Teaching English Language
Volume:1 Issue: 2, Spring 2007

The purpose of this study was to apply Swales’ (1990) CARS (Create a Research Space) Model to analyze the introductions of research articles written by Iranian and Non-Iranian applied linguists. Accordingly, a corpus of research article introductions (RAIs) from a representative random sample of Iranian and international journals was compiled and contrastively examined based on the aforementioned model. Data analysis comprised Chi-square tests in order to probe the probable differences between the generic structure of the two categories of RAIs. Analysis of the data revealed that despite certain consistencies between the research article introductions written by Iranian and non-Iranian researchers in employing Moves 1 and 2, there emerged a marked difference between the two groups in utilizing Move 3 as well as in observing the order of Moves. This demonstrates insufficient awareness on the part of many Iranian research article writers regarding Move 3 and order of Moves. This may imply that in order to improve the generic structure of research article introductions written by Iranian researchers, it is required that their awareness regarding move structuring of this genre be raised. Finally, some suggestions and guidelines as to how to raise the consciousness of research article writers concerning the structure of RAIs are presented.

This study investigates the relationship among language learning strategies, personality type and gender of Iranian English distance learners. The Strategy Inventory for Language Learning and Myeres Briggs Type Indicator were used to collect data from distance learners of Payam Nour University majoring in English. Statistical procedures used to analyze data revealed that there is a significant relationship between language learning strategies and personality types of distance learners. Also it indicates that students with ENTJ and ESTJ personality type are significantly better in strategy use than students with other personality types. The results obtained in this study also demonstrate that there is a relationship between language learning strategies and gender: males are better language strategy users than females at distance education.

This study was an attempt to conduct a contrastive study of genre analysis on the introduction section of English and Persian Mechanical Engineering Research Articles published in journals, following Swale's (1990) CARS (Creating a Research Space) model. To this end, sixty English and sixty Persian recent research article introductions were randomly extracted from nine English and Persian Mechanical Engineering Journals written by different authors. According to Swale's (1990) CARS model, Move Analysis was conducted to collect the necessary data. The study investigated them following areas across the introduction section of English and Persian Mechanical Engineering Research Articles: (a) the significance of the frequency of each Move; (b) the significance of the frequency of each Step. To study the Move and Step frequency, and Linguistic Features of the Moves, Chi-square tests were run as appropriate nonparametric tests. The results of Chi-square tests for move analysis were non-significant, which show that the difference between English and Persian moves of Mechanical Engineering is not significant. The results of Chi-square for Steps frequency and Linguistic Features were significant which shows that there is a considerable difference between the frequency of English and Persian steps. The results of the study may be useful for those ESP (English for Specific Purposes) teachers who are teaching English to Mechanical Engineering students.

Beginning the second half of the last century, language education has witnessed remarkable advancements and reforms that have profoundly influenced the principles and procedures of both teaching and testing. Different disciplines including applied linguistics, psychometrics, and edumetrics have combined to influence the conceptualization, procedures, and prospects of language teaching and language testing. In fact, it is rightly assumed that language education is a multidimensional phenomenon influenced by many fields which at the same time influences other fields. This multidirectional interaction of the disciplines makes language education a complex and a complicated issue. Complex because it is so vast in scope, and complicated because it includes so many unresolved issues. The purpose of this paper, then, is threefold. First, I will attempt to provide an overview of the global trends in both language teaching and language assessment and compare the theoretical advancements with their practical realizations in the profession. Second, I will venture a comparison between the trend in language teaching and assessment in international communities and those in Iran. Third, I will attempt to demonstrate the dilemmas in language education in the world in general, and in Iran in particular, and make suggestions to bridge the gap between theory and practice on the one hand and global communities with local ones on the other hand.

This study is an attempt to investigate the effect of EFL students’ level of proficiency and gender on their use of speaking strategies in a specific domain, namely, an Iranian university. 168 university students (100 female and 68 male) participated in the study and took a standard English proficiency test on the basis of that they were divided into three groups of high, intermediate, and low proficiency levels. Also, a 47-item speaking strategy questionnaire with a Likert-type Scale was administered to these students. Results indicated that proficiency level had a significant effect on the students overall pattern of speaking strategy use. Whereas female students showed a consistently greater interest in using speaking strategies, no statistical significance was observed between male and female students using speaking strategies. While the findings of the present study support the previous research studies on the effect of proficiency on strategy use (see, for example, Oxford and Burry-Stock, 1995; Ehrman and Oxford, 1995; Sugeng, 1997), no such a relationship was observed between gender and strategy use in the way the findings of the previous research did.

In this study, the Persian versions of "Goal Orientation Scale" developed by Midgley, Kaplan, Middleton, &Maehr (1998) and "Self-regulation Trait Questionnaire" developed by ONeil and Herl (1998) were piloted on 199 and 189 participants respectively. When the researchers were assured that these two instruments enjoyed satisfactory reliability and construct validity, the Persian versions of "Goal Orientation Scale" and "Self-regulation Trait Questionnaire" along with a TOEFL test (1995) were administered to 127 participants.The results of data analysis showed that there was a significant relationship between goal-oriented learning and language proficiency.Also, there was a significant relationship between task goal orientation and language proficiency. However, no significant relationship was found between ability-approach and ability-avoid goal orientation and language proficiency. In addition, there was a significant relationship between self-regulated learning and language proficiency.

Jacques Lacan made some important contributions in developing the meaning of the unconscious and in formulating the concept of desire under the light of structuralism. In analyzing the complexity of desire, Lacan refers to it as a state of loss. The object of this paper is to characterize certain features of Lacanian desire through its analysis. The most important feature of desire is that it is structural. Language alienates the subject as it never represents the subject’s identity and causes a division inside the subject: a split between the conscious and the unconscious. This rupture transforms the original lack into desire, an absolute condition that can be neither formulated nor fulfilled. The other feature of desire is that it is distinct from need and demand. Furthermore desire is not sexual and is metonymic in its representation of want-to-be. As Lacan’s analysis of desire is discussed in his different seminars, the object of this paper is first to study it in the context of contemporary literary theory and then characterize its main features. Finally I would argue that such a characterization of desire refutes the state of opposition that Plato’s theory of desire formulates.