JOURNAL OF PERSIAN LANGUAGE TEACHING TO NON-PERSIAN SPEAKERS
Year:2013 | Volume:2 | Issue:2|Papers Count:7

In today’s rapid world of science the number of genres of studies, as well the vastness, depth and specializations of each of these majors, is growing at a fast pace. This naturally calls for the experts and scholars of each and every field of science to cater for the growing needs of a society at par with the developments in these fields. Persian language didactics is among such ever evolving fields of science that faces numerous inadequacies, despite the countless and impressive advances in the field of language didactics in developed countries. It is, therefore, essential that we make up for the shortcomings in this particular field by localizing the science of language didactics and benefiting from our numerous and capable experts of teaching Persian to non-native speakers and language didactics, rather than staying fascinated by the advances in the field of language didactics in developed countries and keeping an eye on their achievements.For instance, one such shortcoming in the teaching Persian language is the “didactic grammar”, which despite being worthy topic, yet remains to be addressed. Without entering into particular details, I should mention that with regard to grammar, there are various different perspectives. Generally, literature experts tend to give grammar a historical and literary aspect, mostly to comprehend such historic and literary texts. This approach, however, preaches grammar based on profound literary works, whereas aspects such as application and communication in today’s language are often neglected.Linguists review and analyze different aspects of language within frames of various theories as well as contexts such as phonology, morphology, syntax, pragmatics and semantic, in a precise and specialized manner. Specialized information of different nature which sometimes may contradict each other; and perhaps its understanding requires a university level course, may not be compatible to the aims in teaching the language at a very basic and preliminary level. Both approaches enjoy a special standing, but in the matter of teaching Persian, especially as a second or foreign language, the domain of grammar demands a completely different approach: A realistic and pragmatic approach that has an educating as well as didactic capacity. It is therefore, required that the experts bring about a shift in their views of teaching of grammar and new genre of grammar be compiled and introduced under the title of “didactic grammar” that may possess the following particulars:1. Realistic view is a non-perspective look at the modern day language where the educationist is aware of aspects in speaking, writing, and even different styles of the language.2. Pragmatic application requires the pure linguistics approach to be set aside whereas applications are taken into sharp account. So, the every word educationist selects has its roots in the function of language.3. Learning capacity refers to the extent by which the real and practical language training is based on learning theories. In other words, following the compilation of syllabus, stratification, prioritization, and layout must be based on the theories of learning a second/foreign language.4. Teachability capacity points out that after selecting required and useful points from grammar, appropriate methods and strategies of instruction may be implemented. Grammar is taught in link and as a part during the entire course of training and advances in major skills in a language. Evaluation of grammar does not exist on its own as it was the norm before; rather its application is now assessed through other language skills including oral and written composition and speech of the learner.It is my hope that applied research in the field of didactic grammar together with the innovative ideas and opinions from experts could carve the way for the novel field of Persian language didactics as well as the teachers of Persian language to non-native speakers.May we move swiftly toward progress and conquer the lofty peaks of science and knowledge.

This study compared the types of requesting strategies (RSs) employed by thirty three Persian Native Speakers (PNSs) students at Payame-Noor University (PNU) in Tehran, thirty seven Persian Lower-intermediate Learners (PLLs) and thirty seven Persian Upper-intermediate Learners (PULs) students at Persian center of Imam Khomeini International University (IKIU) in Qazvin in order to study to what extent requesting strategies used by Persian learners at different proficiency levels mapped those used by native speakers of Persian. The data gathered through a twelve-question Discourse Completion Test (DCT), six questions for asking address situation and six questions for borrowing situation, selection of request situations in DCT was based on two social factors of relative power and social distance and also degree of imposition in the mentioned situations. The acts were then analyzed according to model proposed by Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989). This model schematized requesting strategies in three categories: Direct (D), Conventionally Indirect (CI) and Non-Conventionally Indirect (NCI) request strategies. Results revealed that all the three groups preferred Conventionally Indirect (CI) requests more and PULs’ requesting strategies mapped those used by PNSs more than PLLs’ requesting strategies. It indicated the positive effect of language proficiency level and pragmatic competence on the produced requesting strategies. Also, the values assigned to the three variables were found to have significant effect on the requesting strategies.

Oral corrective feedback, according to many researchers’ points of view, plays a crucial role in facilitating and accelerating the process of the second language learning. The present study aims to identify Persian learners error types, the teachers feedback types and learners uptakes; also it is aimed at determining the most and least frequent errors occurred on the basis of Lyster and Ranta’s model (1997). To do so, participants including 5 Iranian teachers and 57 students from different nationalities in three different levels of elementary, intermediate, and advanced were selected through stratified sampling. About 3420 minutes of the classes were recorded, of which 1620 minutes were transcribed. Then, teachers’ feedback types, learners errors and their uptakes were identified. To analyze the data and illustrate the tables and flowcharts, software such as SPSS, Excel and Edraw Max were used. Findings showed some results were consistent with Lyster and Ranta’s (1997) study whereas some of them did not. The ‘recast‟ and ‘elicitation’ were reported the most frequent feedbacks and uptakes, respectively, which are consistent with their findings. However, results differ from those of Lyster and Ranta (1997) with regard to the least given feedback and the least uptakes.

The present study aims to examine the written Persian syntactic errors by Arabic speaking learners of as a foreign language in order to pave the way for designing an appropriate syllabus and selecting the optimal teaching method. This research which is conducted whithin error analysis approach tries to bring syntactic errors into sharper focus by examining them in three sources: intralingual, interlingual and ambiguous. Applicants, who learned Persian in three levels of elementary, intermediate and advanced, aged between 22 to 26 years old. They were randomly selected among the learners at Al-Mustafa International University in Qom, Iran. To do so, syntactic errors in 105 sample texts of learners were analyzed through field method and content analysis. The analyses identified 18 types of error in learners‟ writings. The results of error analysis showed the verb errors comprised the most frequent errors (42.25%), among which disagreement between verb and subject was reported the most frequency (14.12%). Then, the errors related to using preposition (18.16%) were the second most frequent type of errors. In short, intralingual (48.29%), interlingual (33.53%), and ambiguous (18.18%) were the most frequent types of Persian Syntactic Errors by Arabic-Speaking Learners.

The current study is to find the answer to these questions: (1) In complex texts, which one is more? Lexical complexity or grammatical complexity? (2) How is the interaction between vocabulary and grammar in producing the difficulty of the texts? (3) By using the results of this study, an educational model can be presented about the interaction between vocabulary and grammar in producing the complexity of the texts. For this purpose, 5 informative written texts which were extracted from 30 existent texts in the "Reading and Comprehension for advanced non-Persian Students" were selected (according to the rate of difficulty declared by Persian learners and instructors at Imam Khomeini international university). Then, the lingual complexity of those texts, in terms of vocabulary and grammar, was detected and extracted separately and statistically, based on the Haliday's Systemic Functional Grammar (1985 & 2004). After that, to determine the way of interaction between the two factors (vocabulary and grammar) in producing the complexity, the most complex text was rewritten; once by using lexical tools and again by grammatical tools, so that they were changed into two more complex texts. Also, the two rewritten texts were given to the testees and they were asked about the level of the difficulty original text and the rewritten one. The results of the study shows that in creation of the original and natural texts, both lexical and grammatical tools, in minor variance, are used; though, in average, the complexity of written text is mostly of lexical type, rather than grammatical, and this is in accordance with the claim of the author of the book that believes the selected texts for teaching reading are original. The findings also illustrate that lingual complexity originated from vocabulary, with regard to the grammatical complexity, acts in an opposite way in producing the complexity of the text. In other words, increasing the lexical complexity, leads to the increase of text complexity, and grammatical complexity makes the text easier to understand. Finally, a basic model for the interaction between vocabulary and grammar in producing the difficulty of reading comprehension the written texts by advanced non-Persian learners, was introduced.

Teaching words is nowadays considered as a language skill which is necessary to be brought into sharper focus. Also, vocabulary plays an important role in language which enhances learners‟ knowledge of language and considerably impacts all skills including speaking, listening, reading and writing. That is why teachers should adopt an appropriate method for teaching the words. To do so, different methods are introduced which among them pictorial method is one of the most popular ones. The paper study aims to examine the effectiveness of the pictorial method in teaching words to Persian learners of elementary level. The sample of research included 30 Korean speaking Persian learners who were studying in Persian language or Iranian studies language. They were randomly selected and divided into control and experimental groups. At first, a test was given to applicants to determine new words; then a pretest was conducted, based on the results of which it was revealed that both groups performed almost identically. Afterwards, experimental groups received the treatment in which passages were taught through pictures, whereas the control group received passages without any pictures. Having implemented the posttest, the scores of both groups were compared using statistical analysis. Results of t-test showed that experimental group outperformed the control group. It could be concluded that using pictures in teaching words would considerably improve the Persian knowledge of learners.

The present research aims to examine the effect of task-based syllabus and contrastive analysis of nominal and verbal phrases in Persian and Lari languages on enhancing Persian knowledge of Lari speakers. To do so, a sample of 60 subjects in second year of elementary school was selected through multistage and purposive sampling. Then, they were divided into two thirty-student groups, one experimental and the other control (each including 30 applicants). Having implemented a grammatical pretest based on differences in nominal and verbal systems in Lari and Persian for both groups, the subjects in the experimental group received teaching Persian grammar on the basis of contrastive analysis and task-based syllabus as treatment (eight tasks for eight sessions) whereas the subjects in the control group received their regular syllabus based on the one designed in the second year of elementary school. Afterwards, two groups were provided with a parallel posttest to check the effectiveness of the treatment. To analyze the data, ANNOVA and ANCOVA were used. Findings showed that the designed syllabus on the basis of differences in contrastive analysis of Lari and Persian was effective in enhancing the Persian grammatical knowledge of Lari speakers; in fact, the interaction between contrastive analysis and task-based approach led to increase in applicants’ awareness through information exchange, communication and task talk which finally enhanced Lari speakers’ knowledge of Persian grammar.