درخت حوزه‌های تخصصی

This study attempted to systematically inspect the impact of direct and indirect corrective feedbacks on the writing ability of EFL learners when using product/process based instructions. To do so, 110 female EFL learners, between the ages of 15 and 18, were randomly assigned into four experimental groups to receive four different kinds of treatments, namely product-based instruction with direct feedback, product-based instruction with indirect feedback, process-based instruction with direct feedback, and process-based instruction with indirect feedback. The treatment took 10 sessions. Analyzing the results of the two writing tests (pretest and posttest) showed that direct feedback had significant effects on EFL learners' writing in process-based instruction and product-based instruction but indirect feedback failed to show any significant effect on EFL learners' writing in both process-based instruction and product-based instruction. The results also indicated that direct feedback had significantly better impact on EFL learners writing in the process-based instruction than product-based one. 

Teachers usually teach according to how brains naturally learn. In this way, not only do their learners learn, retain, and recall quickly, but also the teaching becomes more joyful. Increased attention to the worthwhile role of the mind in learning/teaching in recent times Due to the lack of a valid scale for estimating teachers' awareness of brain-friendly teaching, the current study intended to construct and validate a 54-item brain-friendly teaching inventory by the implementation of the Rasch model. The test was administered to 200 Iranian EFL teachers from different educational contexts. The results revealed that all the 54 items of the scale had a good fit to the Rasch model. Infit and outfit values were within the acceptable range which indicates unidimensionality of the scale. Furthermore, it is asserted that the inventory enjoyed suitable reliability. This demonstrates that the Brain-Friendly Teaching Inventory is valid and can be applied as a scale for assessing the teachers' awareness of brain-friendly teaching.

The present study was carried out to investigate the comparative effect of antonym in-text glosses and description in-text glosses on a group of Iranian EFL learners' reading comprehension. To fulfill the purpose of this study, 60 female intermediate students between 18 and 19 years old were selected among a total number of 90 through their performance on a piloted PET. These 60 participants were non-randomly divided into two equally populated experimental groups. During the process of this study, in one of the experimental groups the participants were given reading texts with antonym in-text glosses and in the other group, the participants were given reading texts with description in-text glosses. A piloted reading comprehension posttest (derived from another sample of PET) was administered at the end of the treatment to both groups and their mean scores on the test were compared through an independent samples <em>t-test</em>. The result led to the rejection of the null hypothesis, thereby, demonstrating that the learners in the description in-text glosses group benefited significantly more than those in the antonym in-text glosses group in terms of improving their reading comprehension.  

The present study was aimed at exploring the use of pronominal reference for identity representation in terms of power and solidarity in English political discourse. The investigation was based on a corpus of four political interviews and debates amounting 26,500 words. The analysis was both qualitative and quantitative. In the qualitative analysis, a discourse-analytic approach was used to find out the pronouns, their references and their identity load, and in the quantitative analysis, the distribution of different representations of identity were calculated. A nonparametric test, that is, Chi-Square was run in SPSS as the statistical operation needed for the current study. The analysis showed that most of the personal pronouns represented identity in the form of solidarity. The results also showed that political figures use <em>I</em>-pronoun and its variants to represent their identity in terms of power. The representation of identity in terms of power was also found to be correlated with the use of certain terms such as <em>veto</em> and active voice constructions. Furthermore, the results showed that when making claims, instead of giving pronominal reference to self, political figures use first-person plurals. In order to show solidarity, the speakers may also make use of discoursal proximity. Considering the important role that discourses play in constructing reality, it is important for CDA researchers to reveal sources of power, inequality and prejudice in discourses and interpret their hidden meanings. Pronominal choice and academic voice as linguistic constructions that are ideologically loaded need to be brought into the spotlight.

This study aimed at exploring the influence of the role that a teacher employs on his/her professional success. The teacher role was investigated from a new outlook, Goffman's footing theory. According to Goffman (1981), a speaker's role can be classified into three categories of animator, author, and principal, characterized as the repeater of the ideas made by the others, the paraphraser of concepts, and the creator of original ideas, respectively. Applying this theory in the educational context, the researchers selected 36 university professors of TEFL in the MA level and asked their students (N=118) to identify their professors' dominant role as animator, author, or principal, both generally and individually, via a metaphor checklist and their professional success via the Characteristic of Successful Iranian EFL Teacher Questionnaire. The results of Chi-square analysis indicated that the professors dominantly take on the author and animator roles respectively. One-way Anova results also demonstrated that the professors taking on the principal role enjoy higher professional success than those adopting the animator and author roles. The results offer implications and suggestions for pedagogical consideration within the Iranian university context.

Motivation in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses is an issue of utmost importance. Expanding specialized vocabulary is one of the objectives defined by ESP stakeholders. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the role of vocabulary enrichment through close integration of reading and writing tasks in promoting advanced English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) learners’ motivation and attitudes. To this end, fifteen civil engineers were selected through convenience sampling. Following an eight-session course centered around technical vocabulary using reading and writing tasks, questionnaires were used as pretest and posttest based on Attitudinal/Motivation Test Battery (ATMTB), to measure nine types of motivation. Nine paired samples t-tests were conducted to determine whether there was a mean difference in the questionnaire results across time from pretest to posttest. The results demonstrated significant increase in all types of motivation following the integration of reading and writing tasks, excluding intrinsic motivation considering self-confidence. It was shown that there is a close relation between ESP learners’ motivation and the amount of vocabulary they learn. The results proposed certain practical strategies in order for ESP/EOP material developers and teachers to fulfill the objectives and aims of these needs-based courses.

Development of science and academic knowledge has led to changes in academic language and transfer of information and knowledge. In this regard, the present study is an attempt to investigate lexico-grammaticality in academic abstracts and their full research papers in Linguistics, Chemistry and Electrical engineering papers published during 1991-2015 in academic journals from a diachronic perspective through quantitative research design. The focus of this paper is on transitivity, mood and theme analysis in the corpus according to Halliday's (1994) systemic functional linguistics model. So, all the attempts are to find the changes in abstracts and research papers of these disciplines and how they are to be positioned in different linguistic contexts over time. The results revealed that research papers employ the spectrum of possible lexical realization quite differently as compared to general English, especially concerning the use of specific lexical items. Also, the results of chi-squares of each discipline showed that there are significant differences between papers over time at .05 level of significance (.000< .05) with regard to the transitivity, mood, and theme. 

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among Iranian EFL university lecturers’ professional and institutional identity, and their teaching efficacy. To this end, 100 EFL university lecturers from different branches of Islamic Azad Universities, including Kermanshah, Isfahan and Hamedan, took part in the study by completing the Professional Identity Questionnaire, the Institutional Identity Questionnaire, and the Teachers’ Efficacy Scale. The sampling strategy for selection of the participants of this study was convenience sampling. To answer the research questions, Pearson product-moment correlation and Multiple-regression analyses were run. The results showed that there exists a statistically significant positive relationship between EFL university lecturers' a) professional identity and teaching efficacy, and b) institutional identity and teaching efficacy. 

In recent years, the personal characteristics and attitudes of teachers have attracted the attention of various scholars. The teacher’s immunity level is one of the newly proposed concepts in this area. The present study aimed at exploring the difference between the immunity level of the Iranian EFL teachers at language centers and public schools. In order to achieve this objective, one hundred EFL teachers teaching in public schools (N = 50) and language centers (N = 50), in Isfahan, were selected through convenience sampling to participate in this study. Then, the Teachers’ Immunity Level questionnaire was administered to them, and they were interviewed as well.  The obtained results revealed that teachers working in public schools have higher levels of immunity compared to the ones working in language centers. This finding can have some implications for the decision-makers in the Iranian Ministry of Education to provide adequate amenities to improve teachers’ immunity in language centers.

Despite the fact that virtual learning seems to have considerable potential for enhancing language learners’ communicative abilities, it has received less attention for improving pragmatic competence of learners in EFL educational settings. The present study was an attempt to investigate the impact of virtual and real classroom instruction of speech acts on the pragmatic awareness and development of Iranian EFL learners. To do so, a quasi-experimental study was designed and, through a homogeneity test, 57 EFL female language learners at the intermediate level were chosen. The participants were randomly divided into the experimental groups of virtual and real classroom learning and went through the procedure of pretest, intervention, and posttest; the pertinent data were collected by means of a PET test, a speech-act pre-test and comparable post-tests of speech acts. Both measures of independent and paired-samples t-test were used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that instruction of speech acts through both virtual and real classroom techniques can be conducive to the promotion of pragmatic awareness among the EFL learners in the Iranian context; meanwhile, real classroom instruction of speech acts proved to be more fruitful and more significantly elevated the pragmatic awareness of Iranian EFL learners. We conclude the study drawing on the implications of our findings for ELT and EFL policy makers, language educators and teachers, material developers, and learners.

A correlational survey research design was utilized to investigate self-regulated Learning (SRL) and teacher-student interaction factors that had been realized to have contributive roles in EFL learners' academic success. A sample of 218 EFL learners (male = 102 and female = 116) was drawn with the aid of a prior sample size calculator for the structural equation models from 645 students. They were within the age range of 18-45 and were enrolled at Islamic Azad University, Tabriz Branch. The structural equation model (SEM) hypothesis testing procedure revealed that the teacher-student interaction directly and significantly influenced learners' academic accomplishments. Likewise, the obtained results indicate that the impact of the teacher-student interaction on EFL learners' academic achievement is mediated by the effects of SRL. Correspondingly, the obtained results indicate that the theorized model fits the data. The causal contribution of psychological factors, consisting of the teacher-student interaction and SRL, to EFL learners’ academic achievement was validated. The findings of this exploratory research have certain implications for classroom practice which are elaborated in detail in this paper.