JOURNAL OF PERSIAN LANGUAGE TEACHING TO NON-PERSIAN SPEAKERS
Year:2012 | Volume:1 | Issue:1|Papers Count:7

To improve the position of Persian as a scientific language, an organized program is required on the basis of the modern methodologies in teaching Persian to Speakers of Other Languages (TPSOL), which is more obvious in regard to the rapid development of technology where traditional class-based education is being evolved into the modern computer-based one, with a tendency to a combination of both. The present paper is aimed to represent the practical strategies in enhancing the TPSOL system by the usage of a combination of computer-based and class-based methods. The proposed curriculum, prepared with the purpose of Iranology, is designed for a course of 10 weeks and each with a 90-minute session plan. In examining the eclectic teaching in TPSOL, the paper assesses the validity of syllabi on the basis of questionnaires and analyzes it statistically, the results of which show a meaningful relationship within the contents of the syllabi.

This study examines the relationship between learners' gender and second language learning strategies among Persian language learners. Various researches indicate that using learning strategies have significant effects on learning language skills. Since very few researches have been done on Persian learners and Persian learning strategies, such a research seems to be of great importance and usefulness. So we translated Oxford (1990) Questionnaire into Persian and then during a pilot study (using 30 Persian learners) Questionnaire's reliability was examined. The result was an overall reliability of 0.80. However we revised the questionnaire and used the improved one in the main study. In this regard, 156 Persian learners (from 13 different countries) in Imam Khomeini International University answered the questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed using T-test and Spearman correlation coefficient. Finally, inferential statistics showed that women use learning strategies more than men. But these inferential statistics and statistical tests showed that there is no significant difference in overall use of Persian learning strategies between men and women. So men and women use learning strategies at the same rate. Results also indicate that Persian learners' priorities (male and female students) differ in the choice of learning strategies.

Needs analysis is an important step in curriculum development. Teachers, writers and researchers must be aware of students’ needs to be able to make good decisions in choosing their teaching methodology or preparing course books. By the term “need”, we mean the gap between the current state and the desirable state. In the case of Persian language, there is no corpus based on students’ need, therefore, teachers, experts and authors have no reference for the generalized ‘needs’ of the students and also for choosing suitable course books, other than their intuition for preparing the course syllabus, evaluating their students or the teaching methods. Based on factors such as the source of needs, philosophical view of decision makers, the goals of needs analysis and other criteria, various models haves been proposed.In this research, we deal with some of these models such as Richterich & Chancerel (1977), Munby (1978), Hutchinson & Waters (1987), Berwick (1989) Brindley (1989) and Long (2005). Also, we talk about what the needs and needs analysis mean, and through which methods and sources we can achieve the most comprehensive and appropriate corpus.

Different studies in writing skill of second language learners show that they are weak in this skill. They know some vocabularies and grammatical rules but are unable to write different kinds of texts. The study of contrastive rhetorics can help learners and teachers in this area. Moreover, discourse markers that indicate rhetoric styles and principles have an important role in writing skill. This article tries to study the type and frequency of markers in 80 descriptive compositions based on Hyland`s model (2004) in two groups of learners: Persian native speakers and Arab speakers who learn Persian. The result showed that the two groups use different types of markers in their writings. Persian learners respectively use transitions, attitude markers, code glosses, boosters and self-mentions more than Arabs.However, the more frequent reccurances in Arabs’ writings are transitions, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions and code glosses respectively. In addition, the results indicate that Persian learners use different variety markers which make their writings more cohesive and attractive.

Computer-Assisted Language Instruction (CALI) is one of the recent advances in teaching languages. CALI is considered as an effective teaching methodology. This research is a comparative study of the effect of two teaching methods; CALI and traditional, on Persian reading comprehension of female students in pre-university level of International School in Tehran in 1390. Statistical community includes 30 students who were selected by random sampling and divided into two groups. Research method in this study is experimental and the measurement tool used is a questionnaire. In data analysis from descriptive statistics methods (frequency, mean & standard deviation) as well as inferential statistics method, (t-test) were used. The results showed a significant difference between the experimental and the control group regarding their mean scores. Those learners who were learning through CALI were more successful. These learners mentioned the following as the factors leading to their success: more chance of collaboration with the teacher through internet which provided them with more feedback, online access to the teacher, and collaborative learning environment.

A Proficiency test is one of the language tests with the goal of assessing/evaluating the language learners' achievement. This test does not deal with language teaching and learning methods. In fact, in a proficiency test, we concentrate on determining the level of the testee’s ability in applying language at the time of administrating the test and for the test taker, it is not important that how the testee has achieved the language ability. Concerning this short definition of the proficiency test and with regard to the large number of non-Iranian students who are studying in Iranian universities, and also with regard to this point that there must be an appropriate and reliable criterion for the admission of non-Persian students in Iranian universities, this article is going to present the basics and preliminaries of development of Persian Language Proficiency Test (PLPT) in order to assess the Persian proficiency of those who come to Iran to continue their academic education. Furthermore, a sample of this test will be also presented. The test introduced in this paper is a kind of proficiency test that avoids concentrating on language knowledge/competences (grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation) and their direct assessment and instead, with testing the testees in the field of language skills, finds out the level of their proficiency at language knowledge/competences. The test assesses the proficiency level of language learners in applying the language, which is the same as language skills. This test which is called AMFA in Persian, tries to test four main language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing). The most important point in AMFA is that it avoids direct and explicit assessment of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Instead, it assumes that these components are required to succeed in those four main language skills. In other words, it believes that language learners’ proficiency in these components will be revealed indirectly at the time of assessing those four skills. The similar test to AMFA, in other languages, is IELTS which is the most prominent proficiency test worldwide.

Authentic text is considered to be an important requirement of communicative approach and communicative foreign language teaching textbooks.The present research investigates the authenticity of three PFL textbook by answering th e following question: “To what extent are the texts in PFL textbooks considered to be authentic? ” Accordingly the quantity and quality of cohesion discourse-marker distribution in three PFL textbooks (twelve texts) were analyzed and compared to some media texts (newspapers and articles posted on the websites). It was observed that the quality and quantity of the occurrence of cohesion markers are identical in two of the educational texts (written by Ziahosseini and Purnamdarian) and are very similar to media texts. However, the texts in the third book seem to be different in some degree. Therefore, from the viewpoint of cohesion, it can be said that these three PFL textbook are not authentically the same.