نشریه پژوهش ادبیات معاصر جهان
پیاپی 49 (زمستان 1387)

Since its birth in ancient Greece, tragedy as an important dramatic form has always attracted the attention of those who have a tragic sense of life. Although many scholars of tragedy put forward a bleak view regarding the possibility for the continuance of tragedy in modern times, two great dramatists, Henrik Ibsen and Anton Chekhov, showed that tragedy can still be created in modern times provided that writers can adjust their tragic visions with the spirit of their age. This paper is an attempt to analyze the ways in which Ibsen and Chekhov portrayed the tragedy of man in the modern world in plays like The Wild Duck and The Seagull which deal with new tragic themes and concepts. The present article would also offer a brief glance at Greek tragedy to examine the relationship between these modern works and those of the ancient past.

The present research was an attempt to provide new evidence for the efficacy of task-based techniques to speaking proficiency development. The primary focus of the study was to investigate the effects of task-based techniques on speaking proficiency development. In the second place, it tried to scrutinize the effect of gender on speaking proficiency development under task-based principles of language teaching. In better words, the study is an attempt to find out which gender group would become more proficient in speaking after the task-based course came to an end. The study also tried to put possible different effects of task-based approach on foreign language learners of different levels of language proficiency under focus. Accordingly, the participants were categorized into two categories of 81, as the control and the experimental groups of the study. In continuation, each category was divided into two groups of males and females and finally, each male and female group of each category was classified into two classes of intermediate and advanced. In this way, each of the control and the experimental group contained some intermediate and some advanced male and female language learners. In order to determine whether task-based techniques to teaching speaking were effective and also to figure out which gender and proficiency level had a higher degree of improvement in speaking under task-based approach, a set of independent sample t-tests were conducted. Furthermore, in order to comment on the possible interaction between gender and different levels of language proficiency, a two-way ANOVA (MANOVA) was also conducted. It was found that the students of the experimental group, who experienced task-based principles of teaching speaking, performed remarkably better than those of the control group on the final speaking post-test. It was also concluded that gender was not a determining factor in speaking development under task-based approach but difference in language proficiency levels was shown to be an influential factor in speaking development since advanced language learners of the experimental group had performed ostensibly better than those of intermediate learners of the same group on the final speaking post-test. Ultimately, it was deduced that there was not a meaningful interaction between gender and different levels of language proficiency for a better development of speaking ability. In other words, it was not possible to determine a specific pattern of interaction between them by their simultaneous presence in the study.

The Effect of Bimodal, Standard, and Reversed Subtitling on L2 Vocabulary Recognition and Recall Article 4, Volume 13, Issue 49, Winter and Spring 2009 XML PDF (218 K) Abstract To investigate the effect of three modes of subtitling on vocabulary recognition, 97 participants in three groups at Imam Khomeini International University in Qazvin were presented with the same film but using different ways of subtitling. To compare the participant's vocabulary recognition, a one-way ANOVA was run. Results indicated that although the difference between the bimodal and standard groups was not statistically significant, both groups were significantly better than the reversed subtitling group. Another one-way ANOVA was used to compare the learner's vocabulary recall. Analyses showed that bimodal subtitling was significantly more effective than standard subtitling, which in turn, was significantly more effective than reversed subtitling. The findings of the present study can have theoretical and practical implications for both vocabulary recognition and recall.

The present paper investigated the effectiveness of concept mapping as a learning strategy on EFL students’ self-regulation (metacognitive self-regulation, time and study environment, effort regulation, peer learning, and help seeking). Sixty university students participated in the study. They were randomly assigned to control and experimental groups, each including thirty students. They were at the intermediate level of English proficiency and studying English either Translation or Literature. Their language proficiency was determined by the Michigan Test of English Language Proficiency (MTELP) (Corrigan, 1979). The instrument to collect data on the students’ self-regulation was the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) (Printrich et al., 1991). The findings revealed that students gained higher self-regulation in writing tasks as the result of the explicit instruction of the concept mapping strategy. The findings have implications for pedagogy as well as for research.

This study examines differences in non-native EFL teachers’ beliefs about grammar and teaching grammar. The differences were sought across teachers’ work environment- private school versus state schools-, degree, gender, and teaching experience. A sample of 130 EFL teachers teaching at junior high school, high schools, and private language institutes were randomly selected. The sample consisted of EFL teachers with different degrees, teaching experience, and gender. A grammar belief questionnaire consisting of five main categories (25 items) was administered. The results showed significant differences between school teachers and institute language teachers in their cognition and practice. The observed differences were also significant for teachers with BA degree, MA degree and teaching experience. However, teachers’ beliefs did not significantly differ in genders. All in all, the results showed that teachers’ characteristics influenced some aspects of their cognition and teaching practices as related to grammar. The implications for teaching and teacher education are discussed, in this article.