction and item generation phase, the piloting phase, and the validation phase. The extensive review of the literature and interviews with IHE experts and EAP teachers yielded 8 competencies. This initial framework led to the development of the preliminary version of a 22-item questionnaire. The piloting phase resulted in 23 items. 74 EAP teachers from both camps (language and content) participated in the final administration. Various factor analyses, internal consistency, and correlation of all of the items were performed. The data obtained confirmed a sufficiently reliable and valid scale, consisting of 6 components (with the same underlying themes of 8 competencies extracted earlier) and 23 items for measuring the EAP teachers' competencies.
Applied Linguistics
Mehri Jalali
Abstract
Although the importance of intercultural competence (IC) training has been increasingly recognized in recent scholarly reviews, home-based approaches invite further investigation in this paradigm. This study aims to make a contribution by exposing a domestic context to assess IC development through using ...
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Although the importance of intercultural competence (IC) training has been increasingly recognized in recent scholarly reviews, home-based approaches invite further investigation in this paradigm. This study aims to make a contribution by exposing a domestic context to assess IC development through using qualitative and quantitative methods. To do so, sixty two undergraduate EFL student-teachers were guided to conduct two either on-line or face to face reflective ethnographic interviews over a sixteen-week course of cross-cultural communication. The quantitative findings obtained from the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) questionnaire showed significant increase in participants’ Perceived Orientation (PO) and Developmental Orientation (DO) after the course. Qualitative findings also revealed significant growth, provoking some new perceptions, and emphasizing the student-teachers’ positive responses to both IDI assessment and the intercultural interactions. The exploratory analysis of the participants’ reports on the ethnographic interviews resulted in seven emerged themes which conceptually matched the traditional IC model. Therefore, the study shows that using reflective ethnographic interviews in a mixed methods design is helpful in developing and assessing student-teachers’ IC.
Mahsa Abedi; Marjan Vosoughi; Mohammad Ali Kowsary
Abstract
In this study, the researchers intended to screen English language learning perceptions on four relational contexts including language learners’ family members, English teachers, classmates and their best friends. To this aim, a group of Iranian adolescents (no=38), with an age range of 12-16 were ...
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In this study, the researchers intended to screen English language learning perceptions on four relational contexts including language learners’ family members, English teachers, classmates and their best friends. To this aim, a group of Iranian adolescents (no=38), with an age range of 12-16 were randomly selected from three language institutes located in Sabzevar, Khorasan Razavi. The researchers distributed a modified version of a validated questionnaire by Taylor (2010) titled Quadripolar Model of Identity (TQMI) to investigate variability of the learners’ perceptions for 1)learning English with regard to four relational contexts above and 2) their insights over two conceived selves including public and imposed self. Findings indicated that within diverse characterizations of personality types, the preferences for including “family members” in the learning processes and future functioning were conspicuous. As to respondents’ preferences towards achieving their goals in learning English regarding their two selves (public and imposed), it became clear that the level of imposing on the part of “language teachers” and “families” on the learners was roughly the same in both present and future self categorization presentations and in the public self, again family members had more rates. Finally, the results from the data on the relationship between two aspects of identity (imposed vs. public), and language learning success, measures represented a significant relationship for only imposed identity indicators. Implications for overall recognition of other-related people in the language learning processes were discussed in the end.
Second Language Acquisition (SLA)
Emad Mohammed Qadir; Nouroddin Yousofi
Abstract
In recent years, the importance of thinking skills in education has attracted the attention of researchers. To this end, this study investigated the effect of scaffolding and implicit instructions on the critical thinking skills (i.e., inference, evaluation, analysis, inductive and deductive reasoning) ...
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In recent years, the importance of thinking skills in education has attracted the attention of researchers. To this end, this study investigated the effect of scaffolding and implicit instructions on the critical thinking skills (i.e., inference, evaluation, analysis, inductive and deductive reasoning) of EFL learners. To this end, 20 EFL learners who were taking an IELTS course at a language institute in two intact classes were chosen as the participants. One group was randomly assigned as the experimental group and their critical thinking skills were scaffolded following Vygotsky’s developmental model of the Zone of Proximal Development, and the other group was assigned as the control group and received implicit instruction for promoting critical thinking skills. California Critical Thinking Skills Test Form B developed by Facione and Facione (1993) was used to check the participants’ critical thinking skills. The results of the paired-samples t-test displayed that scaffolding and implicit instructions enhanced the EFL learners’ critical thinking. The analyses of the independent-samples t-test showed that the experimental group promoted their critical thinking to a greater extent in comparison with the control group. The findings of one-way MANCOVA indicated that by controlling for the pre-tests, scaffolding instruction was more effective than implicit instruction in developing the EFL learners’ critical thinking skills.
Testing
Sayyed Mohammad Alavi; Hossein Karami; Mohammad Hossein Kouhpaeenejad
Abstract
Measurement has been ubiquitous in all areas of education for at least a century. Various methods have been suggested to examine the fairness of education tests especially in high-stakes contexts. The present study has adopted the newly proposed ecological approach to differential item functioning (DIF) ...
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Measurement has been ubiquitous in all areas of education for at least a century. Various methods have been suggested to examine the fairness of education tests especially in high-stakes contexts. The present study has adopted the newly proposed ecological approach to differential item functioning (DIF) to investigate the fairness of the Iranian nationwide university entrance exam. To this end, the actual data from an administration of the test were obtained and analyzed through both traditional logistic regression and latent class analysis (LCA) techniques. The initial DIF analysis through logistic regression revealed that 19 items (out of 70) showed either uniform or non-uniform DIF. Further examination of the sample through LCA showed that the sample is not homogeneous. LCA class enumeration revealed that three classes can be identified in the sample. DIF analysis for separate latent classes showed that three serious differences in the number of DIF items identified in each latent class ranging from zero items in latent class 3 to 43 items in latent class 2. The inclusion of the covariates in the model also showed that latent class membership could be significantly predicted from high school GPA, field of study, and acceptance quota. It is argued that the fairness of the test might be under question. The implications of the findings for the validity of the test are discussed in detail.
Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP)
Reza Bagheri Nevisi; Alireza Moghadasi
Abstract
Considering the indispensable role pragmatic knowledge plays in not only comprehending L2 materials, but also in making and maintaining proper communication, and the fact that Iranian EFL learners are primarily exposed to the target language through textbooks, this research intended to discern how frequently ...
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Considering the indispensable role pragmatic knowledge plays in not only comprehending L2 materials, but also in making and maintaining proper communication, and the fact that Iranian EFL learners are primarily exposed to the target language through textbooks, this research intended to discern how frequently and appropriately Politeness Markers (PMs), Speech Acts (SAs), and Language Functions (LFs) are being incorporated in newly-published Iranian high school English textbooks: Prospect and Vision Series. Furthermore, the study set out to investigate the possible relations between the level of the textbooks and the frequency of pragmatic components being included. To this end, 172 conversations of the aforementioned textbooks were thoroughly analyzed to determine the frequency of the PMs based on House and Kasper (1981) taxonomy, the frequency of SAs based on Searle's (1979) paradigm, and the frequency of LFs according to Halliday’s (1978) framework. Findings revealed that Committers were the most frequently-used PMs, Representatives and Directives were the most commonly-used SAs, and Informatives enjoyed the highest frequency among LFs. The results also indicated that these pragmatic components were not equally distributed throughout the conversations and no significant relationship existed between level of the textbooks and frequency of the pragmatic elements. In addition to the consciousness-raising dimension of the study, material developers might be able to appropriately represent and include pragmatic information into their materials. Moreover, teachers might also be able to amend and modify their adopted approaches to foreign language teaching and adjust them to accommodate potential learner styles and their preferences.
Discourse Analysis
Kimia Soltani; Davud Kuhi; Nasrin Hadidi
Abstract
Although a plethora of research endeavors have investigated the rhetorical structure of the Research Articles (RAs) through the lens of move analysis, Move Recycling (MR) across RA sections has remained unnoticed. The current study sought to bridge this gap by exploring cross-disciplinary variations ...
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Although a plethora of research endeavors have investigated the rhetorical structure of the Research Articles (RAs) through the lens of move analysis, Move Recycling (MR) across RA sections has remained unnoticed. The current study sought to bridge this gap by exploring cross-disciplinary variations in the recycling of the Objective move (research questions/hypotheses/purposes) across four conventional sections (Introduction, Method, Result, and Discussion) of RAs. To this end, 600 English RAs from four prestigious journals in six soft science disciplines, published between 2006 and 2018, were selected. The quantitative data analysis results revealed that the Objective move’s recycling was sensitive to the disciplinary variations and RA sections. That is, Economics RAs were the main platforms for recycling the Objective move, and Psychology RAs witnessed the least amount of its recycling. Moreover, Objective move recycling was observed most frequently in the Discussion sections and least frequently in the Method sections of RAs. In the study’s qualitative phase, the RA authors’ rationales for MR, which were received via email, underwent content analysis. Based on the recurrent themes in the RA authors’ responses, four main reasons for MR, including editorial policy, readers’ guidance, discipline conventions, and RA length, were identified. This study’s findings might provide a concise view of MR for researchers, teachers, and students in various disciplines. EAP instructors can raise students’ awareness of MR and encourage them to use it in their RAs as a comprehension facilitator.
Materials Development & Textbook Analysis
Amir Kardoust; Abdulbaset Saeedian
Abstract
Enabling learners to communicate both in an inter-personal level and with people of other nations is greatly emphasized in language learning programs. The present study seeks to analyze the conceptions of Iranian teachers after they implemented the new communicative language teaching (CLT) curriculum. ...
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Enabling learners to communicate both in an inter-personal level and with people of other nations is greatly emphasized in language learning programs. The present study seeks to analyze the conceptions of Iranian teachers after they implemented the new communicative language teaching (CLT) curriculum. To do so, two teachers were asked to record one session of their classes and subsequently participate in semi-structured interviews to elaborate on their rationale of what they did in the classroom. One of the teachers was a male with over 20 years of teaching experience, and the other was a female with almost the same years of teaching experience as the male. The analysis of the data showed wide discrepancies between teachers’ actual activities and the curriculum recommendations. The teachers highlighted their previous schooling as a student as well as contextual realities as factors influencing their teaching. The study highlighted the point that if teachers’ beliefs and the contextual realities are not in tune, teachers filter the curriculum in their own preferred ways leading to divergences from the proposed curriculum. Therefore, the study has clear implications for curriculum developers to consider contextual realities when proposing any innovations. It can also be of use for teachers to be aware of the need to be more cautious when implementing a new curriculum.
Second Language Acquisition (SLA)
Khadijeh Karimi Alavijeh
Abstract
This paper focuses on errors made by Persian learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) when producing English headless relative clauses (RCs). Although English does not allow interrogative structure in headless RCs, Persian EFL learners tend to produce them in the interrogative form. In the course ...
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This paper focuses on errors made by Persian learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) when producing English headless relative clauses (RCs). Although English does not allow interrogative structure in headless RCs, Persian EFL learners tend to produce them in the interrogative form. In the course of the present research, potential sources of this error were explored, and eventually the Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH) showed to have more explanatory power, and made up the theoretical framework of the research. The oral and written corpus of the study was obtained in the course of two years through diverse sources from 137 female and male Iranian participants. The collected, naturally-occurring data yielded a pool of 126 ill-formed RCs, consisting of 85 (67.46%) ordinary headless, 25(19.84%) headed and 16 (12.69%) free headless RCs. Scrutiny into the data led to recognizing systematic errors in two main types (headless RC in subject or object position) and two subsidiary types (headless RC in subject position including copula verb) of English headless RCs. These systematic errors can be attributed to markedness differential hypothesis, not in the sense that the forms are different across the two languages, but because of the wider functionality of interrogative and declarative forms in English headless RCs, compared to Persian. This study calls for linguistic analysis of other facets of such systematic errors, more collaboration of linguists and language pedagogues to recognize and address learning problems, and studies on educational solutions for related problems.
Teacher Education
Mahsa Mahmoodarabi; Parviz Maftoon; Masood Siyyari
Abstract
The notion of teacher professional identity has become a regular fixture in numerous theoretical and empirical studies in both mainstream and L2 teacher education. Consequently, a number of scales have been designed and developed to quantify this construct. To be sure, the extant instruments are general ...
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The notion of teacher professional identity has become a regular fixture in numerous theoretical and empirical studies in both mainstream and L2 teacher education. Consequently, a number of scales have been designed and developed to quantify this construct. To be sure, the extant instruments are general with regard to both context and subject matter, and this line of inquiry has not addressed the quantification of the concept in the ELT profession. The present study was, therefore, an attempt to provide a (re)conceptualization of L2 teachers’ professional identity through exploring its underlying components. To this end, an initial 61-item, self-assessment questionnaire was developed using a comprehensive review of the related literature and experts’ opinion. The trial scale was then administered to a sample of 676 ELT teachers. Results of exploratory factor analysis reduced the instrument to 42 items, leading to a six-factor model which indicated that L2 teacher identity includes: researching and developing one’s own practice; language awareness; institutional and collective practice; engaging learners as whole persons; appraising one’s teacher self; and sociocultural and critical practice. Confirmatory factor analysis substantiated the resultant six-factor model as a robust and valid tool for measuring ELT teachers’ professional identity.
Second Language Acquisition (SLA)
Saeed Safdari
Abstract
Task motivation has recently gained prominence in second language (L2) research. However, its potential effects on the transfer of learning across tasks have not been investigated. The present study sought to deal with this issue through a mixed-methods approach. A total of 82 intermediate English learners ...
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Task motivation has recently gained prominence in second language (L2) research. However, its potential effects on the transfer of learning across tasks have not been investigated. The present study sought to deal with this issue through a mixed-methods approach. A total of 82 intermediate English learners took part in the study. Initially, they were tested regarding their knowledge of the English definite article. Then, they performed a consciousness-raising task that accentuated the article. Following the task, their task motivation was measured using a self-report questionnaire. After a few days, they completed another task requiring the knowledge of the article to see whether those who experienced higher task motivation on Task 1 were able to transfer the newly gained knowledge more efficiently to Task 2 compared to learners with low task motivation. Then, focus group interviews were conducted with learners representing both groups. Analysis of variance revealed that task motivation significantly affects transfer of learning. Moreover, thematic coding analysis of the qualitative data indicated that positive task appraisal, peer effect, increased effort, and activating self-regulation strategies were the major factors associated with high task motivation leading to efficient transfer of learning. The findings suggest some implications for pedagogy and research.
ESP & EAP
Masoud Azizi
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic pushed all universities to offer all programs online, but not all instructors were prepared for such an abrupt transformation. Online education can be very challenging both to the instructors and the institutions and has several subtleties that make it quite different from the face-to-face ...
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The COVID-19 pandemic pushed all universities to offer all programs online, but not all instructors were prepared for such an abrupt transformation. Online education can be very challenging both to the instructors and the institutions and has several subtleties that make it quite different from the face-to-face programs. There exists an urgent need for studies examining the effectiveness of such programs being offered amid the pandemic in comparison with the same courses held face-to-face. As a result, the present study was an attempt to compare the effectiveness of an online EAP course with that of the same course being offered face-to-face in terms of its three components, namely vocabulary, grammar, and reading comprehension. Sixty-eight students in two groups of online and face-to-face classes took part in this study with a pretest-posttest design. While the two groups were not significantly difference at the onset of the study, the results of the SPANOVAs run showed a significant difference in the case of the grammar component, but not the other two, with the face-to-face group outperforming the online one. The follow-up interviews revealed that learners in online classes often have little interaction with their instructors and peers, and teachers cannot keep learners engaged and active during the class as it is often conducted in the form of a monologue lecture. All this indicates that an online program is not a translation of a face-to-face curriculum into an online format, but it enjoys numerous intricacies that need to be considered by all those involved.
Psycholinguistics
Zeinab Sazegar; Hamid Ashraf; Khalil Motallebzadeh
Abstract
Much of what educators address is the overt curriculum; however, there is a hidden curriculum that affects education in a very profound manner. In view of that, the purpose of the present study is to determine the relationship of EFL teachers’ perspectives on hidden curriculum components in the ...
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Much of what educators address is the overt curriculum; however, there is a hidden curriculum that affects education in a very profound manner. In view of that, the purpose of the present study is to determine the relationship of EFL teachers’ perspectives on hidden curriculum components in the Iranian institutional context with their students’ self-efficacy and national identity. More specifically, the present study surveyed the probable existence of any significant correlation between EFL teachers’ perspectives on the EFL hidden curriculum components, their students’ attitudes towards their own national identity, and self-efficacy. For this purpose, a model was suggested and tested using partial least squares variance-based structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), to examine EFL teachers’ perspectives on the EFL hidden curriculum components contributing to their students’ national identity and self-efficacy. A total of 164 institutional EFL teachers in Iran completed the EFL hidden curriculum questionnaire. Besides, 987 students (about eighty percent of their learners) were asked to fill in national identity and self-efficacy questionnaires. Based on this model, all the correlations between the latent variables were significant except for three latent variables including the relationships among EFL teachers’ perspectives on the EFL hidden curriculum components (social atmosphere, organizational structure, and interaction between teachers and learners) and their learners’ self-efficacy. In addition, the results depicted all the relationships between latent variables was positive relations; while, the relationship between EFL learners’ national identity and self-efficacy was proved to be negative.
Second Language Acquisition (SLA)
Rajab Esfandiari; Hajar Jafari
Abstract
Morphological complexity is one of the dimensions of complexity that has been increasingly analyzed over the last few years. However, results from previous studies drawing on only a single text type are inconclusive. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of text types (descriptive, narrative, ...
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Morphological complexity is one of the dimensions of complexity that has been increasingly analyzed over the last few years. However, results from previous studies drawing on only a single text type are inconclusive. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of text types (descriptive, narrative, and expository) on the morphological complexity of essays written by Iranian English language learners. The participants included 87 lower-intermediate male and female L2 learners at six language institutes in Qazvin, Iran, who were selected from 127 language learners taking an Oxford Quick Placement test. The participants wrote on each text type in three consecutive weeks as a part of their classroom activity. The morphological complexity of verbs and nouns was separately calculated using the morphological complexity index. The data were analyzed using a series of Friedman and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Tests. The findings did not show any statistically significant differences across text types for nominal inflectional diversity; however, verbal inflectional diversity was statistically significant across text types, with narrative essays morphologically more complex than descriptive and expository essays. The findings may have theoretical and pedagogical implications for researchers and L2 teachers.
Applied Linguistics
Maryam Moazzeni Limoudehi; Omid Mazandarani; Behzad Ghonsooly; Jila Naeini
Abstract
Much uncertainty still exists about the possible role of myriads external and internal mediating variables such as language backgrounds and ethnicities in the process of corrective feedback (CF). To address the issue, 79 monolingual Persians and 79 bilingual Turkmens aged between 13 and 18 from two language ...
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Much uncertainty still exists about the possible role of myriads external and internal mediating variables such as language backgrounds and ethnicities in the process of corrective feedback (CF). To address the issue, 79 monolingual Persians and 79 bilingual Turkmens aged between 13 and 18 from two language institutes in Golestan Province, Iran participated in the study comprising three experimental and a control group each. Pretests revealed the learners’ grammatical errors based on which the experimental groups were provided with different strategies of metalinguistic CF, namely mid-focused oral metalinguistic CF (OMCF), written metalinguistic CF (WMCF), and oral/written metalinguistic CF (OWMCF) on their five most recurrent grammatical errors while the control groups received none. Following significant Kruskal-Wallis test results, the Conover’s pairwise comparison test was employed to exhibit differences among CF strategies. In monolingual Persians and bilingual Turkmens, all the experimental groups significantly outperformed the control groups. Mid-focused OMCF and OWMCF had significant effects on the reduction of Persians’ errors, but for Turkmens, all the CF strategies exerted a significant reduction of errors. The effectiveness rank of the CF strategies investigated through Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) selected OMCF as the best strategy for monolingual Persians while for bilingual Turkmens, WMCF ranked first. This ranking was highly stable for 10000 iterations changing the weights up to 50%. The outcomes of the research might be of help to EFL learners, EFL teachers of bilingual learners, syllabus designers, and materials developers, while opening doors to further pertinent studies.
Materials Development & Textbook Analysis
Seyyedeh Fahimeh Parsaiyan; Kazhal Garshasbi
Abstract
AbstractAlthough global English Language Teaching (ELT) coursebooks have been subject to numerous (critical) analyses, the changes occurring to their contents over different editions have received scarce attention. In this study, the researchers examined the transformations over different editions of ...
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AbstractAlthough global English Language Teaching (ELT) coursebooks have been subject to numerous (critical) analyses, the changes occurring to their contents over different editions have received scarce attention. In this study, the researchers examined the transformations over different editions of Interchange series (level 2) regarding some selected aspects of their textual contents. Seeking experienced English teachers’ views of the global coursebooks’ transformations over the past decade was another aim of the study. The analysis and comparison of the included topics and titles, characters, sites and contexts in Interchange series as well as interviews with 12 English teachers revealed that the content-based changes of different editions of this coursebook are superficial and cosmetic-like and despite the claims for globality, fallacies such as real-life-ness, representation and globality are still evident. We hope the findings of the study would aid curriculum and policy makers, institute managers, and language teachers to reconsider the functioning and value of current global ELT coursebooks.
Teacher Education
Seyed Reza Beh-Afarin; Mohammad Shakerkhoshroudi; Jahanbakhsh Nikoopour
Abstract
Classroom management constraints and how English teachers cope with or remove them effectively have significantly impacted both EFL teachers and teacher educators. However, the coping strategies employed by teachers with high and low levels of expertise have not been thoroughly explored yet. To this ...
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Classroom management constraints and how English teachers cope with or remove them effectively have significantly impacted both EFL teachers and teacher educators. However, the coping strategies employed by teachers with high and low levels of expertise have not been thoroughly explored yet. To this end, first 22 teachers in one language institute in Tehran were interviewed and their main coping strategies were extracted through qualitative analysis of the interviews. Then, the extracted strategies were worded into items carefully. The questionnaire of EFL teachers’ coping strategies was validated for the purpose of the study. The findings revealed that the participants used twenty-three coping strategies under two sub-constructs: problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies, based on exploratory factor analysis. One hundred EFL teachers with high and low levels of expertise (fifty in the high and fifty in the low group) responded to the items in the coping strategy questionnaire. The results revealed that highly expert teachers used the extracted coping strategies more frequently. Furthermore, the researchers confirmed that teachers need in-service training courses on coping strategies to manage their classes effectively. The results have some implications for stakeholders, namely English language teachers, teacher educators, language institutes, education departments, and EFL curriculum developers.
Teacher Education
Zia Tajeddin; Mozhgan Soleimani
Abstract
Decision-making and pedagogical reasoning constitute the foundation of teacher professional practice. This qualitative study was conducted to explore novice Iranian EFL teachers’ professional decision-making and pedagogical reasoning in the three domains of (1) planning and preparation, (2) classroom ...
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Decision-making and pedagogical reasoning constitute the foundation of teacher professional practice. This qualitative study was conducted to explore novice Iranian EFL teachers’ professional decision-making and pedagogical reasoning in the three domains of (1) planning and preparation, (2) classroom management, and (3) professional responsibilities during the three phases of pre-active, interactive, and post-active teaching. Data from two sources including scenarios and audio journals revealed five novice teachers’ decisions in each domain and their relevant reasoning. Decisions in the first domain were discovered to embody teachers’ choices about materials, teaching methods, and assessment. In the second domain, teachers’ decisions were focused on management, flexibility, and accountability. In the third domain, their decisions were aimed at professional interaction and professional development. Moreover, a new decision domain, ‘dispositions’, was discovered, which comprised novice teachers’ choice of ethical conduct, care, and accountability. This led to the introduction of a new phase of teaching, beyond-active, which greatly influenced all other decision domains and teaching phases. Additionally, novice teachers’ pedagogical reasoning was uncovered to stem from their knowledge, skills, and personality attributes. These findings suggest that knowledge about teachers’ decisions and underlying reasoning provides insights into the scope of their professional knowledge and practice.
Teacher Education
Yahya Gordani; Arash Saharkhiz Arabani; Masoumeh Arjmandi; Davood Taghipour Bazargani
Abstract
Teachers’ quality of work life (QWL) is an umbrella concept that refers to the degree of satisfaction a teacher experiences with respect to his or her job and the overall work situations which are influenced by three factors of organizational support including participation in decision making, ...
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Teachers’ quality of work life (QWL) is an umbrella concept that refers to the degree of satisfaction a teacher experiences with respect to his or her job and the overall work situations which are influenced by three factors of organizational support including participation in decision making, fairness of rewards, and growth opportunity. The present study examined the relationship between perceived organizational support (POS) and QWL among secondary school teachers of English as a foreign language. To this end, employing a descriptive correlational method, the researchers selected a number of 173 male and female teachers who were selected via probability multistage cluster sampling from among a population which consisted of EFL teachers at secondary schools in Tehran (N=1826), Iran. Data collection instruments included an attitude survey based on Allen, Armstrong, Reid, and Riemenschneider (2008) model of POS as well as Walton’s (1973) QWL questionnaire. Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression were used to analyze the data. The relationship between POS and QWL was found to be .71. In other words, the three dimensions of POS could affect the QWL by 71 percent. More specifically, the three dimensions of participation in decision making with 21.4, fairness of rewards with 24.7, and growth opportunity with 64.1 percent could be used to predict the QWL. These findings are important in that they demonstrate that POS is significantly related to the QWL of EFL teachers which can in turn significantly affect the performance of these teachers at schools.
Applied Linguistics
Leila Ghasemi; Ehsan Rezvani; Ehsan Namaziandost
Abstract
Regardless of the appreciation of language learners’ achievement in task-based language teaching, not much has been hinged upon learners’ perception and reception of various elements. This study examined task complexity and modality effects on Iranian EFL learners’ comprehension of ...
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Regardless of the appreciation of language learners’ achievement in task-based language teaching, not much has been hinged upon learners’ perception and reception of various elements. This study examined task complexity and modality effects on Iranian EFL learners’ comprehension of task difficulty, competencies, and difficulty-skill balance as well as the learners’ task experience. The Flow Outlook features were also applied to investigate how difficulty-skill balance anticipated flow experience. Via a repeated-measures design, and with a focus on task complexity (simple vs. complex) and task modality (written vs. spoken), 49 EFL learners carried out four argumentative tasks (two simple written and spoken vs. two complex written and spoken tasks); then, they ticked the flow questionnaire to gauge their perception of task difficulty, competence, and task experience. Repeated-measures MANOVA revealed although task complexity influenced task difficulty and difficulty-skill balance significantly, the skill was not affected significantly; task modality influenced task difficulty and skill significantly while difficulty-skill balance received no significant effect. The follow-up post hoc test indicated that complexity and modality significantly influenced flow, attention, and control, but not interest. Linear regression revealed difficulty-skill balance was a predictor for learners’ flow experience for both writing tasks and simple speaking task but not for complex speaking tasks. Pedagogically, the findings of this research may have some implications for English language teachers, learners, and materials developers.
Discourse Analysis
Seyed Foad Ebrahimi; Samaneh Imandar
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the grammatical complexity based on Biber, Gray, Staples, and Egbert’s (2020) linguistic description in research articles published in Iranian local journals and international journals. The corpus of the study included 40 Applied Linguistics research articles, 20 ...
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This study aimed to investigate the grammatical complexity based on Biber, Gray, Staples, and Egbert’s (2020) linguistic description in research articles published in Iranian local journals and international journals. The corpus of the study included 40 Applied Linguistics research articles, 20 published in Iranian local journals and 20 in international journals in 2019-2020. The research articles were selected through purposive sampling from two Iranian journals, namely Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics and Journal of Teaching Language Skills, and two international journals, including Journal of English for Specific Purposes and System Journal. The research articles were analyzed in terms of three dimensions of grammatical complexity, including the structural types, syntactic functions, and specific structural/syntactic features. Moreover, for intra-rater consistency, the researcher re-analyzed the corpus after one month to see whether the same results were found. According to the results, in terms of the first dimension, i.e., the structural types, the frequencies of structures indicating higher grammatical complexity (non-finite dependent clauses and dependent phrases) outnumbered the frequency of structures showing lower grammatical complexity (finite dependent clauses) in both local and international journals. Concerning the second dimension, i.e., syntactic function within the structural type, the frequencies of more complex syntactic functions were higher than those of simple functions in both sets of research articles. Concerning the third dimension, i.e., specific structural/syntactic features, both groups of writers preferred to use more complex specific structural/syntactic features than simple ones.
CALL & MALL
Afsaneh Saeedakhtar
Abstract
The present study scrutinized the role of data-driven learning in recognizing and producing collocations by high- and low-intermediate learners of English. Moreover, the influence of secondary effect (or transfer of training) on learning secondary collocations (collocations not provided in concordancing ...
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The present study scrutinized the role of data-driven learning in recognizing and producing collocations by high- and low-intermediate learners of English. Moreover, the influence of secondary effect (or transfer of training) on learning secondary collocations (collocations not provided in concordancing but embedded implicitly in tasks) was examined. The learners’ attitudes towards the effect of concordancing on learning collocations and their attitude change over time were also elicited through a questionnaire. A total of 40 Iranian learners were randomly divided into an experimental and a control group. Each group was further subdivided into high- and low-intermediate learners. The experimental group received a 10-session treatment in which they had access to concordancing to perform the paraphrasing tasks. The control group was taught the same collocations in a traditional explicit way. Results revealed that the high-intermediate learners benefitted from concordancing in both primary and secondary learning of collocations more than the low-intermediate learners. Both high- and low-intermediate groups appreciated the positive role of concordancing in learning collocations and stated that their attitudes towards concordancing changed positively over time.