Iranian Journal of Applied Linguistics
Year:2005 | Volume:8 | Issue:1|Papers Count:5

The present study is an attempt to investigatethe relationship between teaching style and personality type of a sample of Iranian EFL teachers, using the Teaching Activities Preference (TAP) questionnaire (Cooper, 2001) and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, MBTI (Myers & Myers, 1998). A third instrument called Students' Perceptions of Teachers' Success or Failure (SPTSF) questionnaire, developed by the researchers, was also used to examine the relationship between personality types of Iranian EFL teachers and their students' perceptions of the teachers' success or failure. The participants of the study comprised of 51 EFL teachers and 300 high school students. The results indicated significant differences among the MBTI types based on the teachers' teaching style preferences. Each personality type represented a particular teaching style. There was also a relationship between students' perceptions of their teachers' success or failure based on the teachers' personality types. It was found that Introverting, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving (INTP), Extroverting, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging (ENTJ), and Extroverting, Intuitive, Thinking, Perceiving (ENTP) teacher types were more successful than others as reported by the students. The type distribution and the predominance of Introverting, Sensing, Thinking, Judging (ISTJ), and Extroverting, Sensing, Thinking, Judging (ESTJ) types among Iranian EFL teachers were other findings of this research.

Considering the well-proven benefits of participation in communicative interactions and incorporation of form-focused instruction into primarily communicative classes, this study investigates how frequently reactive focus on form versus preemptive focus on form are used in communicative classes. An attempt is also made to examine the potentials of the two types of focus on form in leading to uptake, as the immediate measure of the effectiveness of form-focused episodes. To obtain the required data, all Language Related Episodes (LREs) were identified and transcribed from the audio recordings of 24 hours of instruction from one class with two qualified instructors. The LREs were then categorized in terms of preemptive vs. reactive episodes, and student- vs. teacher-initiated preemptive episodes. The findings indicate a significant difference in the frequency of preemptive and reactive LREs in general and between two different types of preemptive episodes. There was also a meaningful difference between the two teachers in their use of corrective feedback types and preemptive language-focused instruction. There was not a significant difference between reactive and preemptive LREs in terms of uptake. The paper concludes by highlighting the necessity of raising EFL teachers' awareness to make informed decisions in using these two types of focus on form.

This study attempts to identify features of writing maturity exhibited by four groups of Malaysian ESL students. A further objective of the study was to compare the differences and/or similarities of writing maturity of students in two different primary school levels (Grades 3 and 5) Malay (Ll) and English (L2). It was carried out in two Malaysian towns: Kelana Jaya and Malacca. A total of twenty students were involved in the study. The subjects chosen for this study comprised both genders. Their exposures to composition writing vary. Sample compositions for the primary school students. Were collected from a primary school in Kelana Jaya whereas samples from the secondary school students were collected from a secondary school in Malacca. A sample of twenty compositions was selected from the four groups. The selection of these samples was based on the level of writing complexity measured by T-unit analysis. It was important to select samples that showed a certain level of writing complexity so that the development and growth in composing could be evaluated using Wilkinson et al.'s (1980, 1983) Model of Writing Maturity. The results indicated that secondary school students demonstrate a higher level of writing maturity than primary level students, and that primary school students are capable of producing a similar quality of writing in English and Malay.

The purpose of this study was to see if impulsivity/reflectivity, as two main cognitive styles of the learners, may indicate any relationship with their performance on integrative and discrete-point language proficiency tests. Moreover, the role of gender of the learners in their performance and the interaction of gender and impulsivity/reflectivity cognitive style on the learners' performance in language proficiency tests were investigated. To this end, 240 male and female pre-university students from Karaj, Varamin and Shahr-e-Ray took part in this study. An advanced version of Nelson English test was administered to ensure the proficiency level of the subjects. A Persian version of the Impulsivity Sub-scale of Eysenck and Eysenck's (1990) Impulsiveness Questionnaire was also administered to divide the subjects into three groups of high, medium and low impulsive. An Ex Post Multifactorial Design was adopted to investigate the two independent variables, namely impulsivity/reflectivity and gender. Various statistical analyses were applied the results of which revealed that reflective learners outperformed the impulsive ones on the total Nelson English Test and its integrative sub-parts. The results also showed that it is not just the linguistic factors that determine the performance of the test factors, but rather there are other factors such as cognitive styles and types of the test which play a role in the subjects' language proficiency test performance. The findings highlight the significance of test developers' responsibility to control the influence of potential sources of test bias, namely Impulsivity/Reflectivity cognitive style more effectively through careful designing of appropriate test methods.

The issue of unmarked intonation pattern in English has always baffled non-native (or even native) ES/FL teachers and students as to how intonation changes both inter- and intrasententially. This may partially be accounted for in terms of Halliday's (1994) and Collins' (1995) notion of Information Structure. However, almost all novice language learners are bereft of such specialist knowledge. The present paper looks into this issue from both theoretical and experimental perspectives and attempts to identify sources of such incompetence. It draws upon the previous literature and discusses the experimental study conducted for this paper on the acquisition of unmarked intonation pattern by 60'. Persian senior students of English at AUCB (Azad University Central Branch) to see how close their performance would fall to the native speakers vis-a-vis the intonation pattern. A set of 60 utterances representing 17 types of the English moods was given to the subjects to read out as their voices were recorded. Using SPSS, a Chi-square was conducted to measure the frequency of correct and incorrect responses. The results are discussed and suggestions made.