Number 3 Volume 1

Open Access Article

1 - Teachers' Attitudes towards Teaching in Formal vs. Informal ELT Contexts
Farid Ghaemi Farshid Mohammadbeigi

Up to now, many studies have been done to show the origin of attitudes and their relationships with behaviors or actions. Some of those works have focused on students' attitudes and some have introduced the various contexts of language teaching and learning. These studi More

Up to now, many studies have been done to show the origin of attitudes and their relationships with behaviors or actions. Some of those works have focused on students' attitudes and some have introduced the various contexts of language teaching and learning. These studies were enough to give a new impetus for conducting the present investigation. This paper investigated the teachers' attitudes towards teaching in high schools versus English institutions. For this reason 87 teachers (males and females) teaching English in both school and English institution asked to reply three sets of teacher questionnaires (TQ), i.e. their teaching course attitudes, teachers' attitudes towards their students, and teachers' practices. The main purpose of this investigation was to identify the teachers' attitudes when they encounter with different ELT contexts. The results of this study revealed that teachers have different attitudes towards teaching in high schools versus English institutions. The statistical analyses of the data demonstrated that: (a) teachers had different attitudes towards their teaching courses ( school versus English institution), (b) they showed different attitudes towards their students in high school and English institution, (c) the experience of teachers ( low, medium, high), their degrees (MA, BA), and their background of education ( Azad, State) had no influences on teachers' attitudes towards their teaching courses and towards the students attended those courses, (d) except for some cases, the experience of teachers, their degrees (MA,BA), and their background of education ( Azad, State) had no influences on teachers' teaching activities done in high school and English institution, (e) teachers' attitudes contributed to their activities done in schools as well as English institutions. These results will expectantly help ELT teachers and course designers to step firmly in improving the language teaching and learning issues in Iran. Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

2 - Two modes of assessment: the case of academicians' writing
Siroos Arefi Rad

This study attempted to investigate writing problems and the relationship between expert-assessment and self-assessment of writing problems. Participants were thirty four non-English faculty members of Tehran and Guilan universities. The instruments were writing an essa More

This study attempted to investigate writing problems and the relationship between expert-assessment and self-assessment of writing problems. Participants were thirty four non-English faculty members of Tehran and Guilan universities. The instruments were writing an essay on the topic "What teaching strategies do you use in your classes?" in twenty five lines and filling the questionnaire of writing problems including fourteen items (word choice, verb form, missing subject, verb tense, preposition, word order, article, plural "s", spelling, subject-verb agreement, missing verb, passive voice, conditional sentences, and capitalization).The researcher investigated these fourteen areas both in their essays and their questionnaires of self-assessment. The data analysis showed there was no positive relationship between expert-assessment and self-assessment and the participants underestimated themselves in the questionnaire. Furthermore, the writing problems based on expert-assessment were: verb form, word choice, article, preposition, plural "s", capitalization, spelling, subject-verb agreement, word order, passive voice, verb tense, missing subject, missing verb, and conditional sentences. The findings revealed the main factors causing these problems are L1 interference, lack of grammar knowledge, vocabulary weakness, and poor spelling. The participants can write accurately if they learn basic grammar, increase vocabulary, ways of error correction, and awareness of L1 interference. Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

3 - The Effect of CALL on EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension and Attitude towards the Use of Technology
Maryam Rahmani

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of CALL in developing reading proficiency of Iranian EFL learners in comparison to paper-based instruction and to investigate any significant difference in the reading comprehension of the high and low proficient More

The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of CALL in developing reading proficiency of Iranian EFL learners in comparison to paper-based instruction and to investigate any significant difference in the reading comprehension of the high and low proficient learners after receiving computer-assisted instruction (CAI). This study also investigated the participants’ attitudes toward Information Technology before and after the instruction in the experimental groups and examined the differences between the high and low proficient learners’ attitudes toward Information Technology. The 40 female participants of the study, who were 20 high and 20 low proficient learners were randomly divided into four groups, two experimental groups and two comparison groups. The findings of the study indicated that there was a significant difference in the reading comprehension of the learners who received CAI in comparison to those learners who received paper-based instruction. Furthermore; there was a significant difference in the reading comprehension of the high and low proficient learners who received CAI. The results also showed that while the high proficient learners developed a more positive attitude toward Information Technology after instruction, the low proficient learners’ attitude did not change significantly. Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

4 - Learning English Auxiliary Modal Verbs by Iranian Children
Pooneh Abbasi Mesrabadi

Modal verbs in English are challenging to learn by speakers of other languages. The purpose of thiswas to shed light on the use of gesture in learning English modal verbs by Persian-speaking children.To achieve this, 60 elementary Iranian learners, studying at some inst More

Modal verbs in English are challenging to learn by speakers of other languages. The purpose of thiswas to shed light on the use of gesture in learning English modal verbs by Persian-speaking children.To achieve this, 60 elementary Iranian learners, studying at some institutes in Karaj took part in thisstudy. The participants were randomly put into one experimental group and one control group. Theexperimental group were taught English modal verbs through gesture, but the control group throughtheir books based on pictures. Data were analyzed through a t-test to test the hypotheses raised in thestudy. The results highlight the value of gesture in teaching modal verbs to Persian-speaking children.Moreover, to investigate whether or not there were any significant relationships between spatial andkinesthetic intelligences and the ability to learn modal verbs, a Pearson correlation procedure was used.The result supported the significant relationships between spatial/ kinesthetic intelligences and learners’performance in learning English modal verbs. Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

5 - The effects of teaching English alphabet with and without initial introduction of letter names on Iranian grade seven students' reading speed
Ali Tayebnejad Manjili

One of the most important steps in teaching English is teaching its alphabet to the learners. Implementing the best method will highly help teachers to achieve acceptable results in helping students to read better and faster. Two basic methods are frequently used by Ira More

One of the most important steps in teaching English is teaching its alphabet to the learners. Implementing the best method will highly help teachers to achieve acceptable results in helping students to read better and faster. Two basic methods are frequently used by Iranian educators. Some start by the name of the letters and introduce the sounds that they symbolize later, while others are those who are very concerned about the sounds and tend to teach the letter names at the end of the course. Through this study, the researcher has sought to explore the effects of teaching English Alphabets with and without initial introduction of letter names on grade seven Iranian students reading speed. To achieve this goal, 20 grade-seven students (N=20), who were alphabetically assigned to two different classes (n=10), with no previous experience of learning English were taught using these - two - different methods. Then they were asked to read 20 words as fast as they could. Using a chronometer, their reading times were calculated and recorded. According to their achieved time, they were given ranks from 1(the fastest) to 20(the slowest). Implementing the rank sums test the results were compared and analyzed and then the z value for rank sums was obtained which was equal to -2.20(Negative z value is due to assigning number 1 to the highest rank and 20 to the lowest one).The z critical for ά of .05 is 1.96.Knowing this, we can reject the null hypothesis and have the confidence in the conclusion that subjects in group A who used the experimental method (teaching the alphabets by their sounds and names at the same time) outperformed those in group B (teaching the Alphabets by their sounds). Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

6 - The Effect of Integrated and Independent Tasks on English Foreign Language learners' writing ability
Amir Hossein Moghaddam

This study aimed at investigating the difference of integrated writing task of the TOFEL iBT candidates in comparison with independent writing task on Iranian EFL learners writing performance. The initial population for the study was 50 junior EFL students. To get more More

This study aimed at investigating the difference of integrated writing task of the TOFEL iBT candidates in comparison with independent writing task on Iranian EFL learners writing performance. The initial population for the study was 50 junior EFL students. To get more homogeneity, participants were selected among those who were studying in the third year of university in EFL major. They were male and female students. They were all from Azad university of Tehran-, central branch with the age range of 20-22. Thirty three students were recognized as being at the intermediate level of proficiency. Three students quitted collaborating with the researcher. So, the number of participants decreased and out of them 30 was randomly assigned to two groups. The researcher grouped the learners into two fifteen groups. The first group who has received the integrated type of writing as the method of writing practice during the course of advanced writing at the university control group and the second group who has been taught the independent type of writing as the method of learning how to write. In the first group, the learners were given the writing that accompanied with graphic interpretation and description whereas the second group was given only a topic for essay writing. The results revealed that the integrated-task group outperformed the independent-task group in writing scores. Manuscript profile

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