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  • List of Articles


      • Open Access Article

        1 - Inductive vs. Deductive Grammar Instruction and the Grammatical Performance of EFL Learners
        فاطمه بهجت
        Learning a foreign language offers a great challenge to students since it involves learning different skills and subskills. Quite a few number of researches have been done so far on the relationship between gender and learning a foreign language. On the other hand, two More
        Learning a foreign language offers a great challenge to students since it involves learning different skills and subskills. Quite a few number of researches have been done so far on the relationship between gender and learning a foreign language. On the other hand, two major approaches in teaching grammar have been offered by language experts, inductive and deductive. The present study examines which method of teaching grammar is more fruitful for Iranian male and female students. For this purpose, 150 freshman students, 110 females and 40 males, majoring in English were selected from all available students at Abadeh and Shiraz Azad universities. All the subjects took the NTC's grammar test prior to the instruction as pre-test. Then, they were divided into two groups and were taught grammar inductively and deductively in each group for one semester. At the end of the instruction, the same test was taken as post-test. The comparison between the students' pre and post-test indicated that there was a significant improvement in their knowledge of grammar. By the way, through a two-way ANOVA, it was found out that males learned grammar better when they were taught inductively and females showed a better performance when they were taught deductively. Manuscript profile
      • Open Access Article

        2 - A Critical Study of Selected Political Elites' Discourse in English
        بیوک بهنام لاله مقتدی
        This study explored how political elites can contribute to power enactment through using language. It started with a theoretical overview of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and then presented a corpus consisting of speeches of eight political elites, namely, Malcolm More
        This study explored how political elites can contribute to power enactment through using language. It started with a theoretical overview of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and then presented a corpus consisting of speeches of eight political elites, namely, Malcolm X, Noam Chomsky, Martin Luther King, Josef Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Winston Churchill, J.F. Kennedy and Adolph Hitler. This study analyzed speeches in terms of figures of' speech, and interpreted them from the point of view of CDA using the framework introduced by Fairclough (1989) as a three-dimensional approach to the study of discourse (Description, Interpretation, Explanation) and van Dijk (2004) as the theory of critical context analysis.. Speech figures are classified in this study into six main categories as Comparison, Grammar, Meaning, Parenthesis, Repetition and Rhetoric. The result of analyses reveals that while there are differences in the type and degree of speech figures employed by our selected individual political elites, there is one striking pattern which is common among all speeches: the frequent use of figures of Grammar, Repetition and Rhetoric Manuscript profile
      • Open Access Article

        3 - The Effect of Dialogue Journal Writing on EFL Students' Writing Skill
        علی غلامی مهرداد
        Despite the role writing plays in learning a foreign language, many students do not show much interest in taking an active part in writing classes (Myint, 1997). Thus different activities have been proposed to motivate students to write one of which is dialogue journal More
        Despite the role writing plays in learning a foreign language, many students do not show much interest in taking an active part in writing classes (Myint, 1997). Thus different activities have been proposed to motivate students to write one of which is dialogue journal writing, and the present work tries to investigate the possible effect(s) of such activity on writing ability of a group of English students at Islamic Azad University- Hamedan branch. To do this, 50 students obtaining 1 and 2 on the TWE scale on the structure section of a TOEFL test were selected and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. After some introductory sessions, the students were asked to write paragraphs on a weekly schedule and hand them in to be corrected. In the experimental group the students were, furthermore, asked to keep journals and hand them in. After 4 months, the students in both groups took part in a writing exam in which they had to write two paragraphs on the topics given. The comparison of the means at p Manuscript profile
      • Open Access Article

        4 - Task-Based Listening Assessment and the Influence of Construct-Irrelevant Variance
        ارشیا کیوانفر مژگان رشتچی
        Task-based listening tests such as IELTS require testees to listen to some information on a CD and simultaneously answer the related items. To answer such items, testees are expected to comprehend, analyze, compare and infer pieces of information while listening to the More
        Task-based listening tests such as IELTS require testees to listen to some information on a CD and simultaneously answer the related items. To answer such items, testees are expected to comprehend, analyze, compare and infer pieces of information while listening to the incoming audio material. The present research attempted to investigate whether the two major characteristics of question type and consecutive/simultaneous performance have any impact on the listening performance of Iranian EFL learners. Findings indicated that participants had a significantly better performance when they tackled the tasks consecutively, and performed even better in listening MC items rather than in listening task-based items. The researchers, thus, concluded that task-based listening tests such as IELTS listening module may be under the influence of construct-irrelevant variance. Manuscript profile
      • Open Access Article

        5 - Metalinguistic Awareness and Bilingual vs. Monolingual EFL Learners: Evidence from a Diagonal Bilingual Context
        سیما مدیر خامنه
        This paper reports a study of 85 Iranian EFL learners in the English Language Department of Urmia University. It explores the possible differences between performance of 38 Persian monolingual and 47 Turkish-Persian bilingual EFL learners on metalinguistic tasks of ungr More
        This paper reports a study of 85 Iranian EFL learners in the English Language Department of Urmia University. It explores the possible differences between performance of 38 Persian monolingual and 47 Turkish-Persian bilingual EFL learners on metalinguistic tasks of ungrammatical structures and translation. The underlying hypothesis is that bilinguals in diagonal bilingual contexts experience a significant development in terms of their metalinguistic awareness. Results of some t-test analyses indicated consistent differences between the two groups in favour of bilinguals. The findings, thus, strengthen the proposal that bilinguals may develop a more analytical orientation to language that may help them in learning additional languages. The findings are discussed in relation to implications on EFL learning as well as EFL teaching. Manuscript profile
      • Open Access Article

        6 - Planning Time: A Mediating Technique between Fluency and Accuracy in Task-Based Teaching
        افسر روحی افسانه سعید اختر
        Task-based instruction is arguably associated with fostering fluent L2 speech distant from native-like accuracy. Of several methodological options recommended for accounting for accuracy problems of meaning-first approaches to language teaching, planning time has been e More
        Task-based instruction is arguably associated with fostering fluent L2 speech distant from native-like accuracy. Of several methodological options recommended for accounting for accuracy problems of meaning-first approaches to language teaching, planning time has been explored in this study. Three groups of English majors watched a cartoon and narrated their accounts of watching under no-planning, undetailed pre-task planning and detailed pre-task planning conditions. To measure the accuracy and dysfluency of their L2 production, the collected data were coded for the number of error-free clauses, the number of total clauses and also for repetitions, false starts, reformulations and replacements. One-way ANOVAs run on the data revealed that detailed pre-task planning might result in more accurate and less dysfluent language than undetailed pre-task planning which in turn might lead to more accurate and less dysfluent language than no-planning condition. Manuscript profile
      • Open Access Article

        7 - The Relationship between EFL Learners’ Emotional Intelligence and Critical Reading
        مهناز سعیدی ماندانا یوسفی
        This study examined the EFL learners’ Emotional Quotient (EQ) and Critical Reading (CR) ability to identify possible relationships between these two traits. The results show that there exists a significant relationship between students’ EQ and CR and there i More
        This study examined the EFL learners’ Emotional Quotient (EQ) and Critical Reading (CR) ability to identify possible relationships between these two traits. The results show that there exists a significant relationship between students’ EQ and CR and there is no significant difference between females and males’ EQ and CR ability. Finally, only Intrapersonal and Stress Management subscales of EQ can be regarded as predictors of changes in CR scores. The findings of the study suggest that it is necessary to plan and take action for the management of the learners’ emotions and behaviors if pedagogy is going to develop learners’ skill in rational thinking and problem-solving which will be effective not only in instructional settings but also in daily life. Manuscript profile
      • Open Access Article

        8 - The Effect of Quiz Frequency on Course Performance and Its Relationship with Class Attendance
        عباسعلی زارعی
        To investigate the effect of quiz frequency on the course performance of Iranian university students of English, the mean scores of five groups of subjects were compared using a balanced one-way ANOVA procedure. Analyses revealed that quizzes significantly improve cours More
        To investigate the effect of quiz frequency on the course performance of Iranian university students of English, the mean scores of five groups of subjects were compared using a balanced one-way ANOVA procedure. Analyses revealed that quizzes significantly improve course performance. With some exceptions, it was also found that the more frequently the subjects were quizzed, the better their course performance became. To study the relationship between quizzes and class attendance, the absences of the same five groups of subjects were regularly checked and compared using the Chi-square procedure. Results showed that there is an inverse relationship between quiz frequency and the number of absences from class. Manuscript profile