ahmad moinzadeh

This study aimed to compare the performance of international and Iranian test takers on TOEFL iBT integrated and independent writing tasks. The international test takers' data were provided by TOEFL organizer: Educational Testing Service (ETS). This included a total of number of 4916 samples for both integrated and independent tasks. A paired sample t-test showed the international test takers significantly outperformed on the independent task. Further, a sample of 100 integrated and independent writing tasks produced by international test takers was randomly selected through systematic sampling, and compared with 96 counterparts written by Iranian TOEFL iBT test takers. Although the difference between Iranian and International test takers was not significant, the paired sample t-test on Iranian samples per se showed that they too outperformed on the independent writing tasks. Although the difference between Iranian and International test takers was not significant, the paired sample t-test on Iranian samples per se showed that they too outperformed on the independent writing tasks.

This study examined the role of working memory (WM) and word recognition in L2 reading across different proficiency levels. 120 Iranian EFL learners were placed in three proficiency groups based on their IELTS scores. The battery of tests used in this study included a reading span task to measure WM, an eye movement word vs. non-word task to measure word recognition ability, an L1-recall task, and a multiple-choice reading test to measure reading comprehension. Correlations were carried out to examine the connections between WM, word recognition skills, and L2 reading performance. Regression analyses were also conducted to test whether WM and word recognition can predict reading performance at different levels of proficiency. The results showed that there were significant correlations between WM and L2 reading in the beginner group and between WM and word recognition speed in the beginner and intermediate groups. Regression analyses indicated that WM is a strong and direct predictor of reading performance at a beginner level of proficiency and a predictor of how fast less proficient readers recognize words in context. Highlighting the important role of WM in the word recognition ability of less proficient L2 readers, this study also showed that second language reading is not related to the accuracy or speed of word recognition across proficiency levels.

Classrooms can be regarded as dynamic systems in which behaviors of teachers and students affect each other mutually and in a spiral manner. In this study it was intended to investigate differences in interpersonal behaviors of a more vs. a less favorable teacher at micro- and macro-levels. To analyze classroom interaction dynamically and in real-time, State Space Grid technique was applied. On the macro-level, teacher profiles were determined based on vector method. 211 students of six classes rated the behavior of their own teacher and an imaginary ideal one. One teacher who was closest to and one farthest from that ideal were identified and their classes were video-taped. Two raters coded behaviors with a joystick and then content and structure of interaction were analyzed. Differences on the micro-level were especially noticeable in the strength of attractors, not in their position. Structurally, the behavior of the more favorable teacher had higher variability and less predictability. On the macro-level, the more favorable teacher had Authoritative, and the less favorable one had Directive profiles. The results of this study can be used in promoting interactive ground of the class and in teacher education programs.

Action research is an efficient tool for the teachers to tackle the problems in their classes and enhance teaching and learning process. This study explored EFL teachers' perceptions about the effect of conducting action research on their professional development. It also probed into the challenges and problems that teachers experienced during the conduction of their action research as well as the support structures which are needed in this regard. Ten EFL teachers were involved in doing classroom-based action research for one semester. Qualitative data were gathered through questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and diaries. Findings revealed that action research contributed to teachers' professional growth through increasing their awareness of their role as teachers and of their students’ needs, providing opportunities for self-reflection on practice, increasing professional confidence, developing a sense of leadership and autonomy, and creating a positive classroom atmosphere. Nevertheless, the participants struggled with three major challenges during the conduction of their action research: lack of time, lack of academic research knowledge and lack of institutional support. It is concluded that contrary to the existing professional development programs, action research can act as a cost-effective, contextualized and efficient professional development instrument tailored to individual teachers’ specific teaching circumstances and classroom peculiarities. Finally, suggestions are made for promoting action research engagement in language education contexts.

In Chomsky’s Government and Binding theory, a number of parameters have been the subject of a plethora of investigations. One of the parameters of UG which has received attention of linguists in the past decade or so is the wh-parameter. In addition to the variation between languages with respect to single wh-questions (i.e. wh-movement vs. wh-in-situ), it has been noted that languages also differ in the way they produce multiple wh-questions (MWQs). In English MWQs, there is a single strict constraint on the movement of wh-elements known as the Superiority effect, where the wh-phrase that C-commands the other moves to Spec-CP. In contrast, Persian is a language with a productive scrambling property, which demonstrates two basic strategies for the formation of MWQs: (i) multiple wh-in-situ, where wh-elements are not subject to the Superiority effect, (ii) optional multiple wh-fronting with multiply filled specifiers (i.e. [+MFS]), where wh-words are bound to the Superiority effect. There are specific conditions under which the violation of the Superiority effect in English MWQs disappears, and their ungrammaticality is ameliorated: D(iscourse)-linking and ternary (non-binary) wh-questions. As the overarching goal of the study, this paper examines the distributional pattern of wh-elements in Persian and English multiple wh-questions (MWQs) based on a Grammaticality Judgement (GJ) task administered to Persian speakers of English (PSEs) and native speakers of Persian (NSEs). More specifically put, the study intends to answer the two research questions: (i) How do native speakers of Persian distinguish among the six types of wh2 elements in Persian binary multiple whquestions (MWQs)?, and (ii) Are there any grammaticality differences between English native speakers’ ratings of English binary, D-linked and ternary MWQs and Persian native speakers’ ratings of translationequivalent Persian binary, D-linked and ternary MWQs? Since the purpose of the present study was to simply characterize Persian speakers’ and native English speakers’ syntactic knowledge at one particular time, a one-shot design was used. Two groups of participants were included in the current study: (1) a group of native speakers of English (NSEs) and (2) a group of Persian speakers of English (PSEs). The NSE group included a pool of 30 American university students and professors who participated in the study through completing an online Google Docs version of the GJ task. Two types of tests were employed in the study: (i) an English GJ task which sought to obtain the judgements of native speakers of English (NSEs) as well as Persian speakers of English (PSEs) on three components investigating English MWQs: 30 binary MWQs, 15 D-linked MWQs, and 15 ternary MWQs, and (ii) a translation-equivalent Persian Grammaticality Judgment (GJ) task. Persian speakers of English (PSEs) took the two tests, but native speakers of English (NSEs) only took the English GJ task. The items pertaining to the Superiority effect in 30 binary MWQs examined the participants’ judgments on different combinations of the first wh-element (Wh1) and the second wh-element (Wh2) in multiple wh-questions (e.g. <who, what>, <what, where>, <where, what>, and <when, what>, etc.). Also, in order to investigate NSEs’ as well as PSEs’ knowledge of the ameliorated Superiority violations, two other components were included in the English GJ task: 15 D-linked MWQs and 15 ternary MWQs, which were the D-linked/ternary equivalents for the 15 ungrammatical binary MWQs. The goal of these two components was to explore whether NSEs and PSEs considered the D-linked (e.g. Which book did which person buy?) and ternary MWQs (e.g. What did who give to whom?) more grammatical in comparison with their binary counterparts (e.g. *What did who buy?). The data were analysed using hierarchical cluster analysis, and grammatical and ungrammatical MWQs were sharply distinguished into separate clusters in the resulting dendrogram. The results of the first research question revealed that Persian MWQs are divided into two major clusters in the relevant dendrogram: 19 grammatical ordered pairs, and 11 ungrammatical ordered pairs. Although Persian resists a neat classification of the six types of wh-elements with regard to the Superiority effect, the 7 ordered pairs <who, what>, <who, where>, <who, when>, <what, where>, <what, when>, <where, what>, and <when, what>, which were considered grammatical in English, are equally deemed grammatical by Persian speakers. The results of the second research question showed significant differences in terms of the grammaticality of Persian/English binary and ternary MWQs, while there is generally no significant difference between NSEs’ ratings of English D-linked MWQs and PSEs’ ratings of the translationequivalent Persian D-linked MWQs. The results of the study have pedagogical implications for teaching Persian to non-native speakers of Persian in terms of the order of teaching different types of Persian MWQs, the contexts for the use of such structures, and the proficiency level at which Persian MWQs could be taught to non-native speakers of Persian.

In a theatrical event, dramaturgy often includes drafting a play, observing the performance, modifying various performative elements, etc. In Lessingian tradition, dramaturgy needs managerial/criticizing skills, while according to Brecht, it has two textual/production facets. In the present paper, by analyzing the first scenes of Act One of "A Man for All Seasons", and its Persian translations (Alerasoul & Taheri), along with the performed version, it is tried to explore the structure of the Iranian dramaturgy and to determine the relation of translator to dramaturg(y). Studying this complex process under the modified version of Kowzan's model suggests that drama translation is often a starting point for (even textual) dramaturgy and translator cannot be claimed to be dramaturg, although if various dramaturges with different skill would be imagined, the title of "translational dramaturg" fits translator.

The objective of this study was to examine the challenges of ESP (English for specific purposes) curriculum of educational sciences majors and strategies to improve them. For this purpose, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 16 ESP teachers of educational sciences and 19 postgraduate students of educational sciences majors from four Universities of Iran (Allame Tabatabai University, Shahid Beheshti University, Isfahan University and Shiraz University). The face and content validity of the interview form was confirmed by five ESP and educational sciences specialists. The reliability of the results of interview was obtained using the audit trail. The theoretical infrastructure, data collection process and analysis process was confirmed. The findings showed that the main challenge of the ESP curriculum was related to the lack of the five language skills in objectives, content selection, the strategies of teaching content and assesment of ESP curriculum. The proposed basic strategy of both respondent groups was to emphasize on the realization and strengthening of the five skills in all four elements of the ESP curriculum. It is hoped that the realization of this procedure would enhance the research and the educational capabilities of students and facilitate scientific advancement.

This paper reports on the findings of a research aimed at exploring the professional identity (PI) of English as Foreign Language (EFL) teacher in Iran. The research further examined the extent to which the identified PI factors affect their teaching quality. The authors argue that earlier classification of different factors of professional identity of EFL teachers is arbitrary and may only be valid by definition. The possible grouping of these factors is also examined to identify what clusters of factors have relative importance in EFL teacher's professional identity and how these clusters may contribute to the quality of teaching. Sample participants contributed in semi-structured interviews and subsequently based on the thematic analysis of the interviews a questionnaire was developed and completed by a total of 143 EFL instructors and students. Factor Analysis of data identified four distinct clusters accounted for a total of nineteen variables presenting the PI profile of EFL teacher in which Personal Characteristics (PC) emerged as the most important cluster. Consequently, five clusters identified to have a considerable effect on teaching quality, Pedagogical knowledge (PK) found to be the most influential cluster. These findings may well serve as a valuable pedagogical resource for EFL teachers and policy makers to help improve teaching quality, educational processes, and curriculum design.

A critical glance at certain researches and articles on "Persian Word-selection", especially in some issues of Name-Ye Farhangestan quarterly, tells of adopting a one-sided approach of science-oriented 'word selection' in response to the pacing overflow of foreign terms, particularly English. It is implied by reading and reviewing such studies that Iranian Academy of Persian Language and Literature (Farhangestan-e Zaban va Adab-e Farsi-ye Iran) has taken on-board the act of foregrounding the 'scientific word-selection' program via centralizing the approach of 'scientific word-selection'. In other words, the approach adopted in the studies and writings published by this planning institution are more towards centralizing the activity of 'scientific word-selection'. This is while equivalent-providing for the increasing input of foreign languages is not to be solely restricted to scientific words or, more expertly expressed, to scientific terms. Undoubtedly, lingual equivalent-providing covers a wider scope of language, that is it incorporates the more general supra-scientific discourses as well as their related lexicology. The study of the mainstream trend of equivalent-providing in Persian language and the status and magnitude of the need for lexical equivalent-providing in other supra-scientific discursive fields, as compared with the scientific discourses, is the question which the present study is going to deal with.

The objective of this study was to examine the current situation of objectives, content, teaching strategies and assessment of the ESP curriculum of education disciplines and its distance to the desired situation.  This descriptive survey was done in Iran and data were collected with a researcher made questionnaire.  The validity of the questionnaire was approved by five English language and education experts.  The statistical population included graduates of four University of Iran.  248 students were selected as a sample through Cohen table.  The data were analyzed through SPSS software using one sample t-test, paired t- test, multivariate F test and Friedman test. The results showed that the current situation of objectives, content, teaching strategies and assessment of education disciplines was not satisfied and there was a significant difference between the current situation and the desired situation of objectives, content, teaching strategies and assessment of the ESP curriculum of education disciplines. At the end, an appropriate strategy was suggested according to the terms of Iran to achieve the desired situation of objectives, content, teaching strategies and assessment of the ESP curriculum.

The teachers' behaviors sometimes have a more intense and long-lasting influence than the information being transmitted; meanwhile, the concentration of much of the curriculum of teacher education has just been on the course content or teaching methods. In this study, the relationship between students' motivation and teachers' behavior is investigated based on the Model for Interpersonal Teacher Behavior (MITB). The questionnaires were distributed to 211 students of eight classes of general English course at the University of Isfahan. Results indicated that among the eight scales of the model, students' motivation is significantly positively correlated with the friendly scale, and significantly negatively correlated with dissatisfied, and reprimanding scales. This may have cultural and psychological implications. Furthermore, some modifications on the graphical presentation of the MITB are proposed and a model for an ideal English teacher in Iran is obtained and compared cross-culturally.

Private speech utilization is accepted to have a critical role in the continuum of language acquisition. As a valuable device in studying learners’ talk during interaction, a language related episode (LRE) is any part of a dialogue where a student speaks about a language problem s/he comes across while completing a task. The present study investigated the role of private speech produced by Intermediate Iranian EFL learners while they were involved in completing a dictogloss. For this purpose, 12 female EFL learners were chosen and they were required to speak about a lexical item cooperatively while they were completing a dictogloss task. These interactions were recorded and their lexical language related episodes were transcribed. In order to investigate the private speech used in the interactions, data was coded for different forms and contents of private speech and their functions were identified. The results indicate that private speech is mostly used for self-regulation and gaining control over the task. The study has implications for teachers and researchers by giving insights on how L2 is used in interactions.

The processes of teaching and learning have changed dramatically over the past decades. The present study aimed to evaluate the ESP curriculum of faculty of medicine at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences from the perspective of students and faculty members. In this cross-sectional descriptive study, a number of 600 third- and seventh-year students of medicine studying in the second semester of 2016-17 academic year and six ESP instructors were selected through census method. A researcher-made questionnaire, already checked for reliability and validity, was used to collect data. The collected data were analyzed through descriptive statistics, one-way and two-way t-tests and median test. A total of 380 questionnaires were analyzed. The participants were not satisfied with the ESP materials and believed that the number of credits offered was inadequate. They also indicated that the sequence of the semesters offering the ESP courses was not appropriate. Moreover, the participants believed that the ESP courses should be designed while considering their familiarity with the course Introduction to Clinical Medicine (ICM), and that the materials should be updated. They also maintained that it was necessary to include medical terminology together with case studies in each unit. According to the participants, final exam was not an adequate way of evaluating students’ abilities and they preferred intermittent quizzes. Moreover, they believed that language instructors were more skillful in teaching ESP courses than medical instructors. The content of ESP textbooks for medicine need to be changed, and it is suggested that language instructors should teach these courses.

Motivation for learning a new language is both self and time-oriented. The language learner’s motivation experiences gradual fluctuation over time and the view of oneself is different on each timescale of the study. Interaction among different timescales throughout the Second Language Development (SLD) is a novel area of investigation (de Bot, 2015). In order to probe this interactive nature, the present study tried to examine the motivational dynamics of a group of language learners in longer timescales composed of a number of tasks performed on shorter timescales. To this end, a group of university students were surveyed at the onset, while performing tasks and at the end of the course to better picture the interplay of different motivational themes over time. The results revealed different manifestations of components of L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS) over different timescales of the study. Apart from this evolutionary manifestation of L2MSS components, ANNOVA results revealed significant difference between scores of each individual component among all three timescales. In sum, results of the study confirmed temporal and visionary variation in participants’ motivation. Finally, some implications were driven from the findings of the study.

The present study intended to investigate the processing behavior of 2 groups of L2 learners of English (high and mid in proficiency) and a group of English native speakers on English active and passive reduced relative clauses. Three sets of tasks, an offline task, and 2 online tasks were conducted. Results revealed that the high-proficiency group’s performance was the same as that of the native group in all the 3 tests in terms of accuracy and processing behavior. Accordingly, it was concluded that proficient L2 learners can achieve native-like performance. Also, opposed to maturational propositions on adult L2 learning following the critical period hypothesis, the high-proficiency participants showed native-like behavior on the L2 structures. We suggest that the amount of exposure to an L2 can be a defining factor for L2 learners to perform in a native-like manner.

The purpose of the study was to investigate whether the students who learn their lexical knowledge through translation method are able to transfer the knowledge into reading comprehension. The study consisted of four steps, namely, reading pre-test, lexical instruction, vocabulary testing, and reading post-test. The results showed a significant improvement in the reading scores of the learners in Grade One and Two after the vocabulary instruction treatments were introduced. The results indicated that low-proficiency (Novice- Mid and Novice-High) were able to transfer their lexical knowledge learned through decontextualized translation equivalent teaching method into reading comprehension tasks. The apparent discrepancy between the findings of the present study and that of Prince (1996) is also discussed with reference to “task-induced involvement load hypothesis”.

This study was designed to investigate the effect of grammar and vocabulary pre-teaching, as two types of pre-reading activities, on the Iranian EFL learners‟ reading comprehension from a schema–theoretic perspective. The sample consisted of 90 female students studying at pre-university centers of Isfahan. The subjects were randomly divided into three equal-in-number groups. They participated in a test of overall language proficiency, and the results indicated that they were linguistically homogeneous. Then, the three groups were exposed to different treatments. Group A received grammar pre-teaching, whereas group B received vocabulary pre-teaching. The subject in group C (the control group), however, received no pre-teaching. The subjects in each one of the experimental groups took reading comprehension posttests. The results showed no significant difference among the three groups though the vocabulary group performed slightly better than the other two groups, and the performance of the grammar group was seemingly worse than the control group. The findings of the study are discussed in detail with reference to the schema-theoretic view of reading.

The non-overt subject of the infinitive clause is represented by the element PRO، an NP which appears to be syntactically active without overt manifestation. Although PRO is a part of architecture of GB، no coherent account of this element can be found in Persian. The stipulation of PRO by Iranian grammarians both traditional and modern has been in vain due to two dilemmas: first the nature of non-finite clause in Persian، and second، finding ungoverned position for PRO. After all، syntactic، semantic and morphological behavior of Masdsar in Persian supports its constituency nature in favor of being a non-finite clause. Subsequent to introducing the non-finite clause in Persian، there will be a room to account for the existence of PRO. Of considerable importance is the justification that non-finite clauses are CPs not IPs، which makes it possible to find an ungoverned position for the distribution of PRO.