Journal of Studies in Learning and Teaching English: 2 (1)

Open Access Article

1 - English-Persian Word Formation with an Eye on Culture and Thought Effects
Ebrahim Abedi Lotfollah Yarmohamadi Naser Rashidi

This research aims to introduce culture and thought -within Whorfian hypothesis-of the target language to EFL learners and helps them get a deeper idea over the root and reference of words and thereby keep them longer in memory. To test the hypothesis Orwell’s Ani More

This research aims to introduce culture and thought -within Whorfian hypothesis-of the target language to EFL learners and helps them get a deeper idea over the root and reference of words and thereby keep them longer in memory. To test the hypothesis Orwell’s Animal Farm was chosen along with two translations in Persian as well as a Persian short story titled Ahu-ye Kuhi . Required data were extracted from the aforesaid books with no sampling procedure applied but the whole books were taken into consideration. The researchers made use of syntactic discussions like grammatical gender in addition to semantic domains like colors, planets, flowers, religion, and others in a contrastive way. Any word signaling one of these domains was highlighted and analyzed through examples. The domains revealed a high rate of effect on the formation of words both in English and Persian with basic changes in between. It was concluded that the roles of thought and cultural domains on the vocabulary systems of the two languages are effective and crucially important particularly in that EFL learners get familiar with the culture and thinking styles of the target language which paves the way for learning the language easier. Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

2 - Language Teacher Assessment: Iranian Stakeholders’ Views
Mohammad Ali Ayatollahi

Language teacher assessment, like many aspects of second language teacher education, is changing. To understand factors that are driving the change, such as work of teaching generally, language teaching in particular, and the role of teachers’ knowledge in teac More

Language teacher assessment, like many aspects of second language teacher education, is changing. To understand factors that are driving the change, such as work of teaching generally, language teaching in particular, and the role of teachers’ knowledge in teaching, this study examined language teacher assessment schemes across the globe. The aim was to arrive at a set of shared beliefs, attitudes, and values that specify the minimum knowledge, skills, and values that are necessary for foreign language teachers. In this study after reviewing the literature the opinions of a number of stakeholders were sought through Delphi method. The results indicated that Iranian stakeholders mainly thought of language teacher competency as knowledge of language– knowing about language, its grammar, form, and uses, so in their view assessing language teachers was simply a matter of testing teachers’ knowledge of language. Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

3 - Self- vs. Peer-editing: One Step Forward from Assessment to Building EFL Students’ Writing Skill
Fatemeh Behjat Mortaza Yamini

A number of pedagogical arguments support self- and peer-assessment in language classrooms to improve the quality of learning by students’ involvement in the final judgments of one’s work. Considering editing as a method of communicative testing of writin More

A number of pedagogical arguments support self- and peer-assessment in language classrooms to improve the quality of learning by students’ involvement in the final judgments of one’s work. Considering editing as a method of communicative testing of writing, this study aimed at finding out whether self- and peer-editing of assignments could result in the improvement in Iranian EFL students’ writing skill. For this purpose, 90 sophomore English students at Shiraz Islamic Azad University were selected and assigned a topic to write about as the pre-test. The participants were then divided into two groups and trained for assessing writing. While in the first group, the participants rated their own writings, in the second, they were asked to correct their peers’ writings. The participants then wrote a paragraph on a topic as the post-test. The result of a two-way ANOVA for the comparison between the participants’ performance in the pre- and post-tests revealed an improvement in the students’ writing ability, and there was no significant difference between the performances of the two groups implying that self- and peer-assessment can help the EFL learners equally to improve their writing. Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

4 - Identification of Moves of Informal Internet-based Chats Between Iranian EFL Teenagers and Foreigners
Behzad Ghonsooly Farnaz Farrokh Alaee Motahare Natanzy

This study aims at explaining informal Internet-based chat format with respect to its genre and writing components and system. The researchers analyzed 53 chat samples which were produced by 53 Iranian students in high intermediate and advanced levels of English in a More

This study aims at explaining informal Internet-based chat format with respect to its genre and writing components and system. The researchers analyzed 53 chat samples which were produced by 53 Iranian students in high intermediate and advanced levels of English in a private institute while chatting with foreigners. Besides the genre analysis, the purposes why people all around the world chat on the Internet were investigated based on these samples i . Five moves and seven purposes were found. Our data suggest that although purposes of samples are different, they follow the same moves. The results show that informal Internet based chat concerns with different purposes as chatting for improving English language, familiarity with different peoples and countries, friendship, finding a sexual partner or talking about religious or political ideas Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

5 - Willingness to Communicate in the Second Language Acquisition: A Case Study on Iranian 2-Year Old Kids
Parviz Maftoon Mehrdad Amiri

Individual’s first language (L1) and second language (L2) communication could be affected by Willingness to Communicate (WTC) which is considered an influential factor affecting one’s second language development. Studying various aspects of WTC has been t More

Individual’s first language (L1) and second language (L2) communication could be affected by Willingness to Communicate (WTC) which is considered an influential factor affecting one’s second language development. Studying various aspects of WTC has been the home of choice for the researchers in the SLA domain (e.g., Clement, Dornyei, and Noels, 1998; McCroskey, & Baer, 1985; Kang, 2005; MacIntyre,;MacIntyre, 2007, Yashima, 2002). Yet, WTC is poor in terms research in the area of kids’ SLA. The present research is a qualitative attempt focusing on the concept of WTC among kids in an Iranian context. The review of the literature revealed that no valid instrument for measuring the kid’s WTC exists. Thus, a qualitative WTC study was designed to evaluate “the WTC construct”(cf. Mcroskey& Baer, 1985) in the kids developing an L2. The assumption based on which the study was framed was that WTC is both a personality trait as well as a socio- culturally oriented factor. Therefore the WTC scale designed by Mcroskey& Baer (1985) was modified to fit the kid’s situation and a WTC measuring instrument was developed to measure WTC in kids, presupposing that in case WTC is a personality trait it should be fairly consistent in various situations and contexts . The scale designed included four communication contexts: classroom, family settings, Iranian out of home context, and travelling to foreign countries and two types of receivers: stranger, acquaintance. The situations selected based on the scale were presented to the parents to select the most likely behavior and choices of the kids distinctly. The participants of the study were two 21- month-old sisters (non-identical twins) whose parents were willing to make them bilingual. They were trained for 7 months based on the Mom & Baby method of English language learning program developed by Amiri (2008).Films of classroom, interviews with parents, and observations were analyzed and classified through the frequency tables. The results of the study revealed that WTC could be considered both a personality factor and a social characteristic which affects L2 development among kids. Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

6 - Shared Reading: A Technique to Enhance Reading and Writing Abilities of Iranian EFL Learners
Mojgan Rashtchi Somaye Moazezi Fardi Moghadam

The present study attempted to introduce shared reading as one of the most effective techniques in cultivating the learners’ reading and writing abilities. To this end, 50 homogenous students were assigned to the control and experimental groups following the admin More

The present study attempted to introduce shared reading as one of the most effective techniques in cultivating the learners’ reading and writing abilities. To this end, 50 homogenous students were assigned to the control and experimental groups following the administration of a standardized English proficiency test. Thenceforth, based on writing and reading pretest scores of the learners on a general proficiency test, it was concluded that the two groups were homogeneous in terms of the two language skills. During the treatment, the experimental group was instructed through the shared reading technique whereas the control group practiced reading through traditional techniques. Afterward, both groups took part in reading and writing posttests identical to the ones used as the pretests. Using a t- test, the researcher found that the treatment had a significant effect on both reading and writing abilities of the experimental groups. The main concern of this study was to introduce shared reading technique as a useful technique in enhancing the proficiency of the Iranian EFL learners in reading and writing skills Manuscript profile

Open Access Article

7 - Success in Raven’s Test as an Index of Intelligence: Does Bi/Multilingualism Matter?
Firooz Sadighi

The present study seeks to find out whether or not higher scores of bilingual and multilingual speakers in Raven’s intelligence test owe a debt to their bi/ multilingualism. To this end, 50 abridged versions of Raven’s test were randomly distributed among More

The present study seeks to find out whether or not higher scores of bilingual and multilingual speakers in Raven’s intelligence test owe a debt to their bi/ multilingualism. To this end, 50 abridged versions of Raven’s test were randomly distributed among a population of almost 200 freshman university students out of which forty four booklets were returned at the end of administration sessions. The results of statistical analyses proved that bilingual and multilingual speakers enjoy higher IQ levels. The significance test confirms the fact that cognitive development of individuals has a direct relation with the number of languages spoken by them. Manuscript profile

XML

List of Articles