FOREIGN LANGUAGE RESEARCH JOURNAL (PAZHUHESH-E ZABANHA-YE KHAREJI)
Year:2019 | Volume:9 | Issue:3 |Papers Count:14

This study aimed to evaluate the English textbook “ Prospect 2” , which is taught to the eighth-grade junior high school students in Iran in recent years, from teachers’ perspectives and needs analysis of students. To this end, 30 teachers and 60 eighth-grade students from the girls’ and boys’ high schools in Tabriz, Iran were randomly selected. A textbook evaluation checklist and a needs analysis questionnaire were distributed among the participated teachers and students, respectively. The results indicated that most parts of the content of the book matches with most of the students’ needs and can be used as a suitable textbook for the students. The teachers had also a positive view toward this textbook in general but they reported some problems. For example, they believed that there is not a balance of the four language skills, the language is not authentic, grammatical points are completely excluded, and the activities are not interesting and cannot be modified or supplemented by the teachers. Suggestions and pedagogical implications are presented.

Over the past few years, sophisticated types of digital technology, the literacy of which may help language teachers deliver instruction to language learners more effectively, have made consistent inroads into applied linguistics. The overriding goal of the present study, therefore, was to examine not only digital literacy of Iranian EFL teachers but also the effects of gender, teaching experience, and academic degree on their digital literacy. To that end, 239 language teachers in different cities across three academic degrees in Iran completed an adapted version of Ng’ s (2012) digital literacy model. SPSS (version 21) was used to analyse the data. The results revealed (1) language teachers’ moderate levels of digital literacy, (2) no statistically significant difference between gender and teaching experience in language teachers’ digital literacy, and (3) a statistically significant difference between language teachers’ academic degree and digital literacy. The implications of the findings for teacher development and education are discussed.

This study aimed to investigate the effects of neuroticism, as one of the big five personality factors, on oral performance and its components comprising cohesion and fluency, pronunciation, grammaticality, and lexical resources. To this end, 257 Iranian EFL students took an oral proficiency interview (OPI) and responded to a personality questionnaire including 50 items (Goldberg, 1992). The participants' oral performance was rated by two trained raters. The structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis, revealing the standardized non-direct effects of neuroticism on the components of speaking, showed that neuroticism had moderate and negative indirect effects on cohesion and fluency (Beta =-. 351), lexical resources (Beta =-. 365), grammaticality (Beta =-. 354), and pronunciation (Beta =-. 350). The results of the study are discussed and the pedagogical implications are provided for the EFL context.

There has been a constant debate in the field of translation between theoreticians and professionals on whether formal education or self-experience is required to translate professionally, especially because university despite a rather comprehensive curriculum has failed to satisfy the needs of translators on the market. The aim of this study was to investigate the possible differences between the academic and the self-taught translators’ performance of English complex sentences and recognize the applied techniques through contrasting, comparing, and scoring a series of challenging complex sentences derived from six translated English novels whose translators were three academics and three self-taught, using Waddington Method C. The results, especially those gained from Mann-Whitney U Test, testified almost no differences unlike the general belief concerning the best job of the selftaught. Besides, no specific techniques were found. However, the secondary findings made the research prominent including the obvious impact of editorial skills on the quality of translation as the most significant one, which is noticeable for designing more practical teaching programs and curriculum.

The present study explored the effect of computer language learning games on learning grammar by Iranian English learners in a microgenetic development setting. Forty male elementary English learners aged between 8 and 12, participated in the study. Based on the placement test scores, the homogenized participants were placed in one experimental and one control group. The experimental group received the treatment using computer language learning games to teach English grammar-simple present, present continuous, simple past, and past continuous-while the control group received traditional methods. The research data were obtained from a 40-item multiple choice tests in six times-as a pre-test, four post-tests, and a delayed post-test. The results of t-test revealed better performance of experimental group learners in post-tests than the pre-test. However, a statistically significant difference was found. The findings are valuable for teachers and learners, methodologists and syllabus designers, linguists and CALL experts.

The current study was an attempt to explore whether dynamic assessment had any significant impact on learning non-congruent and congruent collocations by Iranian EFL learners. To this end, 60 out of 120 Iranian EFL learners were selected based on their scores in an Oxford Placement Test, and divided into experimental (N=30) and control (N=30) groups. During ten sessions of treatment, eight of the collocations incorporated in the initial test including four congruent and four noncongruent collocations in each session were presented to the learners, thus 80 collocations were covered. The experimental group was exposed to the pre-testmediation-posttest design (sandwich model of dynamic assessment) while the control group was instructed through conventional ways of teaching collocations. The findings of paired samples t-test revealed that the dynamic assessment instruction had a significant effect on learning congruent and specifically noncongruent collocations by Iranian EFL learners. However, there was no difference between the participants with and without prior learning experience in foreign language community. If the purpose is to have an active learning environment, attention needs to be devoted to the integration of a dynamic approach in the classroom, providing learners, with and without prior learning experience, with appropriate and leveled-feedback within the evaluation and teaching process.

Recently, the implementation of online instruction has gained increasing popularity among English as a foreign language (EFL) students and teachers. However, very limited research has been directed towards online EFL teachers’ preparedness for and knowledge of online instruction. The present study aimed to explore Iranian online EFL teachers’ perceptions on their level of online language instruction skills. The participants included 108 online EFL teachers who worked at numerous language teaching institutions in Iran. Compton’ s (2009) conceptual framework for required skills for online teaching was considered as the theoretical basis of this study. The findings of the survey study indicated that the majority of Iranian online EFL teachers have limited technological, pedagogical, and evaluation skills and knowledge in order to implement online instruction in the Iranian EFL context. The study proposes several recommendations and suggestions on how to equip teachers with the necessary skills required for online instruction in the EFL context of Iran.

Research in language testing should ideally move in tandem with movements in philosophical paradigms of science. Some scholars maintain that research in language testing has been slow to catch up with paradigmatic changes in ontology and epistemology of knowledge. The current study addresses the philosophical underpinnings of research in language testing in Iran. To this aim, all language testing papers published online in Iranian domestic journals were gathered and studied. Paper titles, the abstracts, methods, and the theoretical frameworks of the studies were content analyzed. Their approach to the definition of validity and validation were also investigated. Results indicated that positivist and realist ontological assumptions underlie two thirds of the papers. Moreover, one third of papers were conducted within the constructivist philosophy and the pragmatic philosophy seems to be to a large extent absent in language testing research in Iran (only two papers). The implications for the pedagogy of language testing and assessment are further discussed.

The main ambition behind the present study was to test the applicability of Computerized Dynamic Listening Test (CDLT) in diagnosing and enhancing L2 learners' Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) in listening comprehension tasks through multimodal mediations (audio, text and picture). Following a graduated prompt approach and an implicit-to-explicit scale, a hierarchical array of mediations (aural, textual and visual) was presented to the participants. The results of t-test indicated that multimodal mediations resulted in significant changes in the listening ability of the learners. The analysis of CDLT scores revealed that learners with the same actual score gained different mediated and Learning Potential Scores (LPS), denoting that learners with the same independent abilities might require different types of mediations for their subsequent instruction. Moreover, the CDLT showcased the learners’ processing time as a precise measure of the learners’ underlying listening abilities and differential functioning. Finally, the study suggests the use of CDLT as a valid procedure for instructional, learning and large-scale assessment purposes.

This study aimed to explore the effectiveness of three pre-task activities (podcast, video short programs and topic preparation) on the performance of EFL learners' listening comprehension task types. Sixty three participants were assigned to three groups. Pre-listening tasks were given to each group. The first group listened to podcasts, the second group watched video programs and finally the last group talked about the topic of the listening. Then, they were exposed to jigsaw and gap filling tasks. Multiple Regression was performed to find which activity can predict EFL learners’ listening comprehension. Only podcast could predict the learners’ performance. Also ANOVA was run to find if there was any significant difference between the activities on the performance of EFL learners listening comprehension in gap filing and jigsaw tasks. The results indicated that there were significant differences between the groups. The results of this study indicated the important role of podcast and video program in L2 listening comprehension and in motivating students. The results have implications for teachers and material developers.

This article is about the functional-semantic fields theory and application of the same comparative and contrastive researches by using the functional grammar of language. This approach is based on idea and concepts of Russian linguists including some practical instances of their researches. The functional-semantic fields, based on definition, are the grammatical and lexical units or combination of them which based on a specified semantic category considered as a group and they have a relation by the common meaning application. The functional-semantic fields have different types. In this paper, in particular, functional-semantic field is investigated based on the semantic category of "possibility". The main goal of this study is to show how this theory can be applied to analyze a semantic category by the grammatical and lexical tools and the importance of this theory regarding to study of language internally and interactionally to find a suitable way to optomize or change of learning foreign language styles to language learners.

This study attempted to investigate the teachers’ perceived strokes from English language learners regarding teachers' genders using a mixed methods study. To fulfill this, 28 English language teachers were chosen to participate in the qualitative phase. After conducting semi-structured interviews with them, the types of perceived strokes were investigated with regard to the teachers' genders. Then, a questionnaire was developed. After confirming its validity and reliability, it was administered to 181 teachers, and the differences between males and females were analyzed. The findings of the qualitative phase indicated that receiving positive nonverbal strokes, negative non-conditional verbal strokes, and negative conditional verbal strokes, among all types of strokes, are more considerable for the female teachers in comparison to the male teachers. The results of the quantitative analysis also revealed that there is a statistically significant difference between female and male English language teachers’ stroke quotient in terms of the sensation that results from receiving a variety of positive non-verbal strokes, lack of stroke and verbal conditional negative strokes from English learners.

Along with recent developments in corpus linguistics, there has been an increasing awareness of the importance of formulaic sequences in acquiring language skills. This study set out to investigate the impact of explicit instruction of lexical bundles on the Iranian learners’ grammatical accuracy and vocabulary usage in English writing. To that end, 4 intact classes (2 classes in experimental group and 2 classes in control group) in a language institute in Tehran were chosen. All the classes underwent the regular language instruction stipulated by the language institute, but two classes, as the experimental group, received explicit instruction of lexical bundles as well. One writing test was administered to both groups before (pre-test) and after (post-test) the treatment (explicit instruction of formulaic sequences). Two blind raters scored the overall quality of the participants’ writing performance. The results showed that the participants in the experimental group outperformed those in the control group. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.

In this essay “ Modire Madrase” has been analyzed according to Critical Stylistics method in the view of Lesley Jeffries. Critical Stylistics participles in her view consist of: Naming and Describing (which only the Describing applies in this novel), Representing Actions/ Events/ States (which frequency of Representing States is more than Representing Actions/Events), Equating and Contrasting (that there is Equating merely in vocabulary realm, but Contrasting in vocabulary, actions and characters), Exemplifying and Enumerating (that apply to specify subjects), Prioritizing (which transmits in every page), Assuming and Implying (that express dolorous facts), Negating (that in high frequency causes wonder and regret), Hypothesizing (which often leads to positivity), Presenting the Speech and Thoughts of other Participants (that apply in three ways: direct quotation, thought expression and speech report) and Representing Time, Space and Society (which is accurate). To find out the latent ideology, ten participles apply in stylistics study of the novel.