مهرداد اصغرپور ماسوله

Literature is assuming an increasingly important role in language teaching. Language learners' interest also plays a significant role in facilitating and accelerating language learning. Since the richness of Persian literature is an asset which could be exploited in Persian language teaching, this study assessed the non-Iranian Persian learners’ interest in Persian literature. To address the research questions, 100 male and female learners at intermediate and upper proficiency levels were selected as participants from six Persian language teaching centers in Iran through cluster random sampling. The participants completed the Persian translation of Spirovska Tevdovski's (2016) twenty-item questionnaire which assessed the language learners' attitudes to literature. After collecting the questionnaires and counting the frequencies of each choice of the 20 items, chi square test was used to analyze the results. Then, considering the three research questions the findings of the study were classified into three groups. The results showed that the learners had significant interest in reading short stories, novels, and to some extent plays. However, they did not show interest in poems. They preferred simplified literary texts. The learners believed their main problems included lack of interest and experience in comprehending poetic texts andtexts which employed archaic and complicated language and literary devices. The findings of the study could be used to enhance the effectiveness and attractiveness of the Persian language teaching materials.

The present study was conducted to investigate the contribution of prior knowledge and reading motivation variables in predicting the non-Persian learners’ reading comprehension ability. A multiple-choice test and two questionnaires were developed to measure the forty-two non-Persian students’ reading comprehension, prior knowledge and reading motivation. The results of the data analysis indicated that
there were significant relationships between reading comprehension and prior knowledge and reading motivation, and prior knowledge was a better predictor for reading comprehension than reading motivation.