مقالات رزومه دکتر احمد صفار مقدم

Literature, by breaking common rules in the form of rhetorical techniques, brings an artistic form for language and it deviates from the standard form. This can make it difficult for non-Persian speakers.The purpose of this study is to show "the aesthetic functions of rhetorical techniques in Persian language teaching" and "the introduction of appropriate literary arrays for Persian learning" by adapting these arrays to the results of the research in the field of language teaching, so that we are faced less likely to the deletion or simplification of literary works in Azfa's works. We showed how the literary language emerged from the perspective of Shafiei Kadkani and Safavi, then we studied the aesthetic functions of these techniques in the discussion of AZFA. After that we introduced the appropriate literary arrays in the Persian teaching, which in accordance with findings in the field of language teaching are similar to the principles of language learning, and they are: 1. verbal or musical (including phonetic parallelisms (poetry, repetition of phoneme and syllable), lexical (Radif and Tashabuh al-'Atraf) and syntax , and 2. semantic or linguistic (including metaphor and trope, metonymy, proportionality or (symmetry) and hyperbole). The result of this research, emphasizing the necessity of accurate and correct knowledge of literary language, specifies that literature despite being an artistic language and different from the standard language type, can be used as a secondary source in addition to language education in Azfa's works; because the mentioned literary arrays not only do not hinder language learning, but are in line with its goals and can help language learning.

Introduction The present study explores the direct effects of teaching Persian lexical network on the level of foreign Persian language learners with respect to inferential and substitution questions. Raghibdoost and Jamshidi (2012) state that direct teaching of lexical network significantly improves the learning ability of foreign Persian language learners. Moreover, adaptation of inferential and substitution questions in task-based modules has enabled the authors of the current research to develop the present study based on the learners’ responses.
When learners read a word, an image is stored in their sensory memory which is then transferred to short-term memory (where one’s current and temporary memories are stored) to be retrieved immediately in the cases of emergency. In other words, short-term memory serves as the information storage while functioning verbal tasks. It is, therefore, known as functional memory also. To identify and find the meaning of a word or a term, one searches the short-memory, and if needed, it can be transferred and stored in the long-term memory (Filed, 2002:19). The word information shall then be retrieved from long-term memory.
When learners store a word in their short-term memory, they would only be familiar with its image and answer substitution questions. However, according to psychologists’ findings and reports, if the appropriate teaching method is applied, the learners transfer the acquired data into their long-term memory. Thus, when learners search for the answer of a question, they come across a network of related words and can easily answer inferential questions.
Objectives of the study The present study attempts to investigate the impact of explicit teaching of Persian verbal networks on the responses learners provide to the inferential and substitution questions. It seeks to show how learning lexical network contributes to better answering the inferential and substitution questions, as well as identifying the questions that are attempted most frequently.
Methodology The present study adopts an experimental and comparative approach. First, a preliminary test was given and administered to select learners who were more familiar with lexical networks. It is worth noting that the principles of task-based teaching were used to design the modules of this research. The study focuses more on reading skill but also contains listening, speaking and, writing skills to provide for parallel development of all skills.
Each of the three modules taught consists of 27 verbal networks which amounts to 107 verbs overall including their subsection. At the end of the teaching session, exam questions were given into two categories of ‘inferential (in the form of True or False)’ and ‘substitution (substituting verbs in the same network)’. Learners’ answers were analyzed and compared using SPSS software.
Inferential questions: Based on the syllabus covered in each module, and the hope for measuring learners’ ability to identify synonymous words, five True/False questions were given. The applicants were required to refer to their memory to provide the correct answer.
Substitution questions: In this part, initially, six verbs presented in the module were given as choices in five questions eliminating the verb in each question. The applicants were asked to substitute the correct verb for each question. It is worth noting that in designing post-test questions, transitive, intransitive, and linking verbs were used and the instructor implicitly emphasized the substitution principles.
Research Findings Post-test results were analyzed to measure the difference in the performance of applicants in answering inferential or substitution questions. The obtained mean of inferential questions (10.20) was higher than that of substitution questions (9.73; SD= 2.98). However, the results of t-test (P>0.05, 0.73=14) and the effect size indicator (R=0.19) showed no significant difference between the means of inferential and substitution questions.
Conclusion The present study suggests innovative ways of teaching lexical network and the use of connections between verbs in teaching Persian. The findings show that all learners were keen on benefiting from this semantic network of verbs. They, even, requested the researchers for the design of a dictionary for this purpose. Learners of the experimental group stated that attending classes helped them improve their knowledge of Persian. It can, therefore, be concluded that compiling Persian lexical network is of crucial importance to helping foreign Persian language learners.

Focusing on Persian language continuum of styles, this research aims at studying the stylistic variation of Persian language according to the native speakers’ judgment of the formality of some Persian sentences that are related semantically, and conveys the same proposition, but considered to be different regarding the number of formal or informal and colloquial words, phrases, and syntactic features in them. Therefore, this research is categorized as a research in perceptual dialectology. The main goal is to analyze the relation between the lexical and structural features of formality with the native speakers’ perception of the degree of formality of the sentences.The main questions this research tries to answer are as follows: Is it possible to define the degree of formality of a sentence according to the linguistic features? And, which phonetic, lexical and structural features exert more influence on Persian speakers’ judgments?
The research hypotheses are as follows: It is possible to define the degree of formality according to some linguistic features like how close the pronunciation of a word is to standard language, the use of some formal or informal words and expressions. And, the use of some lexical items and expressions or taboo words affects the native speakers’ judgment more than other features.
A researcher-made questionnaire consisting of 15 sentences which communicate the same proposition was used for gathering data on speakers’ judgments. Informants were 70 men and women in three different age-groups, 20-30 (n=35), 30-40 (n= 20)and 40-50 (n=15) who analyzed and graded the sentences, according to the degree of formality, on a continuum from the most to the least formal, based on their intuition. A descriptive – analytic method was used to analyze the data quantitatively and qualitatively. The topic and theoretical frame work of the research are the innovative features of the study.
The results show that it is possible to measure the approximate degree of formality of a sentence by counting the stylistically marked linguistic features. Nevertheless, the speaker’s judgment on the degree of formality does not necessarily depend on the number of these features, and some lexical items and terms that are marked due to observing politeness will affect their judgment. In general, lexical choices and some phonetic changes seem to have more influence on the speakers’ judgments than structural features.

The present research investigated the acquisition of listening skill through virtual and normal classes at Al-mustafa Open University and Almahdi School respectively, both affiliated to Al-mustafa International University. As a descriptive-analytical research, the study aimed at assessing the validity of virtual instruction at this international university. Since the same curriculum is used in virtual classes of Al-mustafa Open University and normal classes of Almahdi School, a piloting was initially performed with ten students of virtual classes. Then, 42 3rd semester Arab students were randomly selected from the above institutions. Following Brown’s (2004) guidelines, their general listening skills were assessed through a test. The data of heterogeneous learners were removed. The means of virtual class and normal class learners on listening test were 12.96 and 13.86 respectively. That is, normal class students on average scored 0.9 higher than virtual class students. However, independent samples t-test revealed that the mean difference was not statistically significant. Thus, it was concluded that virtual instruction should be promoted in the educational policy of Al-mustafa International University. When applicants cannot attend normal classes in Iran, virtual instruction could replace normal class instruction.

1- Reading is recognized as the essential part of scientific learning and development of awareness, the basis for teaching other language skills, and one of the most important goals of teaching language. Bernhard believes that reading is the only goal of learning a foreign language.
Reading is the process of perceiving and interpreting encoded information through writing. Bernstein and Tigermann consider reading as the product of cognitive and language abilities as well as previous knowledge. In their opinion, the reader should employ processes such as audio-visual perception, cognitive abilities (attention and memory), language knowledge and past experience in order to establish a connection between printed letters and their meaning.
In teaching reading programs, teachers must be aware of the important connection between reader, reading and development of other language skills. They should consider reading as the central language skill in teaching and then, through effective reading instruction, promote the development of other language skills.
2- Theoretical framework: Cognitive, spoken and visual processes are counted as the processes involved in reading comprehension. Eye movements and brain activity during reading, considered to be among visual processes, have provided the utmost information on reading approaches.
Grabe divides processes affecting reading comprehension into low and high levels. Low level processes include phonological encoding, lexical retrieval, syntactic segmentation and semantic encoding by syntactic information and word meaning. High-level processes involve using prior knowledge and global knowledge. On this basis, bottom-up and top-down approaches are formed and an interactive approach to reading is developed by combining them. Interactive approach is regarded as the most comprehensive description of the process of reading. Each of the three approaches includes different models and Neil Anderson has proposed the most systematic model of teaching reading based on the interactive approach. Anderson’s model consists of six principles from the initial letters of which, the term ACTIVE is formed: 1. activate prior knowledge (A)
2. cultivate vocabulary (C)
3. teach for comprehension (T)
4. increase reading fluency (I)
5. verify reading strategies (V)
6. evaluate progress (E)
3- The four skill series Modern Teaching of Persian Language (Ghabool, 2013) which is a new teaching resource for non-Persian speakers includes six volumes of which the first to fifth one have been published. The series is now being taught in some Arabic countries and Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Center for Teaching Persian to Non-Persian Speakers. Due to the influence of this series and the major role of reading skill in language learning, reading texts of this work were evaluated on the basis of Neil Anderson's model.
The survey includes 28 lessons which enjoy reading texts. Components of each lesson are evaluated with the principles, techniques and sub-techniques of Anderson’s model and the result of evaluation is inserted on a table specific to each volume. Titles which were not used in the teaching series have been ignored in the tables.
4- Comparing data obtained from the analysis of the five volumes shows that as the students’ knowledge increases the type of exercises change and larger parts of Anderson’ model are used at higher levels. Thus, in the first volume, the focus is on cultivating vocabulary and activating prior knowledge, but from the second volume on, verifying reading strategies, increasing reading fluency and teaching for comprehension are also considered but in a lesser degree. In general, the five volumes mostly emphasize on expanding vocabulary which is affected by the bottom-up approach. The sixth principle, “evaluate progress” is ignored due to its time consuming characteristic in this four-skill teaching series.
5- Conclusion and suggestion : In Modern Teaching of Persian Language, the principles proposed by Neil Anderson have been applied in varying ratios. In terms of arrangement of teaching materials, some differences are found in the series with Anderson’s organizing and ordering of techniques and sub-techniques. For example, discussing about topic and subject which is specific to pre-reading stage has been planned after reading the text. In addition, some of Anderson’s concepts have been used with different interpretations and applications such as “thinking” which doesn’t coincide exactly with think-aloud concept discussed in the model. It should be noted that the full implementation of Anderson’s principles is easier in resources specific to reading than in four-skill teaching resources where a limited part of learning time is allocated to reading.
According to the above, it is proposed that in the future revisions of the series, principles and techniques proposed by Anderson, should be sufficiently employed for teaching reading especially in the third, fourth and fifth volumes. In addition, it is recommended that more effective efforts should be made to facilitate vocabulary learning process in each lesson.
Reading skill; processes involved in reading; bottom-up, top-down and interactive approaches

The field of English as a foreign language (EFL) education has more recently witnessed changes of perspectives in favor of developing intercultural communicative competence over communicative competence. In light of this new outlook, the present study was an attempt to explore the way EFL teachers define the objectives of language education, to what extent their conceptions allow for the incorporation of teaching foreign-language culture, and whether they define the objectives in terms of intercultural competence or the more traditional approach to teaching culture. More specifically, the study focused on teachers’ teaching practices via an analysis of the balance of time they attribute to culture in contrast to language in their lessons.
To this end, 120 Iranian EFL teachers who were all English teachers with 1 to 6 years of teaching experience in private English institutes of Mashhad, along with 39 M.A. and 81 B.A., with an average age range of 20 to 28, were asked to complete a Foreign Language Teacher and Intercultural Communicative Competence Scale. The scale has different sections: teachers’ general teaching goals, teachers’ perceptions of the objectives of foreign language education, teachers’ perceptions of foreign language teaching in a foreign language teaching context, teachers’ perceptions of the time they devote to culture teaching and teachers’ willingness to devote more time to culture teaching. The scale mainly focuses on English language teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, and performance in the classroom. It is comprised of Likert items and some open-ended items for each section of the scale. Besides, four questions were asked to cover the participants’ demographic features such as their gender, age, qualifications, and their teaching experience. The participants were teaching at intermediate, upper intermediate, and advanced level.
The findings indicate that teachers define culture teaching more in the traditional sense of passing on the information regarding the foreign culture and far less in terms of promoting the acquisition of intercultural skills, knowledge, and attitudes desirably needed for the intercultural competent learner. Culture teaching is mainly overshadowed by the objective of improving learner's linguistic competence. They prefer language learning objectives and intend to promote linguistic competence of their learners in their classes and culture learning, which is a pivotal objective in intercultural education, is not considered important for them. Most of the teachers failed to meet the main required skills for teaching intercultural communicative competence skills. In addition, despite their awareness of the cultural differences and their willingness to spend more time on this issue, they did not have an adequate level of understanding of how to promote their learner's intercultural skills and they devoted their teaching time more over language teaching than culture teaching mainly due to their lack of time and tight schedule and curriculum and the wash back effect of the main proficiency tests of English as well.
These findings are discussed in light of socio-cultural theory and the genetic approach to have a better understanding of teachers’ thinking, practice, and context regarding culture teaching. The genetic approach is an exploratory approach, rather than a descriptive one, which takes into account the genes and human development over four domains; namely, phylogenetic domain (development of humankind as a natural species), cultural-historic domain (development in terms of the broader external world within which human exists, i.e., the social, cultural, and historic basis for the development), the ontogenetic domain (development of the individual across the human life span) and the microgenetic domain (the concrete and the practical activity that individual engages in with the world around them). Thus, an observable activity of a teacher (micorgeny) is shaped by the background, experience, and history of the teacher (ontogeny) and the activity system with the broader expectations of language teacher and teaching (cultural-historic). Regarding the teaching objectives Iranian teachers employ in their classes, they microgenetically conform to the language teaching objectives. However, the ontogeny of the participants of the study, who were all academic and had academic education, was reflected first of all in the willingness they possess towards devoting more time to culture teaching and secondly, in the pupil-oriented teaching goals they perceive more important rather than the subject-oriented ones while the teachers stated that they have a tight curriculum with the assigned textbooks that should be covered every term. But it is considered that the cultural-historic domain of development, i.e., the demands of the society part of which refers to the needs of the parents, who mainly concern with the speaking skills of their children and the number of vocabulary items they acquire, as well as the needs of the students themselves, who are interested in improving their proficiency and accent in the English classes, have made the policy of the institutes much stronger to the extent to which it leads teachers to touch upon language teaching objectives and devote more time to language side of education. The next part of the finding was teachers’ definitions of culture teaching. It was revealed that in teachers’ perception knowledge is of more essential concern rather than skills and attitudes dimensions. That is to say, if teachers find the chance to touch upon the culture side of language education, it is limited to its knowledge dimension and restricted to passing on the knowledge from teachers to pupils; in fact, the skill component remains uncovered. To shed further lights upon the space exists between microgenetic and ontogenetic development of the participants (the educated academic teachers); cultural-historic domain once again should be considered. The inquiry reveals the fact that students define a good teacher as a person who is considered as a source of knowledge. As a matter of fact, the knowledge of the teacher is of more interest and preference rather than their skills of teaching. Thus, ecologically, the preference to teach the knowledge dimension of culture teaching can be justified from the knowledge-oriented context of Iran.

The present article aims at studying the feasibility of using films as a source to provide teaching material for Azofa (teaching Persian language and Iranian culture to non-Persian speakers). The question which the present article seeks to answer is how, based on an Iranian film, a syllabus may be designed which includes the linguistic and cultural points required by the Azofa program (Zoreda, 2006; Garn, 2012). This library-based research (which uses the analytical-descriptive method) assesses the possibility of teaching vocabulary and the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, as well as of introducing Iranian culture, to non-Persian speakers, based on the film “Colour of Paradise”, directed by Majid Majidi (1997); thus, the role of culture and the importance of intercultural competence in language teaching (Meyer, 1991; Byram, 1997) constitutes the theoretical basis for the research. Studies show that films may be properly used as a rich resource for the efficient teaching of Persian language and Iranian culture to non-Persian speakers. To this end, appropriate films and teaching approaches should be chosen with respect to the structural features and content of the films and the learners’ needs. In addition, the limited number of proficient Iranian teachers abroad and the absence of evaluated and accessible collections of Iranian films should be carefully taken under consideration when designing a film-based syllabus.

The present paperhas considered speaking in language teaching and studied both traditional and modern teaching approaches. The researcher has focused on teaching Persian to non-Persian speakers from elementary to advanced levels and has emphasized the significant differences of spoken and written Persianin the course of learning. The paper has presenteda list of the most common phonemic، syntactic and morphological differences between spoken and written Persian، focal in teaching Persian to non-Persian speakers. The data have been mainly obtained from the two research projects the Persian Language and Spoken Persian (Saffar Moqaddam، 2008 & 2012)، conducted in The Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies and they were compiled by the help of library resources. Since most of the foreign and Iranian teachers are not fully competent in the theories of linguistics، the researcher has tried to avoid intricacies and technical jargon as far as possible. The findings of the current paper were truly illuminating in designing any courseof study in teaching spoken Persian to Non-Persian speakers. Thus، it was aimed to facilitate teaching Persian and to improve the status of Persian Studies in non-Persianuni versities and research centers.

The most important practical distinction of language derived from the medium of expression is that of speech and writing which produces the spoken and written variants، observed more or less in all the languages. The differences of the two variants depend on the distance or proximity of the spoken from the written forms. Owing to the conspicuous differences of speech and writing in the Persian language، learning Persian as a foreign language accompanies abundant difficulties for the learners. The difficulties become more noticeable when we consider that most teachers in the field are non-Iranians، Iranian teachers have specialties other than language teaching، students learn the language in alien linguistic environment، they feel poor stimulation for language learning and، finally، learners are deprived of audio visual sources. Referring to the formation of spoken-written studies at the start of the article، the general situation of teaching Persian to non-Persian speakers has been briefly introduced and، then، the chief structural differences of the spoken and written variants have been discussed. An analysis of the differences، based on recent linguistic researches، forms the main part of the article. The theoretical principles may be used as the basis for presenting appropriate tactics to teach the differences in Persian syllabuses، prove useful to language learners in acquiring spoken skills، and finally، end in the promotion of their language knowledge and the status of the Persian language. The article is derived from the writer’s knowledge and experience in teaching Persian to non-Persian speakers، the data being influenced by the works of prominent linguistics researchers on a documentary basis.

The present article refers to the writer’s twenty years of experience at the Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies in the field of teaching Iranian language and culture to non-Persian speakers. The writer has set his teaching missions to Bosnia and South Korea universities as a basis for related research and has proceeded to put forth the principal problems and shortcomings of the field by studying the situation of teaching Persian language and positive outcome of responsible organizations. Then the formation of Azofa group during the recent years and the new approach of the Institute in the field has been propounded. According to the new approach، it is required in the first place that instruction of Persian language to non-Persian speakers and Iranian younger generation abroad be promoted vigorously by relying on modern pedagogic methods and cooperating with responsible organizations. In the second place، the propagation of Iranian culture and civilization which is part of the human cultural legacy should be defined as the more valuable target of instruction.

The present study attempts to compare the concept of “deference” in Farsi and Korean. Data gathering happened in a two years study in South Korea, and Korean students in Korea and Iran were interviewed.Deference is a culturally-rooted universal concept. However, it appears differently in various languages. Persian and Korean, though from different linguistic families, have both applied signs and elements of deference and this is their common aspect. There are some aspects of historical, religious, and cultural similarities between Iranian and Korean societies which may account for this. Social hierarchy and Confuciusian rituals play an important role in the system of deference in Korean society. Deference construction used to be very complicated in the Korean language, but nowadays it is simple; as a result, the seven-level system of expressions is transformed into a four-level one, emphasizing formality, politeness, intimacy, and simplicity. No sentence in Korean could be expressed unless one of these deference signs are involved. Deference signs are usually verbal suffixes included in all Korean verbs. Furthermore, as in the Persian language, there are some special words in Korean which exclusively express deference.