amir mohamadian

Pitfalls reported in normative approaches toward language teaching, movement into post-method frameworks and the necessity of reaping the benefits of technological advancements gave birth to flipped instruction as a newly emerged practice of teaching. A robust literature has submitted proof of the merits of this practice in language learning. Thus, adopting an innovative perspective, the current research was an attempt to investigate the effect of virtual and standard flipped methods on autonomy, motivation, and WTC of Iranian intermediate language learners. To this aim, 63 intermediate learners (male and female) were selected through convenience sampling, and after removing outliers, 54 learners were randomly assigned to control (N=19), first experimental (N=18), and second experimental (N=17) groups. For each variable, a valid instrument was adopted from the literature and modified for the purpose of the study. Then, employing a pre-test/intervention/post-test design, learners’ performance on the post-test was measured and analyzed through one-way analysis of variance and Kruskal-Wallis. The outputs revealed a statistically significant difference between groups on autonomy as determined by one-way ANOVA (F (2, 51) = 25.221, p = 0.000). Also, a Kruskal-Wallis H test indicated a statistically significant difference in mean scores between the different groups of language learners, χ2 (2) = 32.317, p = 0.000 for WTC, and χ2 (2) = 32.261, p = 0.000 for motivation. Post-hoc tests were conducted to specify where the differences are laid. Further investigation is suggested to examine the interaction between the variables. These findings have implications for educational researchers, language teachers, language learners, and applied linguists.

The present study investigates mental spaces in children's fictional literature in the Surani dialect of Kurdish language, this study aimed to specify the use of space builders in children's fictional literature and to how it contributes to the conceptualization and transfer of concepts. In this study, a corpus of children's stories in the Kurdish language including 20 storybooks (10 with male and 10 with female author) was utilised. In a total of 1002 handred sentencse of this books, space builders of different types were found from among which 24 sentences were extracted and carefully analyzed. After reviewing and analyzing these sentences to determine how mental space builders function in creating mental spaces and transferring the concepts, the results of research showed that space builders are a very important issue in understanding and conveying concepts in children's literature. It can also be said that the lack of space builders in the texts of stories causes the reader not to correctly understand the sentences.

AbstractPitfalls inherent in traditional approaches, movement into post-method frameworks and necessity of reaping benefits of technological advancements gave birth to flipped instruction as a newly emerged practice of teaching. A robust literature has submitted proofs on the merits of this practice in language learning. Adopting an innovatory perspective, the current research was an attempt to investigate the effect of this practice on a number of learning and learner related variables among Iranian intermediate language learners. To this aim 39 learners were selected through convenience sampling, and after removing outliers, 29 learners were randomly assigned to control (N=14) and experimental (N=15) groups. For each variable, a valid instrument was selected or adopted from the literature and modified for the purpose of the study. Then, employing a post-test-only control-group design, their performance on the post-test was measured and analyzed through one-way analysis of variance. The outputs reveled a statistically significant difference between groups in achievement (F (1, 27) = 9.627, p = .004) and autonomy (F (1, 27) = 8.308, p = .008) while indicating no significant effect on motivation and willingness to communicate. Some of these findings are in line with major currents of research in the literature but others stand in sharp contrast. Further investigation is required to examine into the nature of these findings through qualitative perspectives, interviews and open-ended questionnaires. These findings have implication for educational researchers, language teachers, language learners and applied linguists.

This research, conducted in the field of pragmatics and sociolinguistics, aims at the describing and analyzing the type and number of request strategies in Kurdish, Mokri dialect, regarding the effectiveness or non-effectiveness of social factors as the gender of user and the power of addressee. To this end, for data collection, a revised version of Discourse Completion Test (DCT) including 12 situations was distributed among 130 (65 males and 65 females) Mokri Kurdish speakers in Mahabad city located in the southern of West Azabayejan province. They were in the age range of 25 to 35, holding at least a bachelor degree. Besides the questionaire, direct observation consisting of 7 hours of everyday normal conversations in various situations and different contexts was employed to collect more natural and reliable data. As the main theoretical framework for the present study, Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP) coding scheme used by Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper (1989) was employed and Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness theory was used as the peripheral framework. Results of the research showed a significant difference across genders in selection of the type of request strategis and the power of addressee had a significant effect on choosing the strategies. It was also shown that power and gender had an interactive effect on the selection of these strategies. According to supporting strategies of the "negative and positive faces" in Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory, it was found that Kurdish people as the members of one cooperative group mostly employed positive face saving acts in their communications and interactions. The research findings indicate that it is about time for linguists as educational planners to consider these sociolinguistic differences in teaching Kurdish language to non-Kurdish people in order to prevent any probable mishaps in their communications and interactions with Kurdish speakers.