نشریه رشد آموزش زبان های خارجی
پیاپی 129 (زمستان 1398)

This study sought to provide empirically-grounded evidence for two important research questions. The first purpose of the study, subscribing to research synthetic techniques, was to examine the cumulative status of substantive and methodological research issues in Roshd FLT Journal. We synthesized a sample of 160 empirical articles which were distributed over a 35-year period. The findings revealed that “researching L2 skills” was the most prevalently represented topics in the corpus across different age groups and time span. Our findings further indicated that quantitative research approaches were conducted more frequently than other approaches, though practitioner research was almost solely missing. The second purpose of the study, adhering to bibliometric analysis, was to map the authorship and collaboration in the journal. Based on the findings, the most frequently represented collaborative profile was related to those co-authors who are working in different institutions. However, International collaboration was almost absent in the corpus. The results further reveal that the degree of collaboration is 71.42% in Roshd FLT. The average number of authors per paper is 1.75. Implications for the research consumers are discussed.

As an influential area of education, language teaching has undergone various changes in its theoretical and practical frameworks during the last decades. The common purpose of all research studies has been to optimize the instruction process. Since language learning does not happen in vacuum, and some information is required for examining its quality, language tests are used. Yet, the question still remains as to whether language tests are just simple tools for assessing the content of materials that have been instructed or they can be used for formative goals as well. In the present study, we attempted to examine the utility of language tests in enhancing students’ grammar acquisition. The action research reported in this paper sought to investigate whether and to what extent the implementation of Learning-oriented Assessment )LOA) can facilitate the acquisition of grammar by intermediate second language )L2) learners. In our classes at a university in the north east of Iran, where we were both teaching grammar to students of English Language and Literature, we faced students who were struggling not only with the acquisition of the grammar points but also the actual use of what they had learnt in the grammar exams. Typically, in grammar classes, we teach a set of grammar items in their book through using examples and performance tasks during the semester. Having the fact in mind that students’ performance is highly dependent on the method of our instruction, we tried to use new methods for improving their learning output. In the beginning stages of our trial for teaching grammar innovatively, we observed little change in the learners’’ performance while gradually by the continuation of the new instructional method students’ performance showed a significant improvement as a results of our LOA grammar instruction. Pedagogically, the findings of our study call for a shift in the assessment procedures that provide simultaneous learning and testing opportunities.

The present study was designed to examine the role of the word- formation rules in learning vocabulary from EAP texts by students of life sciences. The study adopted a pre-test posttest control group design. The participants of the study were selected from available EAP classes held for the students of life sciences. Then, the subjects were divided into two equal groups and assigned to one of the treatment conditions.The students were then taught the new vocabulariy items of the passages chosen from their textbooks for eight sessions during two months in two different ways: using the word-formation rules and word-definition method. At the end, the examinees’ performance on the tests was analyzed statistically for the purpose of comparing the results. The analysis showed a significant difference between the two groups. As a result, It can be claimed that instruction - according to the word-formation rules” - was effective.

Teacher’s guides have a significant role in enhancing teachers’ professional knowledge and can assist them in developing lesson plans and classroom activities. In EFL settings, where exposure to a foreign language is limited, the function of teacher’s guides is more prominent. Fortunately, the developers of Prospect series have acknowledged the importance of teacher’s manuals by developing such guides, which can help teachers in dealing with the content of the books as well as conducting their classes. The current study aimed to explore whether the characteristics of Prospect series teacher manuals conform to the criteria recognized and utilized by different scholars in the field. Therefore, Miekley’s evaluation checklist )2005) was selected to collect data from 100 female English language teachers of Tehran high schools in different educational districts. The results showed that the teacher’s guides had an acceptable status regarding the criteria proposed by the evaluation checklist.