JOURNAL OF PERSIAN LANGUAGE TEACHING TO NON-PERSIAN SPEAKERS
Year:2014 | Volume:3 | Issue:2 (7)|Papers Count:7

In this number, we want to address the issue of expanding the teaching Persian language centers in Iran. As you know, Persian language is one of the important languages worldwide that a lot of valuable historical, religious, scientific and literary works were written in Persian language in the past. Therefore, a lot of non-Iranians wish to learn Persian language and benefit from this treasure of instructions, literature, and art and some hope to enter to Iranian universities to study in a major of the scientific fields of study. Considering this enthusiasm of non-Iranians to study in Iran, establishing new Persian language centers is necessary.Providing the physical structures of a language center in a university may not seem very difficult, but for establishing and developing such a center, to go ahead with scientific (such as applying the achievements of language didactics) and administrational steps are necessary. However, the most important issue is that which academic department is the responsible for teaching Persian language. To make it clear, we refer to one successful experience. In Imam Khomeini International university, for establishing the Persian language center, initially (in 1370) department of teaching Persian language was established. Then, Persian language learners were accepted. Until 1393, more than 7000 students from 127 countries learned Persian language successfully and were sent to Iranian universities. This successful experience was the result of an independent educational department for Persian language in which the professors‟ duty was teaching Persian language as a second language.But there is a need for expanding and issuing the license of establishing Persian language centers in universities after 20 years. Few universities received the license for establishing such centers. However, some challenges have been made among educational departments for taking the responsibility of conducting such courses which obviously have not been in favor of non-Iranian learners of Persian language. We believe that we should encourage establishing such language centers, but before that, providing the preliminaries is a must: employing at least one assistant professor, or two lecturers that hold M.A. degree in teaching Persian language to non-Persian speakers. In this way, members of an educational group can independently use all their knowledge to improve educational situation and conduct scientific and systematic classes.We hope that in order to reach to an appropriate level in Persian language centers, the bureau of Affairs of Non-Iranian Students in Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology analyze the present condition of teaching Persian language centers in universities, and for continuing their activities and also, for establishing new centers, having an independent educational group be one pre-condition for issuing the license of establishing Persian language centers and conducting Persian language teaching courses.

Teaching and Learning a second language, especially in postgraduate courses requires teachers to use appropriate teaching approaches and strategies since they can facilitate language learning considerably. The present research aims to study the relationship between instructional scaffolding and language learning among a selected group of Persian learners in Persian Language Centre in Qazvin, Iran. The research was conducted in a correlational framework and population included all Persian learners in Persian Language Centre of International Imam Khomeini University in Qazvin in 2013-14., among whom 126 applicants were selected by ratio sampling method. The data were gathered through instructional scaffolding questionnaire and analyzed using Pearson's Correlation Coefficient and Stepwise Regression. Findings showed that there existed a significant positive relationship between instructional scaffolding and its types (cognitive, contextual, procedural, metacognitive and motivational) with Persian learning. In addition, stepwise regression analyses revealed that the cognitive, texture, procedural, metacognitive and motivational scaffolding could significantly and positively predict learning of Persian in applicants. The results indicated that instructional scaffolding and its types would play a crucial role in enhancing Persian learning in non-Persian speakers.

The present paper aims to examine the role of frequency lexicon in assessing lexical proficiency of Persian learners. Addressing the frequency distribution pattern of Persian words, the research which is conducted in corpus-based method studies the relationship between words and lexical proficiency as well as derives the frequency lexicon from Persian corpus. To do so, formal and colloquial Persian sub-corpora were selected. To assess lexical proficiency, statistical distribution of the words was computed according to the three-level law of Zipf-Mandelbrodt as a reliable criterion. To measure lexical richness, the lexical frequency profile (Laufer and Nation, 1995) was employed as it pays special attention to the extent the high frequent lexicon are applied. It is to be noted that most frequent lexemes of both corpora were extracted after doing lemmatization. Four Chi-square tests on 861 common words in four parts of speech showed that formal and colloquial corpora belonged to two different statistical populations in terms of lexical diversity. Findings, in addition, revealed that formal and colloquial lexical frequency levels of Persian language learners could be effectively used as a tool to assess their lexical proficiency.

Listening skill and speaking skill, according language didactics, have close interaction in lingual communications. Therefore, measuring listening comprehension without considering other language skills seems to be difficult. The present study is an effort to compare the effectiveness of oral and written multiple-choice listening tests for Persian language Learners. In fact, this study answers this question that whether a Persian listening test with spoken choices would be efficient in measuring learners‟ listening proficiency or a test with written choices has a better effectiveness. To do so, a researcher-made oral and written multiple-choice listening test was designed (each of which with 10 items). The research was conducted in a survey and the population included all learners in Persian Language Center in Imam Khomeini International University, among whom a total number of 36 applicants were randomly selected. Their ages ranged 18 to 25 years old and they were studying at advanced level. The results, analyzed through SPSS, showed applicants considered written format of listening test as more appropriate although they had better performance in oral format of this skill.

The present research examines the academic Listening Comprehension Strategies (LCS) among a total number of 59 intermediate and upper-intermediate Persian learners who were taking pre-university courses in 2011 in Persian Language Centre in Imam Khomeini International University, Qazvin. The study examined nature of LCS, the variety of applying LCS, and finally predictability of strategies as an index for listening skill. Results of three-part survey showed that Persian learners in the advanced level had better performance in listening compared to their peers. Moreover, it was revealed that learners with more proficiency demonstrated more mastery in all four types of strategies; however, they had less proficiency in metacognitive strategy. Furthermore, more skillful learners were reported weaker in applying taking notes, summarizing lectures, and understanding the main ideas. Findings, also, showed that cognitive, socio-affective, metacognitive, and memory strategies were reported of more predictability, respectively. It could be concluded that Persian teachers would require employing appropriate strategies in enhancing learners‟ listening skill.

Considering Teaching Persian by Safar Moghaddam (2012), the present research aimed to design an intelligent tutoring system based on two natural language processing engines in order to teach Persian to English speakers. The system basically works by comparing logical forms derived from both languages and reports anomalies in the system. To do so, 60 applicants were randomly selected through pedagogical websites and divided into control and experimental groups, each of which included 30 applicants. Learners in control group were exposed to Persian grammar via teachers in an online class while learners in experimental group were exposed to English translations through software and they were asked to translate the sentences as well as verify their accuracy. In addition, learners in control group presented their translations to online tutors and received corrective feedback. Data analyses revealed a significant difference between learners in both groups, i.e., experimental group outperformed control group. In addition, learners‟ attitudes gathered through questionnaire and interview toward the system were reported positive. Finally, learners‟ interaction with the system and their common mistakes were reported.

The growing attention to formulaic sequences during the last decade indicates that the functional features of such sequences play a crucial role in writing. Formulaic sequences are prefabricated linguistic components which are stored and retrieved as a whole. The present study aims to examine the functional features of such sequences in Persian writings. To do so, 10 writing samples of Persian native speakers were qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. The corpus included 100 sample writings which were scored with regard to using the formulaic sequences from different functional categories as well as writing skill level. In the quantitative phase, frequency analysis, correlation analysis and Chi-square analysis were employed whereas in the qualitative phase, content analysis and retrospective interviews were used to explore the participants' presumptions, analyses, and judgments. The results showed that (1) high frequency of using formulaic sequences would not necessarily guarantee the quality of writing and (2) studying the functional features of formulaic sequences is suggested to be conducted with paying full attention to inter-lingual characteristics as well as the Persian speakers' knowledge of English. The findings of the research could be utilized in linguistic studies and Teaching Persian to Speakers of Other Languages (TPSOL).