نشریه پژوهش های زبانشناختی در زبان های خارجی
سال نهم شماره 4 (زمستان 1398)

Current advances in Web-based technology and the pervasive application of electronic communication in professional or educational settings raise the demand for meticulous examination of how these new advancements can be manipulated most effectively by EFL practitioners and learners for educational purposes. In order to facilitate the process of writing hypertextual research articles using Swales’ genre analysis model (1990/2004), this study attempted to see whether the hyperlinks of hypertextual articles occur at the places of move boundaries. For this purpose, the introduction and discussion sections of 30 Applied Linguistics hypertextual research articles were examined in terms of moves and hyperlinks. The results revealed that hypertextual research articles followed the same models proposed by Swales for their introduction and discussion sections. However, there were no relationship between the segmentations of texts at the hyperlinks and the places of move boundaries. In other words, hyperlinks did not occur at the places of move boundaries. This study may have implications for integrating technology with genre-based approaches to teaching academic writing.

This study investigated the effect of the metacognitive intervention on the listening performance and metacognitive awareness of upper-intermediate EFL learners with high working memory capacity (WMC). 152 Iranian male learners aged between 15 and 25 years were given Oxford Placement Tests (OPT), and 86 were identified as upper-intermediate learners. They were further given the Visual Digit Span Test (DST), and 60 high WMC learners were selected and randomly assigned to experimental (N=30), and control (N=30) groups. The experimental group received the metacognitive intervention through a pedagogical cycle for 10 sessions while the control group followed their traditional approach. The participants were asked to complete the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) and to take the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) listening tests before and after the intervention. The results suggested that the experimental group had a higher gain with a large effect size in terms of listening performance than the control group. In addition, the experimental group reported the significantly higher use of directed attention, mental translation and person knowledge.

An issue of great concern to language acquisition researchers in recent years has been the contribution of self-control and self-regulation in blended learning programs, the marriage between face to face traditional and on-line learning. To this end, this study attempts to evaluate the role of self-control and self-regulation in a blended course with 64 EFL university students in Iran. Self-control as the potentiality of the learners in achieving their goals and self-regulation as their actual practices in achieving it were investigated through Self-control Scale and Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaires respectively. The multiple regression analysis unraveled that learning achievement was significantly correlated with self-regulation (r = .41) but not self-control. Frequency of the posts and total words used did not behave similarly for self-control and self-regulation. It is implicated that educational parties can resort to some programs to develop the students’ planning, self-monitoring, and reflection which are variables of self-regulation.

The present study seeks to explore the role of TBLT method on students’ reading comprehension skill. In so doing, 80 Iranian EFL learners from two intact classes participated in the study, in which the learners from the two classes were randomly assigned to one control group and one experimental group. The researcher in the control group class followed her regular teaching practice through the conventional book-based method. However, in the experimental group class, the researcher applied task based method. Results of the comparison of the both groups indicated that although the students' scores has improved on the IELTS posttest, there was statistically significant difference between the experimental group’s performances in reading skill. Accordingly, the higher mean score, suggests that the task based method and the collaborative activities have the potentials to help learners develop a better learning of English reading skill. On top of that, findings of the questionnaires and also interviews with teachers revealed their positive attitude towards implementing the mentioned method .

One of the most frequent problems of the language classes is the learner’s different linguistic skills and cognitive abilities and also their different motivations. This fact has always created so many problems in language teaching. In this essay, a situation like this occurs in an Italian language classroom. In according to Gardner's famous theories of –“multiple intelligences” and their main role in foreign language learning, in a class with different linguistic abilities, we proposed the use of certain tasks thought about in a meaningful way by the teacher and also the use of periodic tests that will be intended as a documentable input to not only increase the motivation of all students and invite all of them to actively participate in the class, but also to give the teacher an output to work on and to be analyzed to gain a better study on the various dynamics of each individual's skill development.

Abstract Poetry is a lingual art that utilizes both description and music. In the course of translation, One of these two features of poetry is generally favored over the other with focus on conveying the meaning and poetical imagery of the poem. Efim Etkind, Soviet linguist and translation theorist points out different forms of translation and demonstrates that any endeavor in translation of poetry is restricted to these six described forms. What makes him to remain critical is that, in his opinion, the generality of the poem is nonetheless lost using any of these described methods. In this following article we suggest a way to make it more possible to convey the music of poem, which we assume is the important lost feature, through phonetic transfer from the source language to the orthography of the target language. We think conveying the phonetic of the poem would make the Persian speaking readers of French poetry more familiar with the musical property of the French language poetry and thus not only giving the Persian reader a semantic attraction of the poetical work but also an impression of the poem’s music, pronunciation and rhythm which is an inseparable part of this lingual art

Although reflective practice is seen as a distinguishing characteristic of professionals, there is limited research providing methods for assessing whether EFL teachers engage in reflection and if so to what extent. With the aim of understanding the level of reflection, this article sets out to develop and validate a new instrument to assess the level of reflection of EFL teachers based on the rubric proposed by Ward and McCotter (2004). The newly devised instrument was developed in a five-point Likert-scale format(ranging from never to always).The ultimate version of the instrument was administered to a random sample of 250 Iranian EFL teachers. The construct validity of this instrument was established through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The results of factor analysis validated a 4-factor model. The reliability of the instrument was also obtained to be 0.816 via the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The implication is discussed in the context of language teaching.

English prepositions possess only a small proportion of language but play an important role. Despite their frequently use in English textbooks for secondary school, students fail to acquire them and often show low achievements in using prepositions properly. In this paper, we use a quasi-empirical study to examine the effect of cognitive-inspired instruction on learning in, on, and at, which are known to pose tremendous difficulty to English language learners due to their language-specific features and polysemous nature. The participants were learners at several schools in Saqez province. They were divided into cognitive and rule group. The cognitive group was presented with pictorial representations of the prepositions and cognitive tools used to motivate non-spatial uses, while the rule group received materials based on rules. Although the cognitive group was significantly improved in the post-test, the positive effect did not last until the delayed post-test. On the other hand, the rule group gained little progress in the immediate post-test, but the performance of the group dropped significantly in the delayed post-test.

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the curriculum of B.A. English Translation program from the students and graduates’ points of view and to seek said surveyees’ suggestions on how to improve the curriculum. To this end, the required data was collected using a sequential exploratory mixed-method design comprising of a focus group and closed-ended questionnaire. The findings indicated that the curriculum was far from successful in training professional translators and interpreters. The suggestions provided by the surveyees for improving the curriculum included adding specialized courses based on market demands, dividing the current program into two autonomous and separate translation and interpreting programs, and dividing the would-be translation program into several concentrations. The findings of this study are expected to be reviewed by all stakeholder groups and used as the basis for program revisions, resource allocations, and ultimately the improvement of the learning experience of students and their qualifications and skills in line with the requirements of the rapidly-changing job market.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of metaphoric mapping instruction (MMI) on learning figurative language (FL) by left and right-brain dominant learners. Ninety female intermediate EFL learners participated in the study. Thirty served as the control group and received no MMI. The other 60 learners were given the Brain Dominance Questionnaire (Davis, 1994). Based on the results, they were divided into left-brain dominant and right-brain dominant groups who. After administering a pre-test to the participants, the treatment unfolded for the experimental groups in line with Kövecses (2001, cited in Chen, 2016) to provide learners with MMI. The treatment lasted for ten sessions and after the termination of the treatment, the participants were post-tested on FL ability. The results of the Analyses of Variance indicated that MMI was significantly effective in promoting FL ability. Moreover, there was a significant difference between the effect of MMI on left-brain and right-brain dominant learners with the right-brain dominant learners outperforming the left-brain dominant ones.

Assessment plays an important role in educational system because most of the decisions about the learners’ status in academic environment are made based on the results of those assessments. The most common way of assessment is static assessment. In recent decades with the evolution in teaching methods, other kinds of assessment become vogue like self-assessment, peer-assessment, and Dynamic Assessment. The focus of the current investigation is mainly on DA. This study investigated Iranian TEFL teachers’ perceptions regarding the importance and application of DA in Iran. Findings showed that Iranian teachers have positive views about the application of DA in their classes but because of educational system limitations, time and expense matters and lack of literacy, they cannot put it into practice. Further discussions and detailed analysis of the results are followed through the paper. The findings of this study may render implications for EFL teachers, teacher trainers, learners, material developers, educational authorities

The lexicon of a language, together with its grammar, constitute the foundation of that language. Meanwhile, the pronunciation and the particular accent to each language also play a significant role in shaping their unique structure. Pronunciation and accent are usually the first indicator of whether a speaker belongs to the native speaker community of the language. Frequent incorrect pronunciations or unusual accents can obstruct the conveyance of what is intended and extremely impact the success of the communication. The interfering effect of pronunciation patterns that are common to one’s mother tongue is one of the most important factors affecting the quality of pronunciation of a foreign language. Acquiring the correct pronunciation thus requires familiarity with the phonetics and phonology of one’s mother tongue as well as that of the foreign language particularly in contrast to each other, so that the situations which cause interference in the phonetic structure of the foreign language are understood better and consciously considered when pronouncing the phones and words of the foreign language.

This study explores the effect of a cooperative instructional technique, named Ben Franklin, on the perception of Iranian EFL learners’ foreign accent. The technique requires learners to take detailed notes on what they are listening to (authentic podcasts in this study) and then go back and try to record themselves based on the notes. Thirty-four (34) learners at three proficiency levels from two intact classes participated in the study which lasted four months. Pre- and post-test measures were obtained to ascertain differences in performance of the learners. Two native speakers of English and two experienced Persian-speaking EFL teachers rated the learners’ performance on a 9-point foreign accentedness scale. A semi-structured interview also elicited eight learners’ attitudes towards the technique. Results showed a statistically significant improvement in the learners’ foreign accent ratings on the post-test. It was also found out that the learners’ accentedness ratings are highly related to their language proficiency.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the students’ perceptions of the language teachers’ ethical characteristics with regard to the students’ socioeconomic status. For this reason, an explanatory sequential mixed methods design was employed. First, a socioeconomic status questionnaire which was used to categorize the students into socioeconomically higher or lower groups. From among the 81 questionnaires distributed at 5 different language classrooms of 2 universities in Qom, 53 of them were completed. Afterwards, 22 of the students agreed to participate in a semi-structured interview as the second qualitative portion of the study. After close and repeated analyses of the codes and categories of the students’ interviews, 1 major theme (seriousness) was identified and cross-checked with the students’ socioeconomic status by using Fisher’s exact test. Finally, a model of language teachers’ ethical characteristics was contemplated on the basis of the students’ perceptions in order to be utilized in planning codes of ethics particularly designed for language educators as well as raising their awareness.