Research in English Language Pedagogy
Volume:5 Issue: 1, Winter-Spring 2017

This investigation aims at examining how the semiotic mediums of gesture and speech integrate into one another to make gesticulations, so as to mediate meaning in oral reproduction. To this end, this study concentrates on Hodge and Kress’s (1988) theoretical framework linking semiotics to TEFL contexts, and also analyzes the gesticulations in oral reproduction applying McNeill’s (2005) scheme or Kendon’s (2004) Continuum with four categories of iconic, metaphoric, deictic, and beat gesticulations. Results illuminated how the creation of gesticulation brings about a sort of mediation between what is in the mind of the speaker and what is expressed to the audience, and how this mediation of gesticulations facilitates and clarifies the meaning in the speaker’s oral reproduction or summarization process, so that the audience can better understand the speaker’s intentions or summaries. The findings have some implications for TEFL teachers and researchers to understand the dialectic relationship of oral speech, written language, and gesture in language during the oral reproduction process.

This study aims to determine the role of perceived teacher support and motivational orientation in predicting metacognitive awareness of reading strategies in learning the English language. The sample included 425 male and female students, studying in the elementary schools in the city of Birjand, eastern Iran, in the 2014-2015 academic year. Three different types of questionnaires were distributed among these students. The questionnaires were, respectively, about the students’ perception of teacher support (Zaki, 2007), motivational orientation for English learning (Sheikholeslami, 2005), and metacognitive awareness of the study methods (Mokhtari & Richard, 2002). Multiple regression analysis was applied to analyze the obtained data. It was found that there was a direct and significant correlation between teacher support variable, and intrinsic motivation, overall reading strategies, problem-solving strategies, reading support strategies, and metacognitive awareness. Additionally, there was an inverse and significant correlation with the non-motivation variable. Furthermore, no significant correlation was observed between the teacher support variable and the extrinsic motivation variable. A direct and significant relationship was, however, spotted between intrinsic motivation, and extrinsic motivation, overall reading strategies, problem-solving strategies, reading support strategies,and metacognitive awareness; and an inverse and significant relationship was noticed between the intrinsic motivation and non-motivation variables. Moreover, there existed a direct and significant relationship between extrinsic motivation, and overall reading strategies, problem-solving strategies, reading support strategies, metacognitive awareness and it had an inverse and significant relationship with non-motivation variable. The findings demonstrated that the components of perceived teacher support and motivational orientation (extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation, and nonmotivation) provide the possibility of predicting metacognitive awareness of students.

The present contrastive study reports a research on a genre analysis of the introduction section of dentistry research articles between English and Persian languages. To this end, 70 introduction sections written in English and Persian and published in wellknown leading journals were examined and analyzed using Swales’ (2004) classification of moves and steps in introduction sections. Frequency and Chi-square test were used to examine the differences between the two corpora of introduction sections. The analysis of the introduction sections shows that Move 1 step 1 “claiming centrality”, Move 2 step 1a “counter-claiming” and Move 3.1 “Announcing present research descriptively and/or purposively” are the most frequently used moves in English and Persian corpora. Moreover, the findings show that the majority of research articles across the two corpora opened with Move 1.1 “Claiming centrality”. Also, results revealed that there was a statistically significant difference in certain moves between English and Persian introduction sections.

Speaking a language involves more than simply knowing the linguistic components of the message, and developing language skills requires more than grammatical comprehension and vocabulary memorization (Chastain, 1988). In teaching-learning processes, drama method may have some positive effects on ELL student's speaking fluency and accuracy. This study attempts to probe one of the main concerns of language learners, that is, how to improve their speaking components, e.g. oral fluency and accuracy. To attain this aim, the researchers investigated the effect of two selected texts from modern English dramas on student's speaking fluency and accuracy. They distinguished fluent from non-fluent and accurate from no accurate learners. Therefore, the current study was designed as a true experimental research and the data were gathered from 60 EFL students of English language and literature at Hormozgan University in Iran. The data were the recorded speaking transcripts which were analyzed to show the probable progresses after four-time (10 weeks) treatment. The factors to be considered in present study were the numbers of filled and unfilled pauses in each narration, the total number of words per minute, mean length of utterance, and number of stressed words. The results were compared and their temporal and linguistic measures were correlated with their fluency scores. They revealed that the speech rate, the mean length of utterance, phonation time ratio and the number of stressed words produced per minute were the best predictors of fluency scores, and thus, student's speaking fluency increased, whereas the student's speaking accuracy decreased in some areas of speaking abilities and oral communications.

The quality of a textbook might have fundamental roles that it can determine the success or failure in teaching and learning course. The present study evaluated English textbooks used in Iranian high schools, which are claimed to have been published based on the components of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approach. The purpose of this study was to explore high school teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the Iranian high school English textbooks. To fulfill the objectives, a questionnaire consisting of 45 questions related to high school English textbooks was administered to 150 male and female high school students and their teachers in Isfahan, Iran. The participants were also interviewed in terms of their attitudes towards CLT and its implementation in Iranian high school English textbooks. The descriptive analysis of the data indicated that Iranian teachers and learners in Isfahan had a positive attitude towards the English textbooks based on the CLT principles. The majority of participants stated that 80 percent of CLT principles were currently practiced in Iranian high school English textbooks; however, some changes might improve the quality of these English textbooks.

The present study explored the vocabulary learning strategies used by Iranian EFL learners and Marine Engineering (ME) students by using the categorization of vocabulary learning strategies proposed by Schmitt (1997). A vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire was administered to 30 EFL learners and 43 ME students. Then, the strategies used by each group were determined and the two groups were compared with each other. It was found that both groups used determination strategies more frequently than social strategies for discovering a new word’s meaning. The most frequently used discovery strategy by both groups was found to be “bilingual dictionary”. The second and third most frequently used strategy for discovery by EFL learners and ME students was found to be “monolingual dictionary” and “guess from textual context”, respectively. It was also revealed that EFL learners used memory strategies more frequently than other strategies for consolidating the meaning of new words and ME students used cognitive strategies the most frequently. Both groups were found to use “verbal repetition” more frequently than all other consolidation strategies. The second most frequently used strategy by EFL learners was “use Englishlanguage media” whilst for ME students they were “written repetition” and “word lists”. The comparison of the strategy use by the participants in the two groups showed no significant difference.

Recently, with the growth of technology computer assisted language learning (CALL) has equipped teachers with new tools to transform education. In order to exploit the advantages of CALL, this study explored whether applying Power Point presentations (PPTs) brings about significant improvements in high-school learners’ English vocabulary knowledge. To this end, 120 Iranian male high-school students were divided into three experimental group and one control group. The administration of a 40- item multiple-choice vocabulary test, developed on the vocabularies to-be-instructed during the study period, demonstrated that the four groups were homogeneous in terms of their entry ability level. While all four groups received instruction in vocabulary during one and a half hour per week for six months, PPTs were employed only in the three experimental groups. Specifically, in the first group, the teacher used PPT to teach vocabulary and he exploited students’ assistance in explanation of presentation. In the second group, the students were required to prepare and present PPTs to teach vocabulary. Simultaneously, the teacher helped the students to clarify ambiguities of their presentations. The students in the third group were also demanded to have PPTs; however, the teacher did not provide them with any assistance, clarification, or explanation. Finally, the fourth group which acted as the control group was the one in which the teacher instructed vocabulary in a traditional way without the exploitation of PPT. At the end of the study, the same vocabulary test was administered as a post-test and the results of the statistical analysis indicated that the first and the fourth group significantly outperformed the other two groups.

This study intends to scrutinize the realizations and discourse functions of context frames in research article abstracts written by native and non-native writers of English from four disciplines namely: Applied Linguistics, Economics, Biology, and Mechanical Engineering. To this end, 200 research article abstracts (50 from each discipline) were selected for analysis. From the 50 research article abstracts of each discipline, 25 were written by native writers of English and 25 written by Iranian non-native writers of English. The corpora, then, were analyzed based on the analytical framework proposed by Ebrahimi (2014). Based on the findings obtained, it can be concluded that the context frame’s selection, frequency and discourse functions are affected and imposed by the nature of discipline and genre of RA abstracts. The result also indicated that there is a difference between native and Iranian non-native writers of English in dealing with these elements. In addition, the findings stress the fact that writing is restricted by the disciplinary conventions and writers’ background knowledge of English language.